Money matters

I try not to get too interested in politics. It leads to disappointment and raised blood pressure, and I get enough of that during exam season as it is. I raised an eyebrow at the NHS reform debate, but even that managed to cool down after a week of whining from pressure groups, and my eyebrow repositioned itself on my face in its classic, slanted, hateful place, knotted between my eyes.

But this week, news reached my eyebrows and other body parts that made me sit up and pay marginally more attention that I do normally. The government has a new plan for university places. It’s the political equivalent of a cockslap.

It’s almost as if the Tories woke up on the Saturday after the AV referendum and realised that the feckless electorate and the breathtaking incapability of the Liberal Democrats has rendered them all but bulletproof until the next election, and that they can now do basically whatever they want. First on the list: if you’re rich, you can now purchase a university place for yourself. Hooray! Now let’s see what we can do about this ‘women having the vote’ problem…

It’s the political equivalent of a cockslap

In fairness, I should really expand on the policy before I melt down completely into an incomprehensible stream of swear words. Currently, university tuition fees are going to triple. For some reason, the government thought that most universities wouldn’t increase their fees to the full amount when given the opportunity, thereby repeating the classic mistake of the Sunnyfields Daycare Centre’s Paedophile Rehabilitation Program of 1998. But never mind that. In principle, I believe that education should cost, and the support of loans and grants mean that most of people will be able to make it through.

However, now it seems that there’ll be another way in. If you’re willing to pay even higher fees – more than double the £9000 barrier for engineering or medical degrees – then the government may be able to create extra, magical university places for you. The claim is that this is to enable charities and businesses to sponsor students, and will thereby improve social mobility. The reality is that they’ve always been able to do this by offering grants and other support, and that this is really a way to bypass the applications process.

You see, although the government proposals insist that students will have to pass the admission standards, it does not make any claims about interviews, or whether they will be measured against similar applicants. In essence, if you enter university via this route, your only competitors will be the other kids sufficiently rich to bargain their way in. While the rest of the student body competes for dwindling places and tries their hardest to differentiate themselves from the thousands of other hopefuls, those with money will simply have to walk in with the bare minimum of exam results and take their place.

It takes a lot to wake me up from my dazed state of margarita-sipping and sunbathing around this time of year, but this is beyond unacceptable. The admissions process is already a horrendous mess of poor interviewers, muddled paperwork and luck. Allowing those with money to skip the queue so they can fill up lecture halls with their soul-sapping sense of entitlement while talented students are told to ‘fuck off and try again next year’ is the absolute epitome of disgusting, indecent politics. It is impossible to justify this; it goes beyond petty left and right ideologies – we are fucking with a nation’s education, when it should be sacrosanct.

It looks like Scotland will have a referendum in a few years to decide whether or not to leave the Union. My advice, if any Imperial College students have a vote in that referendum, is to implore everyone you know to get out while you still can. I don’t understand patriotism at the best of times, but lately the news has been giving me every reason to actively avoid it.

If you’ve got a safehouse near the English border and can help me to flee the country, get in touch at anangrygeek@gmail.com.