Leafing through the Daily Mail during my lunch break, I stumbled across a rather interesting headline that read: Hard Up? Students are living a life of luxury, says Professor. Now, being a student myself this certainly got my attention.
Delving a bit deeper into the story and I was startled to find that it wasn't in fact a clever misleading headline but a genuine quote from an article published in the Times Higher Education magazine and The Professor in question was a man named Kelvin Sharpe.
Professor Sharpe certainly doesn't pull any punches and is quoted as saying students these days enjoy the spendthrift life enjoyed in Friends by regularly splashing out on £2 cappuccinos and eating at restaurants a lot. We can then go back to our student homes that are "equipped with large LCD TVs, Sky Boxes and several high end laptops.".
Reading on I wasn't too sure which, if any, University managed accommodation Professor Sharpe was actually talking about. I have friends at University all over the country and I couldn't name one that could even be jokingly described as a (quote) "posh pad with two bathrooms".
In this current economic climate, eating out has become far less of an expenditure as it used to be and choose the right day and you can get three courses for £10, I wouldn't eactly say lavish spending.
However, (and trying my best not to turn this into a bitter rant) the one final point that really surprised me was that at no point in this unnecessary swipe at students was there any consideration taken to the fact that maybe some of these 'big' spending students actually work an awful minimum wage job to afford there (quote) "Ipods and LCD TVs". I happen to know several people who work a bar job that often sees them home at 2am or later who then struggle to get up for a 9am start.
With the news that some students still haven't received there student loans and the rest of us still coming to the realisation that we have to work 20 hours a week because they barely cover rent, I guess we should be grateful that we have a middle class, Oxford Educated Professor to tell us we got it easy.
Students Living the Life of Luxury?
Posted by
Matt 'Cliff' Clifford
Friday, 9 October 2009
Labels: accomodation , daily mail , news , professor , students
6 comments:
It would be great to know where this guy teaches! Having graduated this year, I've finished uni with so much debt I'll be paying it off for the next ten years. And at no time was this money spent on regular trips to coffee shops or meals out and I didn't retire every night to a 'luxury pad with an LCD tv'!
Granted, in my four years at uni I did meet other students who had their rent and tuition fee's payed for them by their parents, who saw there student loans as pocket money to be blown in high street stores and bars. But to generalise this as the case for all students is absurb. My student loan didnt even come close to covering my rent, let alone the cost of books, transport and general living e.g. food, gas and electricity bills. I worked two jobs to save up before I went to uni and long shifts in bars all the way through. At some points I even jeopardised my grades because I had no choice but to work at times when I should have been revising.
Yes I enjoyed my time at uni and have some amazing memories. But I haven't forgotten the few weeks towards the end of every term when I lived off cereal, tinned soup and toast because I didn't have the money to buy anything else.
Like I said it would be interesting to know where this guy teaches. May be he would change his opinion if he actually met some of the thousands of other students who struggle to put themselves through universities up and down the country, instead of the very fortunate ones he has the pleasure of teaching.
here here
http://journoblogism.blogspot.com
If anyone is interested he lectures at Queen Mary, University of London.
very interesting blog, this guy obviously based his opinion on a small selection of students as if he knew many of my mates at uni he'd know this wasn't the case!
http://mark-lovell.blogspot.com
Thanks for an interesting post. I think there is something to be said for the Professor's point. There has been a big push in recent years for dorms (in the US at least) to be quite nice - in an effort to compete for student dollars. But when I think on the "riches" of my college experience, I frankly think back on the freedom, potential, and opportunity for growth. Which I sometimes siezed and sometimes did not. Keep writing!
While it may be the case with a small minority of students, I think that the Professor is way off the mark here.I, like many others, work 20 hours a week to be able to pay my rent and bills and have very little time or expendable income to be able to go out galavanting.
As students we seem to be given a very negative image from the behaviour of a small minority. With this and the (likely) possibility that student fees and loan interest will steeply increase over the next few years, I think it's about time that people started giving us a break...
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