So I‘m working as a sales assistant at the moment. This is my first time dabbling in the exciting world of retail and I tell you, it’s bloomin hard work! More than you would think. Normally at this time of year I would be looking forward to my Christmas holidays, which would mean four or five weeks of stress free bliss where I could get up whenever I liked and literally do nothing all day. Most of this doing nothing would involve eating, naturally. This year, however, I have had a brutal stab of reality and discovered what it is to have a full time job in retail. I have the grand total of two days off! That is Christmas day and Boxing day. Oh how I long to be a student again.
Working towards my finals in May of this year, I could not wait to finish uni and ‘start my life’ but now that I have left the security of formal education I long to be back there again. I have thought about going back to do a masters in broadcast journalism or something similar, but unfortunately I think this will have to be one of my ideas that never comes to fruition. Like the time I tried to persuade my parents to let me go to boarding school, God knows why?! To enrol on a good course would cost around six thousand pounds in fees alone, not including living costs. And all this has to be privately funded. Despite the fact that this could help further my career, I don’t think I can justify spending that amount of money to go back to uni.
All this has got me thinking about the recent announcement to increase tuition fees for undergraduates in England to nine thousand pounds a year. I know the government is going to fork out the money up front in the form of student loans, but it is still a huge amount of debt for graduates to be faced with, especially in the current economic climate where graduate jobs are few and far between. I have to admit, that if I had had to pay these increased fees back when I started university, I would think twice about going. I am aware of the government’s justification for the fees by saying that graduates will not have to pay back any of their loans until they are earning over twenty thousand pounds a year, but I don’t see how this will work in the long run. Surely this will have a negative effect on the county’s economy? The government will have to hand out so much more money straight away for people to go to uni, with no guarantee that all of these graduates will find jobs that pay more than the amount needed to start paying back the loans. At the moment I am earning under the threshold for paying back my student loan. I know that the interest I have to pay is increasing, but if I continue with this job, which I potentially could do (although I don’t think my parents would be overjoyed at this idea) I may never have to pay my debt back. That would be almost ten grand the government would have given me for free. Obviously, I am, like many graduates, aspiring to a job that will pay enough for me to have to start paying off my debt. Oh joyful days…maybe living with the rents isn’t so bad after all!
Recently the student loans company has come under fire for making graduates pay much more, millions more in fact, than is necessary. There have been so many problems with the loans company, with many students not getting their loans on time and now this new revelation, that it makes me think that increasing the fees will just increase the problems. I believe this will greatly reduce the number of people applying for university as the burden of the future debt will be too much for some. But maybe this is the government’s intention. Obviously those who really want to go to university and will benefit from a university degree will still go as their chances of getting a good job after graduating will be high and they will be able to manage the debt, but I can’t help but think, however, that this will make university more elitist again. The poorer in society will always worry about the financial implications of these increases, whilst those with money won’t think twice about paying.
All I can say is that I’m glad that I went to university when I did. If I did have to pay nine grand a year in fees it would definitely rule out the possibility of doing a masters. As it is, I can still ponder a bit longer before I reject the idea and move onto the next grand plan. That’s usually what happens.
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