As a student in central London, life can be expensive. This year I was able to get grants and bursary totalling £1000 ,as well as maintenance and tuition fee loans of approximately £9000. Even with this handsome sum of money however I still find myself perpetually poor and am currently reduced to a strict weekly budget of £45 in order to stretch my loans out over the year. I'm lucky in that I have my parents to help subsidise me for books and send emergency food parcels, as well as savings to dip into when I'm desperate. I will soon have to face up to the fact however that come the end of my 4 year Msci course I will owe the government £36,000. £36,000, at the tender age of 22! The prospect of owing so much is eye watering and yet I will most likely be considered one of the lucky ones by the next generation of university goers, when it comes to facing debt.
Tomorrow, parliament will vote on whether to increase the maximum tuition fee cap to £9000 and as much as I hate to admit it, I'm pretty certain that the vote will be a resounding yes in favour. The maddening consequence of this fee hike is that students who work hard enough to get places at the best universities must now have to expect a minimum of £36000 of debt, with loans for their living costs only piling on top of that figure. If I added my living costs to this fee I would be looking at a cool £72,000 of debt when I leave university. How then can the government try and fob this fee hike, which will leave this generation shadowed by massive debts, as a "progressive change" when so many of them were granted their university education for free?
I know what Clegg has been trying to say, albeit rather patronisingly, when he asked students to read the reports before they protest. It isn't all bad news: The very poorest students will have support with Universities who charge over £6000 being made to use a part of this extra income to support those from lowest income families. Graduates will also not have to repay their fees until they're earning over £21,000 (with the ConDems announcing ahead of the vote today that this threshold will now be raised yearly) and if the debt is not repaid in 30 years it is written off, regardless of the amount outstanding. 30 years however is a long time and I also fail to see how lending such a vast quantites that are not expected to be paid back within a period of several decades, is conducive to a more stable economy or system of funding. I don't pretend to be an economist however and therefore invite anyone who can explain to me why this is the case, to do so in the comments. I would love to hear from you.
The thing is that fees are not the only issue here. Huge cuts are being made to total university funding: As the government is given scope to remove funding for "non-priority" subjects, humanities students in particular will be losing out. The government is also cutting EMA (Educational Maintenance Allowance), a resource which many of my friends found a necessity throughout college to pay for books and travel to and from school.
For some the changes will be a small improvement, but for the majority this is not the case. We run the risk of a two tier education system, in particular losing students who don't quite fall into the brackets for low income support and can't stand the thought of obtaining that much debt. So with that in mind I say protest tomorrow if you want or attempt one last final lobby at your mp. And keep it peaceful in the spirit of the occupations which have happened in so many universities across the country, as well as the many marches and flashmobs. All I can say is that I hope I am wrong and that the inevitable decision tomorrow does not affect the chances of ordinary people receiving the educations they are entitled to.
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Monday, 6 December 2010
Bands and Bacteria
Again it's been a long time since I last posted and I can only apologise. University seems to have had me in a metaphoric stranglehold for the past couple of months and I feel I haven't had enough time to breathe, let alone get in the flow to write. From now on the blog will be forcibly fitted into my schedule. Now onto a couple of bits of Astronomy news:
Exciting piece of news number one is that the Southern Equatorial Band on Jupiter finally appears to be returning, after an unexplained year long disappearance. Several dark plumes have suddenly burst through the upper atmosphere in the last couple of weeks and since such plumes have heralded the return of the belt after past disappearances, it seems likely the it will soon be back in all its former glory. If you have the means to view the belts it's most definitely worth keeping an eye on over the next few months.
Piece of news number two, whilst not strictly Astronomical may hold huge significance in the field in the coming years. Hiding at the bottom of Mono Lake in California, a lake considered particularly inhospitable due to its high concentrations of arsenic, scientists have found a strange bacteria. It may not sound particularly exciting, but this tiny bacteria is in fact a new type of life. It's not an alien as some websites and papers were quick to suggest and there isn't any evidence yet to suggest it evolved independently from normal life on the planet. It is however the only living thing discovered that is able to incorporate arsenic in its cells in the place of phosphorus. This discovery of such an extremophile considerably widens the conditions for life's existence elsewhere in the galaxy; after all large quantities of arsenic have been found on Saturn's moon Titan. If a bacteria can evolve to incorporate a substance that is so poisonous to life on our planet, then why shouldn't we find alien microbial life can exist on worlds much more hostile than our own?
Regarding observing, December is a particularly brilliant time for the northern hemis
phere, whether you have lots of equipment or only your eyes on the skies. If you have binoculars or a telescope I recommend in particular the area of Orion (including the Orion, Horsehead and Flame nebulae) and the Pleides cluster in the Southern sky. I also think M13 or the Great Cluster in Hercules (picture on the left)is worth a look- visible early in the evening before it sets in the north west or early in the morning when it rises again in the north east it is quite stunning sight even through a small telescope. For those without equipment the Geminid Meteor shower should also be putting on a good show, peaking on the 14th of this month with an hourly rate of 100 meteors and radiating from the constellation of Gemini. The moon will also experience a total lunar eclipse at 06:30GMT on the 21st of this months. It will unfortunately be low in the west during the eclipse, making it difficult to view for many, but it should certainly still be worth a look!
Exciting piece of news number one is that the Southern Equatorial Band on Jupiter finally appears to be returning, after an unexplained year long disappearance. Several dark plumes have suddenly burst through the upper atmosphere in the last couple of weeks and since such plumes have heralded the return of the belt after past disappearances, it seems likely the it will soon be back in all its former glory. If you have the means to view the belts it's most definitely worth keeping an eye on over the next few months.
Piece of news number two, whilst not strictly Astronomical may hold huge significance in the field in the coming years. Hiding at the bottom of Mono Lake in California, a lake considered particularly inhospitable due to its high concentrations of arsenic, scientists have found a strange bacteria. It may not sound particularly exciting, but this tiny bacteria is in fact a new type of life. It's not an alien as some websites and papers were quick to suggest and there isn't any evidence yet to suggest it evolved independently from normal life on the planet. It is however the only living thing discovered that is able to incorporate arsenic in its cells in the place of phosphorus. This discovery of such an extremophile considerably widens the conditions for life's existence elsewhere in the galaxy; after all large quantities of arsenic have been found on Saturn's moon Titan. If a bacteria can evolve to incorporate a substance that is so poisonous to life on our planet, then why shouldn't we find alien microbial life can exist on worlds much more hostile than our own?
Regarding observing, December is a particularly brilliant time for the northern hemis
phere, whether you have lots of equipment or only your eyes on the skies. If you have binoculars or a telescope I recommend in particular the area of Orion (including the Orion, Horsehead and Flame nebulae) and the Pleides cluster in the Southern sky. I also think M13 or the Great Cluster in Hercules (picture on the left)is worth a look- visible early in the evening before it sets in the north west or early in the morning when it rises again in the north east it is quite stunning sight even through a small telescope. For those without equipment the Geminid Meteor shower should also be putting on a good show, peaking on the 14th of this month with an hourly rate of 100 meteors and radiating from the constellation of Gemini. The moon will also experience a total lunar eclipse at 06:30GMT on the 21st of this months. It will unfortunately be low in the west during the eclipse, making it difficult to view for many, but it should certainly still be worth a look!
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