"Tuition fee decision day"

So, this being a former London blog and me being a college student, I thought it appropriate to comment on the madness that went down in the City of Westminster earlier today. London's Metropolitan Police had their hands full dealing with massive protests.  Rocks were thrown into the windows of City Hall, likewise at the High Court, a Christmas Tree in Trafalgar Square was set alight and a car carrying Prince Charles and Camilla was pelted with a barrage of rocks.

Why all this violence?  Earlier in the day, MPs finalized a vote that effectively *triples* university tuition rates, capping the fees to a maximum of £9,000 per year in England, by a majority of 21.

First, I'd like to point out that yes, if I saw my tuition bill tripled, it would infuriate me, but no I wouldn't find myself running for DC ready to throw rocks at the President.

I get that David Cameron, with the help of his coalition Government, has successfully implemented the largest austerity plan ever; cutting billions of pounds from the Government's annual budget and I understand that it must be outrageously expensive to cover the cost of all those tuition bills (since the number of students attending university is rising steadily every year).  But tripling the cost?  Really?  All at once?

What ever happened to doing things methodically, with a plan or maybe some options?  It would be so much more reasonable if they had a ten year plan that would A: allow students who are in the middle of their schooling to finish and B: give some people some time to prepare for that massive increase.

We must also put this number into context: £9,000 per year in England.  As of 30 seconds ago, Google told me £9,000 is equal to roughly $14,000.  What? $14,000?

For a typical private, liberal arts education in the US you're going to pay $20-30 if not more than $40,000/year for school.  Let's realize that the British Government is still subsidizing much of that cost.  Universities in Europe don't have some magical power which makes them any less expensive to run, maintain, stock with books, or cut the grass.  The Brits have just been pretty generous.  And to think that before this so-called "austerity plan,"  put in place by the now-divided "coalition" Government (quickly becoming an oxymoron), Parliament was set to vote on ELIMINATING TUITION FEES for all university students.  Mind. Blown.

PM Cameron's new coalition Government, however, has realized running a massive budget deficit probably isn't the most fiscally responsible thing if one is trying to ensure long-term growth and stability.  The result?  They've been cutting everywhere to the tune of 81 billion pounds ($126 billion). That's about what we spend in Iraq over the course of two business days.  Awesome.


Two problems: a ballooning deficit and poor university students.  I don't have a solution, but I will say:

A: As cool as Government subsidizing every student's university education sounds, it's impractical, expensive and unreasonable. 

B: Give those poor students a break; decrease the funding in small, planned increments until it drops to the final level which is evidently triple the max now (£3,000 to £9,000).

And let's be real, if I was paying £3,000/year to attend university, I would be ecstatic.  Grow up, get over it and take out a student loan.