Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THE LEADER OF the group of students who have occupied the constituency office of a Fine Gael TD in Kildare confronted him as he gave an interview outside his office this afternoon.
The eight students have spent over 24-hours in the constituency office of Anthony Lawlor and have said they have enough supplies to stay there for the next week. They are protesting against possible education cuts and the reintroduction of third-level fees in the budget next week.
The TD said earlier today he is reluctant to involve gardaí in the matter but said he would not be entering into negotiations with the students.
However when giving an interview to Kildare.TV outside his own office this evening, Lawlor was interrupted by the Maynooth Student Union president Rob Munnelly and a debate ensued:
This evening the students were visited by Union of Students in Ireland (USI) president Gary Redmond and Munnelly told TheJournal.ie that the office was “extremely comfortable” and that they were prepared to be there over Christmas if needs be.
“We are warm, comfortable and well stocked. Heading into day three in the next few hours,” he said. “This is not just a student issue: it’s a family issue, and it’s a national recovery issue.”
Munnelly has said that the group will continue its occupation until the campaign succeeds or “the gardaí drag us out by force”.
The group of eight students says it has come equipped with a chemical toilet and enough food for a week.
It is the latest in a string of occupations by students.
On Tuesday, a group of students from the USI briefly occupied the Department of Jobs.
On Wednesday, students from the Free Education for Everyone (FEE) campaign chained themselves to desks in the office of Fine Gael TD Brian Walsh in Galway city. Two students got onto the roof of the building. Nine of the students were later arrested.
Fair play to them, at least someone is standing up to the broken promises that politicians make. Why do Irish people accept constant lies from FF/FG/Labour/Sinn Fein and the rest?
Who would you prefer to accept constant lies from?
Give sinn fein a chance in power and c if they break there promises, yes Fg,ff and lab have broken theres but don’t put a party who have never being given the chance to prove themselves in the same catagory as the liars we so far have had!!!!!!
If you knew me you would know that I don’t accept lies from anyone!! Do you think there is nobody in the whole of Ireland who is honest and capable of the job? And that we have to accept lies for the rest of our life?
well they did say for years that they would fight on there was a united ireland, would never accept the border, would never sit in stormont etc, the salaries and pensions gets them all in the end
the majority should be listened to, but being in majority doesn’t neccessarily mean being right, there was a time when the majority believed the earth was flat
@Toirealach Mac Fhion.. i’m sure you dont accept lies, knowingly.
i think there are plenty of honest people in the country, but the problem is in order to get into a position to do the job they would have to tell lies in order to convince that their vested interests were going to be served in the process. politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. Marx (Groucho)
That TD is a gobshite.” I’m concerned at the manner by which they entered the office, they opened the door and rushed in”.
As opposed to what? Time machine?
How pathetic. Ye call that a protest? Like fighting with feathers. Seems more like USI leaders doing enough “radical” protest to protect their future career with SIPTU, RTE and Labour.
So what would you do?
you got it in one
I think they’re right to occupy. But that rep for the students is annoying as FECK.
I think they are right to protest as well Luke, but it should not be just about fees. The standard of third level education has plummeted in the last 20 years and the Dept of Education is a useless unimaginative hospitality unit for useless political appointees who like all other Government Departments squander the public’s money for damn all return.
Protest all you want lads but put some priority on what College should be about in the first place – a proper education without it, at a cost or not, your buggered!
@JohnMurphy
Yeah you’re right. But I couldn’t help laughing at the irony at end of your last sentence. “a proper education without it, at a cost or not, your buggered!”. It’s *you’re not “your”. xD
@john murphy reallocating the education budget from the central government to the students will not increase the budget or the quality of education in the least, if we were talking about student contribution fees on top of the governments money that would possibly be a different story.
In terms of quality, it’s hard to assess anyway. Looking at the league tables of international universities; a determinative factor in ranking is funding itself, meaning a lower budget relative to peers automatically drops you down the rankings which doesn’t really reflect the output of Irish Universities accurately.
I would love to see some Irish centers of excellence like Cambridge, MIT, etc but I think it would be much more beneficial to the entire economy if we could build these on top of a large participation rate instead of some countries such as the US/UK who have very lower penetration of third level education in the population
@Sean
I’m not sure what you mean in the first para about the reallocation of funds. My point, insofar as funding is concerned, is about the miss-appropriation and mismanagement of these funds within the budget of the Dept.
Regarding ‘quality’ all I will add in relation to that is my own observation that the educational standard of graduates that have passed through in the last (at least) 15 years is of a far lower standard as those who graduated in my day almost 30 years ago (Lukes observation on my grammatical error aside!)
Your point in the last para raises an interesting point. Some might think that a ‘large participation rate’ lowers the bar or spreads the butter too thin resulting in a reduction of standard. My feeling is that may well be the case, though it should not be adopted as a policy of ‘improvement’ If it was I would be bringing my flask to my local TD’s office too!
Yes I didn’t phrase my first paragraph very well, what I meant was that introducing student fees and then lowering the amount that the government spends on third level education is going to result in the same amount of money for colleges in the end, so this would not increase funding and therefore increase quality.
I would never advocate lowering entrance numbers (directly or indirectly through extra costs) on the basis that it would be better for those that do get in, third level is there to benefit the individual as much as the economy, and every individual have that opportunity.
I’m really unsure if the calibre of graduate has gone down, but it is so difficult to tell, firstly we have a lot more graduates now which means inevitably there will be more graduates of a lower quality, the type of graduate who would be considered valuable is so different to fifteen years ago (god knows what they would have thought of Iphones in 1996) plus, we’ve fallen down the league tables since 2007 but have our universities gotten that bad that quickly? Really don’t know. I honestly don’t think the system we have is that bad except for lack of certain courses (IT, Maths, advanced business/MBAs etc) and some centers of excellence. I would be worried about taking a step backwards
Thanks Sean,
Got a better idea of where you were going now re. budgets.
Interesting that you mention Iphones though. I recall Google complain about the standard of IT graduates and threaten pull-out if things didn’t improve.
I just think it’s an terrible shame that the protesters don’t include the matter of standards as one of their concerns. It would certainly put a more considered, and broader based case to their campaign.
Needless to say we will need the best educated graduates we can get to help us out of the general mess we’re in, that’s of course if they chose to stay. There we have another real problem!
Oh anyway!
Damn right.
hopefully all the people of ireland will be joining them soon , everybody needs to get out and make there voices heard
It’s only a small office; we wouldn’t fit
The TD is being pretty polite and courteous to them, considering what they’ve done.
The students are being very polite and courteous despite what FG/Labour are doing.
God love them , there young and idiotic in there methods . They think it’s all a bit of fun and the student union president seems to have no end to his verbal nonsense . The Garda need to step in and regain civil order with all these fools . Protest is a great voice in mass but one or two students acting like children and taking over one or two buildings makes no difference . Next they will pitch tents and join the tree hugging members of society . He’s probably going to leave the country anyway once the tax payer has paid for his education . They should leave the fees as they are but get them to take a loan out for the fees and allow them to pay back the loan from their job and taxes if they stay in this country when they leave . Many countries adopt this system . They have got free education for years and I don’t object as long as it’s good for the country and good for the economy but when we educate people for free and they up and leave they must pay back the tax payer for the education .
How dumb he is and how uneducated he is , when he said he didn’t care if they ended up with criminal records because they were leaving the country anyway . Does the guy not realise if he gets a criminal record for public order , he will never get access to United States , Canada or Australia .
If they do put the fees up , well then protest but why not wait and see what happens on Tuesday first , it all seems a little premature to me and infantile .
I support the students occupying the office, BUT, not allowing the TD enter his own office is unacceptable. He should be allowed into his office, no matter what. They have in essence siezed his office, not just occupied it!
Very good point Michael! I think that they need to address some PR issues if it’s to proceed.
This budget is going to be “die dog or shite a licence” for a lot of students (myself included as a mature student following redundancy). If the grant gets cut as it did last year I don’t think I’ll be able to continue going to college, I’ll have to just go on the dole with little prospects. How will that help the economy. At least while I’m in college, there is a hope of not being on the dole in the near future. There are many others like me. In general if people are going to college, they are less likely to be on the dole, instead they’ll be (hopefully) out earning and paying tax. They may even create employment again generating tax stream. So when people criticise students for protesting, ask what they should be doing? Tying to stay in college, or head off home, sit on their arses and draw the dole.
it’s people such as you that should be suported but this shower are just looking free education for everyone, totally off the wall. It’s just not possible or even desirable as it just generetes a gravy train
Well said Iain, most of these cuts are counter productive. Some students can’t afford to go to college- go on the dole. Increase fuel prices- more fuel laundering. 2% on shopping- more Internet shopping and people going up the north, less tax taken in. Shops close- more people on dole and so on. Do politicians not understand that they are taken money away from the people that pay their wages and pensions? We need to educate our kids if we want a bright future for them.
It these students who are fighting the fight I can tight for myself because I am too afraid. Afraid of being arrested for occupying as I still have a wife and child to support, and I have exams that I can’t afford not to study for. I have one shot at getting a degree and getting a job and whilst I work hard to meet the requirements of the course, these guys are working to make sure I can afford to continue doing it. Fair play to them I say.
Just to add, I don’t think anyone has any gripes that things have to be cut, the grant generally was cut by about 4% last year, that’s fair enough, people can adjust their living costs slightly and struggle on, however my grant as a mature student was cut by 60%. Now fair enough I don’t have to pay fees, the grant covers that, but Christ that was some hit. The sky TV had to go, so did the car, I now walk and bus everywhere as does the wife, i still have internet cos i need it for study, but i haven’t had a pint in 6 months. I think that targeted cut to mature students was draconian and unfair, and that is why I am so completely behind any protest against any further cuts. There’s a difference between living style adjustment and totally removing someone’s standard of living. Santa is going to have a very light bag this year.
@Martin They aren’t looking for free education for everyone. All they want is that the promises that were made to them to be kept.
While I agree with you Iain to a point but the money has to come from somewhere. I’m a mature student too but because I’m part time I get nothing at all. I have to come up with €2700 for this years course and I get nothing for it. I’ve even laid out a plan to the Welfare crowd and they said no. They want to spend €30k over 2 years keeping me as a FT student as opposed to giving me half the fees and I would come up with the other half. It’s a no brainer but they don’t see it that way. I’m also available to work in the mean time as well so if I did get a job my tax would actually contribute more from my end. It’s just so stupid.
What these students should take into account is that in the UK they would have to fork out about £6000 pa for their course so they really aren’t getting a bad deal here. Most of them unlike yourself are have no dependants so they can afford to carry out these actions. While on one hand I can empathise with their actions on the other hand if they stopped for a moment and looked at what it costs a mature student to educate themselves they might just pack up their gear, go back to their studies and count themselves lucky!
@Brian, we shouldn’t be benchmarking ourselves against the UK on this, they have some of the top Universities in the world for definite, but less than one third of people who applied to third level education in the UK last year actually obtained a position in third level education
It keeps getting worse there because this is obviously a compound problem with people rolling over from one year to the next, and this is all with the fees that you mentioned
@Tiorealach Macfhion
thats what the man said
well done Maynooth SU!!
It’s fantastic to see young people actually start to take a stand over the education funding issue.
Keep up the good work guys and do not fear the Gards.
Solidarity from Free Education for Everyone Galway.
xXx
Forward the revolution
Free Education for Everyone. Nothing less.
“The money has to come from somewhere”
PROGESSIVE TAXATION SYSTEM!!!!
The number of millionaires in this country steadily rises at a rate of about 10% per year, even still in the last 3 years. There is plenty of wealth in this country, a disproportional amount and it simply needs redistributing for the benefit of the entire country.
@ Martin.
No, that is what I said as a branch organiser of FEE. This is not a FEE protest, it is a students’ union.
wow, people in the UK applied for a college place and didn’t get it. Must be a total breach of their human rights, wouldn’t happen here, sure the academics would invent some other course for them.
Ah william, you are a true politician, A waffler, just like the minister for health, he doesn’t close down anything, it’s the HSE, the HSE hands are tied by HIQA, which the minister set up. you will go far.
@martin, you’ve hit the nail on the head, denial of education is an infraction on someones human rights.
You’ll also find the range of courses available in the UK makes our cao choice look like a short shopping list and that is not the reason why participation is so low
Progressive taxation system:;;
What % of these millionaires wealth do you propse to take, and assuming they stick around to give it to you how much would it amount to?
It’s easier to take the money off the poor than the rich, the poor can’t afford solicitors and accountants to protect them from bein gscrewed, and can’t afford to leave.
Yawn yawn and treble yawn…. Also I believe that’s trespassing…
It might be trespassing but signing a written agreement and then not honouring it …….i think thats fraud!
was it not labour that signed it
they only occupied the department of jobs briefly, they must have offered them jobs
A couple of interesting points come out of this video:
1. (And it feels weird for me to say this)…But fair play to that TD. The vast majority of those so called “public representatives” up in the Dail wouldnt have just called the police, they would have ordered them to batter the door down. The fact that he already took the time before this protest to speak to the students shows that to some extent he has an interest in what the problems of the people. His hands are tied by the policies of his party but hopefully he will at least voice those concerns in the Dail.
2. Well done to the student. He showed a composure beyond his years! He had facts and figures to back up his stance. “Gradutes on average pay 70% more tax”, “for every job a graduate had, two are created”. As much as I and the majority of Irish people dont like it, we are in this situation. However, the thing that is crippling us is we are trying to do as much in the short term to clear the debt without taking the long term into account. What good is it if we owe nothing and 20 or 30% of the workforce is out of work? We need a balanced solution. A little nip and tuck here and there to save some money in areas that are overfunded (e.g. upper level public sector employees) and the same funding in places that need it (e.g. education, health. etc.).
3. It pains me to see that the mentality of the mainstream media has trickled down even to Kildare Bloody TV. While that student was trying to talk logical, intelligently and help spread the knowledge that the student unions have meticulously put together, the interviewer was only interested in switching the subject back too any possible animosity between the student and the politician in the hope of getting a one line sound bite instead of proper opinions and thought out points.
I lean more towards the students in who is right on this one, but hats off to the TD in how he is handling the situation too. I dont agree with fee’s, I will never agree with them and I dont want to see them come Monday, but at least this gives me a little bit of hope that it is still a democracy we are living in. Well done to both sides of the fence.
Everybody wants everything for free in this country. If parents want children they have a responsibility to provide for them ie food clothing education etc. why should other responsible people pay for for the irresponsible ones? Look to your parents first and ask them for the money – they brought you into the world.
You’d know you were never short anyway! Get real! Education is a RIGHT and should be completely open and free. Why not look at the €700m that was paid out to unsecured bondholders last month for where the money could have potentially come from for education or other sectors of society that are facing imminent cuts?
The student grant is a joke.. I got it and like most students it was spent on everything but my ‘education’. if every student worked part time during college a grant wouldn’t be necessary.
It amazing how many student leave college without any real life work experience.. And then they are shocked when they can’t get a job! Degree doesn’t mean shite if ya can’t back it up with real life work experience!
I’m in college. I worked for the summer and had the offer of part time work once I returned to college. I couldnt do it because of my college work load. The grant is a life saver to me.
The grant needs to be reworked because of people such as yourself (no offence or anything but as you said, not really required in your case).
No excuse for introducing fees for everyone though
@sean
Why not? In most other developed countries there are 3rd level fees. Why should Ireland be different? When you really think about it, free 3rd level is a nice idea but is it really financially feasible? Don’t think so.
Sorry Mark, but fee’s for third level education in Ireland are the only 2nd to the UK in Europe, the only difference is we have a different title on it; registration fee and all that. All other European countries have much lower all round fee’s than ourselves and the UK.
But where are the part time jobs? I know plenty of my student friends that would happily do a few hours part time work but they ate pretty scarce at the moment,especially for those in rural areas.
@Mark, just because most other countries do it is not a good reason as many of these systems are not that good, some of these countries have awful participation rates such as the UK and the US. Free third level education is very workable, in terms of financial feasibility, we are currently spending 22b on social welfare, third level budget is 1.1b, I think in a small country such as this with a relatively low population free fees are very doable and hugely beneficial in the long term
Carers allowances, nursing home subvention, hospital beds, special needs assistants in primary school, children’s allowance…
I wish third level could be exempt but it can’t. The point made by the students about graduates paying more taxes and employing more people is a good one – but it’s an argument for charging students for the benefits they get out of third-level education.
The education budget is finite and shrinking. Direct it towards access programmes to iron out inequalities.
Students are doing a good job of fighting their corner and nobody can blame them. But the blind pension was cut last year and children with learning disabilities will have fewer support services. You can’t grease the squeakiest wheel when not everyone can storm a TD’s office in the way a gang of 20-year-olds can.
Reintroducing fees makes the education system less equal, open participation is the cornerstone of a progressive education system. The people who would suffer disproportionately would be those that do not end up paying the fees and forgoe the benefits of such an education.
The fact that graduates employ more and pay more tax is not a good reason to have a prohibitive fee to charge students for the opportunity to partake in third level education.
There are a lot of horrible things happening because of austerity, but in the interests of being fair; the current social welfare budget is just under 22b, the current public sector pay bill is also over 20b, the government are looking for votes in the next election, not for fair disbursement of austerity on this one
The current third level education budget is 1.1b
Fair point about the size of other, much larger, slices of the budget. I know the public sector took some hits early on but Croke Park looks out of date and more will probably have to be done. We’ve got three or four austerity budgets to come so better to cut earlier and notch up the savings every year.
I disagree with what you say about fees as a barrier to producing graduates who will create jobs. Let’s say the number of places is constant (it might not be but that’s a separate debate), we will produce a certain quantity of graduates and they will be the ones who earn most, pay most taxes and – on average – create most jobs.
The question is who should get those places and what impact fees would have. My view is that we should set fees somewhere closer to the real economic value (but maintain a subsidy) and then invest in access programmes for the least well off, plus give grants to lower-middle income families.
If fees were €10k a year the places would be filled, but filled by upper-middle class students whose parents can afford €40k for a four-year degree. That would be a disaster for equality but make no real difference to the number of graduates produced or the tax-take from those graduates in the following four decades.
If fees are €3k and there’s a low-interest loan scheme, plus an access programmes, plus means-tested grants, we still get the same number of graduates/job-creators but more evenly distributed.
Well I disagree first of all that the number of graduates would remain constant, especially in the postgraduate sector which produces by far and away the most economic benefit, saying that making course 10k a year and the same amount of people will attend I think is a bit misleading as certainly people would drop out and high earners already attend at a near 100% rate so there would be no new numbers for dropouts.
There are already fees of 2k in place and a subsidy for lower income families in the place of the grant (which should be completely overhauled).
I understand your premise of targeting lower income families more with the budget that we have but putting in place fees for everyone and then subsidizing lower income families and something like a graduate tax or low/zero cost loan scheme would be more palatable even though there are problems with these types of scheme also, and not just for students but for the national budget.
However, by having a third level system that does not discriminate on the basis of wealth to begin with (excusing the fact that sending a child to college is quite expensive, fees or no), you ensure that the opportunity to participate is evenly distributed, and I personally think this is much better than having a system whereby the wealthy are at a distinct and perpetual advantage and the government tries to subsidize those who cannot naturally afford to participate while inevitably missing out on a large chunk of those in the middle and lower middle.
I doubt we are talking about 3k as well if full fees are reintroduced,however I don’t think they will bring back fees another 500 or so on the “registration charge”.
Well done to the students! Real political participation.
Whenever USI, student unions or students en masse do anything the comments about it really make me laugh. They organise peaceful marches and protests and get absolutely lambasted by people who tell them they need to get real, that “the money has to come from somewhere”, “you’d be paying more in the UK”, “sure don’t they just get their parents to pay for it anyway” etc. and yet these are the same people who express outrage when their wages or welfare gets cut, or a tax is implemented/increased.
Students are calling Labour and Fine Gael out over promises they made, and again people are complaining about it. Well so far students seem to be the only group who are actually doing anything in response to what is looming for them. People always say “we need to show them we mean business”, “we should march on Leinster House” and so on, but when students actually have the conviction to do it it becomes a case of “no, get back in your box” and “typical students skipping class to do a stupid thing like protest”.
The president of the USI has FF connections, that’s well known, and plenty of the officers in the various unions are probably either members of the proper parties or their youth wings, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are seemingly the only representatives in the country who are actually doing what the people they represent want them to do. If Enda went to Brussels and told Merkozy that Ireland is against increased fiscal control introduced through new treaties would people say he’s just trying to pump up his political standing, or would they think he was doing his job and representing the people he should be?
I am totally opposed to any type of “occupation” as a means of protest, just passed occupy cork and they are having a dance party in one of their tents, I wish we lived in a democracy where the majority are listened to! The majority doesn’t support a tented community in our cities or throwing out a TD from his office where he can help ordinary law abiding citizens like me…
Really? Most of the people I speak to do.
you really need to get out more
I agree with you Jason. You only have to look at the polls to see that the crusties are in the minority.
Daniel: what polls? did my best to find them, can’t..
We are listened too by, but only if it’s something they want to hear. Like the referendum we were asked twice. As for the “tented community” what bothers you and other so much ? I bet you wished you had the balls to get out there too but instead you’re staying in your closet. I mean whats the worse they can do? Have you had a chat with any of them ?
ah here now “Banterpolice O’Conell” – Those guys were having a bit of a party after organising a march of over a thousand people earlier on that day. Also, they were celebrating their 50th day of survival as an occupation. If the system was built to listen to people, there’d never be any need for occupations – but thats not the case, so direct action becomes necessary.
@Oisin Kabla; the general election last february
@Martin McCormack – The crustie party actually had QUITE a strong turnout that time.
@Eoghan Mc Mahon, I’m afraid you’ll have to identify the crusty party for me so
Yeah I’m sure your student leaders are brilliant I mean they follow an illustrious crew, the likes of bill Clinton, Eamonn Gilmore, joe Duffy, Mary harney, to name a few… Why should I listen to ye ye are all only wannabe politicians who will join the system
Wood Quay. Georgian Dublin… An illustrious crew indeed? Not all student protesters waited for SU leaders to lead them out the gate.
Same thing happened to Paul Gogarthy in Lucan who is now a wannabe singer celeb Banisteoir & more importantly a political Has been Gob Shite !!!!!! For This TD The Writing Is On The Wall
Fair play to them. Atleast they are standing up for themselves.times are hard for students without adding more expenses to their studies.
Sooooo many petty comments here!! A few good ones don’t get me wrong but so many people miss the point completely!! How can we live in a society where the 1% even exist?? Stop holdin back progress!! This is a global opinion shared by sooooo many!! Ok your opinion isn’t shared by the people who support the occupy movement but maybe try changing your opinion an see the good in what has an will be achieved from it!! Since when has standing up for what’s right been wrong??
Let’s see how many dis-likes this one gets?? Ha
Oh an on a side note… Is it jus me or does the TD look like will ferrel impersonating George bush jnr?? Jus my opinion!! :)
He looks like who !!! And you talk about petty comments . The mind boggles .
Sooooooo judgemental
Lawlor…. Thick as the proverbial ditch ” going forward”
Well said Colm and very honest. Some kids are too young to appreciate college. I would have loved to go but due to serious illness as a child, I didn’t get a chance and then life events took over (kids etc, need to work for same). I think the ‘fees’ as they are are reasonably fair (I had two in college, one just finished and one in last year). A lot of people in this country expect a lot for free!
Naas isn’t exactly the centre of the education industry! Why don’t they occupy their colleges instead? Like we did in the 70′s.
My young sister is a grant holding student of NUI Maynooth who has to travel up from Limerick and back every week. Without the grant it would not be possible for her to pursue her goals. The student union folks occupying the office in Naas have my full support as do all the students up and down the country.
it’s my RIGHT to have any car I want, where do i aply for the new BMW 3 series, Free of course
Make that two of them and I want the one with the chrome pack !!!!
I’m sorry, but there’s plenty of other pressing issues of poverty & joblessness that this TD’s constituency office is needed for, and the students need to leave. If not voluntarily than they need to be removed by legal means. I don’t believe in Direct Action, which this is, and Gardai would be entirely justified to remove the protesters.
What I’ll say is that I fluffed my days in college. I wish I had moved out of home & learned to be self sufficient *before* I stepped near it. I wish people were forced to take a year out and be forced to live a year learning to be self sufficient before going into college. So many go to college not thinking of what they are doing and just plodding along with no real interest in what they are doing in class, but “going through the motions” for the sake of a social life.
We need to begin discouraging the “you don’t need to work, sure miss the class and go paintballing instead” culture of college life. If you’re not in lecture, you shouldn’t be in college. Why should you get the place of someone who’s there to learn so he/she can support a family they already have?
My one big regret? I wish I’d found the mature students & hung out with them. They fought their way back into education, they know its value. If there’s a class worth going to, the matures won’t miss it.
The days of a free ride are over sadly . It’s nice to have it and maybe in the future we can have it again but the population is too small and we can’t expect the hard pressed tax payer to foot the bill for kids they dont have , in some cases .
If you have kids , if you don’t well it’s simple , you don’t !!!
Future students should look to study near their place of birth if they can’t afford to live away from home. You don’t have to study at a particular uni to get on in life. Fair enough for specialised courses but you could do an arts degree anywhere
You’ve had your USI protest what more do you honestly want? All this is doing is affecting one man and his staff, a bit pointless no?? Stop jumping on USI’s FAILED bandwaggon of occupying offices, that was an epic fail, & what your doing isn’t too far off it!
I hope these ‘heroes’ turn up for college today. No point fighting for something your not utilising!!!
have your say