#commodification of education

[ladymazzy]

England student loan changes will hit poor hardest, official analysis finds

England student loan changes will hit poor hardest, official analysis finds

Critics say plans among ‘most regressive yet’, while high-earning borrowers ‘stand to benefit substantially’

[ladymazzy]

Brighton and Hove News » Moulsecoomb Primary to be taken over by academy chain where inspector who failed it works

Moulsecoomb Primary to be taken over by academy chain where inspector who failed it works

Moulsecoomb Primary School is to be taken over by an academy chain where one of the Ofsted inspectors who originally failed it works as a di

[fleurmach]

south african universities in crisis: what we need to know (september 2016)

south african universities in crisis: what we need to know (september 2016)

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[butwhyamimetoo]

My artwork "The System Sucks The Life From Me {Graduate Premium Myth}"

The artwork "The System Sucks The Life From Me {Graduate Premium Myth}" is made from a found object I rescued from the skips of a Cardiff reprographics company which produced marketing pop ups for university's recruiting campaigns and Welsh government departments, now defunct or re-branded and is my response to the many cuts and proposed cuts to education, services, budgets and so on brought about by the UK government’s austerity policies and my anxieties over the commodification of education.

On the issue of Student debt - People are easier to control, easier to manipulate when they are in debt.

On the myth of “the Graduate Premium” – which is reducing year on year, as tuition fees are going up and up.

A young graduate couple with joint debts upwards of £60,000 are not going to cause any employer any problems regardless of their diminishing employment rights and vicious tactics such as zero-hours contracts.

Recently (10/4/14) a report by the Huffington Post entitled “Students Will Still Be Paying Back Tuition Fee Loans In Their 50s, Study Warns” – covered the release of a report by the Sutton Trust.

(http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/04/10/students-will-paying-back-tuition-fee-loans-50s_n_5123387.html)

The Sutton Trust, which commissioned the research, said the findings showed that the new fee system could leave professionals such as teachers in a position where they have to find cash to cover loan repayments at a time when their family and living costs, such as mortgage payments, are at a peak.

Under major reforms of university finances, tuition fees were raised to a maximum of £9,000 a year in 2012, almost treble the previous fee which stood at around £3,000.

…higher education was meant to be about broadening ones knowledge, reading lots, meeting new people, and getting excited about ideas. However, it turned out that higher education is actually just about making yourself "more employable“ even, as happened to me, you are a returning mature student with long term health issues that made you unemployable a decade ago.

It's about fashioning yourself into a walking CV to compete for a stagnant pool of graduate jobs that are paid less in real terms every year, and taking on a rotten amount of debt in the process.

This week news quietly broke that the extra money a degree is supposed to earn you over the course of a lifetime – the “graduate premium” – is going down year on year, even as tuition fees are going up. Today’s students are paying nine times what was paid in 2007 and, according to one government adviser, up to 40% of the class of 2012 may default on their student loans.

Government policies are already having an effect on the way in which we experience and live our lives.

Whilst the implications of: 

the bedroom tax and

the growing necessity of food banks for daily living

has received a great deal of attention, there has been perhaps less focus on the continual chipping away of the cultural landscape that informs us and enriches us.

educational course closures,

huge student debts due to course fees,

overcrowding and reduction in quality of the student experience,

library closures,

gallery closures,

massive cuts and de-prioritising of the Arts in education,

curtailing of community and recreational facilities.

– our country is suffering from a form of ‘cultural vandalism’ which affects us all.

What is being lost today across so many communities will have profound, life changing, social implications now, tomorrow and for future generations.

[translatingtheprintempserable]

Beware the “McDonald’s University” model (Le Devoir)

Jean-Louis Bourque, Political Analyst   July 12, 2012

Original French text: http://www.ledevoir.com/societe/education/354367/gare-au- modele-de-l-universite-mcdonald

***

Translated from the original French by Translating the printemps érable.

*Translating the printemps érable is a volunteer collective attempting to balance the English media’s extremely poor coverage of the student conflict in Québec by translating media that has been published in French into English. These are amateur translations; we have done our best to translate these pieces fairly and coherently, but the final texts may still leave something to be desired. If you find any important errors in any of these texts, we would be very grateful if you would share them with us at [email protected]. Please read and distribute these texts in the spirit in which they were intended; that of solidarity and the sharing of information.

[translatingtheprintempserable]

Letter to the Editor: Students should invest in their studies! (Le Devoir)

Philippe Etchecopar, Rimouski              June 3, 2012

Original French Text: http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/352028/c-est-dans-leurs-etudes-que-les-etudiants-devraient-investir

For more than three months, we’ve heard the government repeat again and again that increasing tuition is simply a matter of asking students to invest money in their future. But we never hear that the most important investment to expect of our students is to invest their energies fully in their studies. The government seems to see studies solely as a personal financial investment. It does not understand that even though a student (a medical student, for example) may hope for a good income, every medical graduate enriches society -- more family doctors, shorter waiting lists, etc.

This drift toward strictly individual, financial objectives for higher learning leads increasingly to a situation that is denounced by all governments; the danger that growing debts pose for society: unmanageable mortgages, maxed out credit cards, etc. While talking non-stop of balancing budgets and reducing debt, the same government wants to impose heavier debts on students! Why expect students without money to take on debt now, rather than making them pay, diplomas in hand, when they have money. The only rationale is an individualist ideology to charge for everything according to a “user pays” principle, regardless of whether the user is poor or wealthy.

Translated from the original French by Translating the printemps érable.

*Translating the printemps érable is a volunteer collective attempting to balance the English media’s extremely poor coverage of the student conflict in Québec by translating media that has been published in French into English. These are amateur translations; we have done our best to translate these pieces fairly and coherently, but the final texts may still leave something to be desired. If you find any important errors in any of these texts, we would be very grateful if you would share them with us at [email protected]. Please read and distribute these texts in the spirit in which they were intended; that of solidarity and the sharing of information. 

[translatingtheprintempserable]

Caption: You know a society is sick when education has become a commodity and the Grand Prix is valued as a societal project. 

Original Photo: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=374973262558196&set=a.374972882558234.87958.162997260422465&type=1&theater