[QUOTE=benfan;18297478]Although i do know that Switzerland is next door to Iran. :smash:[/QUOTE]

:lol:

[QUOTE=benfan;18297478]

Although i do know that Switzerland is next door to Iran. :smash:[/QUOTE]

Switzerland and Qatar are part of the Bahamas dumbass ;)

Afternoon all. I'm seriously missing the internet at my new house. I have to procrastinate with things like books and, gods forbid,[I] studying[/I].

I always thought Qatar was just off the M25 near Guildford.

Shit, I thought it was the name of Cat Steven's/Yusuf Islam's guitar :p

qatar has a giant clam id like to see!

bit weird they got it but it will be fine, its 12 years away for that and 8 for russia, check out some of the stadiums qatar are drafting up some of them look awsome

id like to visit russia also

anyways fifa has been corrupt and gay for years we all know this

The only difference the world cup being in England would make would be that we'd lose on home turf.

Football is a terrible, terrible thing.

Anywho... better than hearing OMG STUDENT PROTESTERS all over the 'lod. I was going into uni and saw a bit of the protests. Can't say I'm arsed - of course it's sorta crap that students are getting charged more and all that but one thing I will definitely not do is discredit myself by being involved in a big shouting disorganised shamble.

Besides, I actually had work to do that day, apparently unlike the protesters... maybe they should be charged more for doing noddy courses :P

getting charged more here too

there was 1 protest and that was that handy andy as expected went nowhere

I think we should give them what they want; keep the fees the same but cut hte amount of places. They can't have it both ways.

Agreed! It should be harder to get into uni, i.e. they should raise the bar.
That way you'd acceptance would be based on your intelligence, not the contents of your wallet.

ughadiugiugu

why do people think the increase in fees makes it so only the rich can go to uni

the increasingly misanthropic mentality that pervades our societal current. Ignorance is piss.....I need to take one

It's unlikely the student loans companies will be able to fork out three times what they are doing already, without massively hiking the interest on repayments after graduation (which they were already discussing regardless).
Which means it's likely there will be less loan money for new students to spend on general living and accommodation, seeing as they'll have to spend some of their maintenance on tuition fees if there tuition fees loan doesn't cover the cost, no?

This is the bit where rich people don't have a problem, but poorer people do.

tuition loan will cover the cost

interest will rise to market rates

write-off after 30 years

maintenance loan stays the same and the government are planning to establish a 150 million pound scholarship programme

But then that person is in £27,000 of debt (before maintenance loans!). Add to that the hiked interest that is due to come. Not a nice position to be in if you haven't got any financial backup. And considering the lack of forethought our government always seems to show, it wouldn't surprise me if they said "actually, bollocks to you have to be earning this much before you pay your debt back, your in debt; give me your fucking dinner money".

Nevertheless, is £27,000 (minimum) worth it for a degree? Especially seeing as the level of education isn't going to triple simultaneously; with the coincidental education cuts, the students are paying triple for the same level of education, they're not getting what they pay for, they're subsidising the Universities. Government = huge. Universities = huge. Students = small people. Let's lump all the financial burden onto the small people!

Plus, Universities are privatised. The Business school at my uni is one of the best in the country (if not [i]the[/i] best in the country) and makes an absolute mint from all the international students it has coming through the doors. But because it considers itself separate from the University, it couldn't give two shits what happens elsewhere on campus, as long as it, ironically as a business, continues to do well. That business school alone could make up for the drop in university funding in a handful of other departments. So why doesn't the business school (= huge) do that rather than have it dumped on students (= small)?

Because privatisation and tory politics is the nature of the individual, rather than a collective. One for one and one for one!

if you havent got any financial backup you dont have to pay

i broadly agree that this shouldn't be happening, and it does disincentivise the poor but it's not prohibitive

At the moment.

And you kinda missed my other points there.

your other points aren't really to do with my particular disputation

i'm not a tory bro i don't think this is a good thing

it's a keystone of Cameron's Big Society idea which I think is retarded

Nah I know man. I get where you're coming from, if the loans cover the tuition fees, there's no discrimination.

But university education is proving to be a huge gamble and they're raising the stakes. Will someone from a poorer background put forward £27,000 in chips and cross their fingers that they'll get a good grade (some people can graft and graft but can only do their best)? If they don't get a good grade, they've not got much to show for their £27,000 and that's a big amount to put forward for something not so great. It's probable that those stakes would be too high for people from a poorer background, compared to the £9,000 it has been in the past.

The discrimination is more underlying than obvious, I guess.

The main issue is that these days University is deemed almost a necessity, to the point where the given educational system is now almost unilaterally thought of as primary, secondary, collage/6th form and uni. Now if you go back a few decades people left school and went into solid, respectable careers with a handful of O-levels. The bright ones may have done 2 or 3 A-levels. The sharpest of the lot then went on to uni.

Point being, uni used to be for the intellectual elite, the brighest people we had, the kind that went on to do [B]highly[/B] specialised careers and professions.

Nowadays for some god known reason uni is treated like some kind of "right", and that its deemd unfair that some go and some dont. Which is completely missing the point. It's this attitude thats engendered this idea that all these kids leaving school have to go to uni and that a consequence of that idea, they have some kind of right to make street-wide protests based on the fact they have to pay more than others.

Clue-in you fucking dipshits, you're being handed a massive service on a silver platter. Suck it hte fuck up or fuck off and do something worthwhile, rather than bullshit media courses at Luton Polytechnic or whatever.

Kids these days are fucking pussies and need to shut the fuck up; they know [B]nothing[/B] about the real world and feel some kind of bizarre entitlement like they've earned the right to go to university. They've done fuck all in the grand scheme and arent owed a single fucking thing.

[url]http://www.holytaco.com/2008/06/03/the-10-most-worthless-college-majors[/url]

i think if everyone expected to go to university it would be fine as long as everyone got something out of it but like 9/10 of the students i know say they regret uni or don't feel like they're in the right subject or just don't know or care.

i don't care if you're a dull media studies student as long as you're enjoying the subject and finding it useful

it's not as culturally valuable as it could be but the solution to that isn't necessarily to increase its exclusivity

almost all of my friends who did a degree dont plan to do a thing related to it, its just a given, go to college after school get a degree so you've something to say you done and fall back on

few friends who have engineering degrees have gotten good jobs out of it though, one friends doing great with biomedical engineering

i just have roflcopter musical certs/diplomas

that's a retarded article

i don't think tertiary education is just about getting a job and i don't think it should be but it should be culturally valuable in some way otherwise it is a waste of time and money and it makes people unhappy

On the other hand, the subjects considered more useful or more challenging are a bit of a double edged sword, the employers in industry generally have very high expectations and may lead to people's degrees not being utilised in their job as they have to look elsewhere.

This, I've heard, is especially bad in maths where most employers won't even look at you if you've got a 2:2. Most engineering companies require that you have or are looking at a 2:1... RIM state that to get on their internship scheme you have to have been attaining 2:1 grades since first year o.O

Lol at you guys thinking £27,000 is a lot for a degree. By the time I'm done with my undergraduate I'll have spent nearly $70,000.

[QUOTE=Modern Iconoclast;18298156]Lol at you guys thinking £27,000 is a lot for a degree. By the time I'm done with my undergraduate I'll have spent nearly $70,000.[/QUOTE]


both of those numbers are a lot.

And look at america's reputation for education overall, rather than as a function of having a large population and the largest gap between the rich and the poor in the entire first world. Over 85% of your countries wealth is controlled by the top 10% of its population, and thats a conservative number since I looked those figures up a few years ago. GG Nascar fans and bible belt residents, enjoy being uneducated because only the rich can afford to be educated properly.

[QUOTE=pen1s_wiggez;18298190]hello u cocks[/QUOTE]

Hello, cunt-nugget.

Hello Lod.

What is the general consensus of Thrice? Not that I'm particularly bothered what you think I';m just wondering if they're one of those "LOL YOU LIKE *insert band* YOU SUCK" kinda things. I've been listening to them for the past few days and am really enjoying it so far.

I've been hearing about htem for absolutely years, like, I read about them in metal hammer AGES ago, but i've neer heard a single song I don't think.

Me neither. I'd heard the name but nothing by them, First song I heard was this

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNX5f8bwJGs[/url]

Quite laid back but really good. But they do some like heavy downtuned stuff too, like this

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzX-fkAtIQ0[/url]

Probably noy a lot of people's cup of tea but I'm seriously digging a couple of albums right now, namely Vheissu and Fire.




Until next time Lod, going back home where there's no internet :( in a car that has most likely failed it's MOT. Fun times.

I've been digging:
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbW9JqM7vho[/url]

Next level...

[QUOTE=Modern Iconoclast;18298156]Lol at you guys thinking £27,000 is a lot for a degree. By the time I'm done with my undergraduate I'll have spent nearly $70,000.[/QUOTE]

No, I'm already more in debt than that and they haven't even tripled the fees yet and I haven't even graduated

£28k is currently typical for 4 year courses like mine, I'd have been looking at £40-52k under the current system

Generally the measure for if something is broken here is "even worse than the states", so I'd say the people (not me thank god) who'll be paying this much have good reason to be pissed off

I was hoping to get to a couple of this week's protests but honestly, I'm a 4th year, I have far too much work due in in the next couple of weeks to write off an afternoon

That and the last one here in bristol got violent, don't want to become a statistic

Oh and nothing personal aes but I am of the opinion that that song is the single least pleasant thing to become popular in as long as I've been using the internet :(

I swear if it was all in english half the people listening would vomit

SBT: can't really go wrong with them, they're continuously changing direction but I'd suggest Illusion of safety to start. I didn't like their quad album concept thing at first but it's actually pretty good

not new
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCUSzSProPw[/url]

I saw Thrice at Leeds festival this year. They were pretty cool.

This song is better than anything Thrice has done.

http://www.youtube.com/user/7W1574#p/u/0/iFssHF9jp4Q

The gym i go to always play Katy Perry, i might show this to them so i would have something fun to work out to.

They have a lot of that kind of stuff on where I train too; loads of Katy Perry, Kesha etc. Basically chart music.