YP Letters: Time to blow time on disgraceful way universities are funded

From: Paul Rouse, Main Street, Sutton upon Derwent, York.
A-Level students jump for joy after receiving their results.A-Level students jump for joy after receiving their results.
A-Level students jump for joy after receiving their results.

I DO feel sorry for the many students who will now be conned into inappropriate, long and expensive university courses. They will get sparse tuition, a large debt and limited prospects of a job at the end of it (The Yorkshire Post, August 18).

Successive governments have promoted university education as a way of keeping unemployment down. University managers have embraced this as a way of creating highly paid jobs for themselves. Young people have begun to see it as a rite of passage.

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It is about time someone blew time on this disgraceful situation. Public funding to universities should reflect the number of students who successfully find a career in the subject studied, or something related to it, not the number of young people attracted by courses such as media studies, fine art etc.

Only a lucky and highly talented few will find a job in these oversubscribed disciplines, and the universities know it.

From: Nigel Boddy, Fife Road, Darlington.

NICK Timothy, the Prime Minister’s former chief of staff, says university tuition fees are a pointless ponzi scheme and the system needs reform (The Yorkshire Post, August 18). Isn’t he coming a little late to the debate?

There have been splits and debates within parties about this since 1993. The Lib Dems have been smashed to pieces and shipwrecked over the issue. Their members have been asked to vote at conference and set the party policy since 1993. They have consistently voted for free university education and then latterly a cap on fees.

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A very tiny handful of their leaders would not listen and abandoned the policy of free university education in every coalition negotiation in Scotland and lately in England since then.

The Lib Dem members have seen at first hand the consequences of enormous student debt on society.

They are much worse then anyone ever feared back in 1993. Lib Dems right across Yorkshire are now in the ridiculous position of having to stand for election and defend positions or their leaders’ past actions for 25 years they never signed up to!

From: Andrew Mercer, Guiseley.

GIVEN concerns about universities, and whether they offer students value for money, why isn’t more being done to highlight the importance of apprenticeships and vocational education?