Being A Student Is Expensive

A couple of days ago I was given cause to ponder my days in university, nearly 50 years ago, when I read a report by Professor Kelvin Sharpe of Queen Mary, University of London, who, writing in The Times Educational Supplement, thought that it was hardly surprising that today's students were moaning about massive debts when they were living such luxurious lifestyles. Professor Sharpe is nearly ten years younger than I and he has been touring round university campuses to check on just how students live. It is apparent that Professor Sharpe, in his university student days lived a life similar to mine - one of frugal squalor. I did better than many students in Leeds, in that I always lived in approved lodgings but that was never a guarantee of unalloyed luxury. Many others squatted in buildings that were quite Dickensian and would have been demolished once the authorities had cleared out all the students. I had an annual grant of about £230 to £250 per year and with a bit of help from dad and a summer job, I got by OK; as did almost all the other students I knew. My money paid for my lodgings - about £4.00 per week - my books, my clothes, my non-digs food and the beer and fags. Clearly, the success of various governments over the last 50 years in combating inflation makes these numbers sound almost medieval but Professor Sharpe noted that today's student seems to need a laptop computer, a mobile phone, a plasma TV - with Sky box, - two bathrooms [two bathrooms?], a fancy iPod and any other new-fangled unnecessary gadget you care to name. In many university towns taxi drivers lament the student holidays which knock great holes in their takings. As a student, I never, ever, rode in a taxi. The professor found bars and restaurants were filled with students drinking cappuccinos at £2.00 a time and keeping body and soul together with smoked salmon sandwiches.

All of this paints an incredible picture of modern student life. It is an absurd situation. Too many students are sent to useless universities in order to study useless subjects, run up a massive debts while they are doing it and then struggle to find a real job. The Labour government's crackpot education schemes have created the situation. It is made worse, surely, by the obsession with celebrity. In this scenario, everyone is entitled to a Posh and Becks lifestyle without having the abilities of David Beckham to go with it. It is the same with buying houses. First-time buyers set out to buy houses they can't afford, with money they haven't got, supported by banks and building societies that fail to check how they will get their money back. So students want the fruits of success before they even see success on the horizon and wonder why the money supply is inadequate. It's a funny old world.

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