The Debt Generation

Watching the student protests was a breath of fresh air. It has been a long time since the British public has showed such blatant animosity towards the powers that be. Who can blame them for getting a little anarchic? The 3 biggest protest marches of the last 10 year; the countryside alliance march, the anti Iraq war march and last weekends anti cuts march, have been completely ignored by the respective governments.

I was comparatively lucky with the cost of my education. I managed to do my bachelors just before Labour introduced the first top up fees. Therefore my entire 3 years costs slightly more then a single term will cost at Oxford shortly. Even the MA I’m studying for only costs a little over £4000 for the 2 years. I’m in roughly £10000 worth of debt so I can understand the sheer frustration younger people must be feeling over the fact they will owe 5 times as much.

I think the hardest thing to swallow for young people about the top up fees, and to an extent the cuts in general, are the generation that are handing the ruling down. The “baby boomer” generation went to University for free, had grammar schools to support the brightest amongst the poorer classes, had a much better housing market that made it easier for them to purchase a property and they had a much freer job market.

They’re the same generation who caused the financial meltdown, which the younger generations are going to have to pay for. A meltdown, which has consequently collapsed the housing market and has forced the government into massive cuts in the public sector, as well as 100’s of business’s going under in the private sector. The outcome of this is that our generation are seriously going to struggle in the housing market, and getting a job is going to get more and more difficult. No wonder the student protests got violent.

It is unfair to bundle an entire generation of people together, and it was obviously very difficult to foresee this outcome. It is just a little hard to swallow for us young folk. If our generation is as careless again then this will happen all over again, and it will be even more difficult to get back. There is a lot of pressure on the shoulders of young people, and perhaps lumbering them with £50,000 worth of debt before they’ve even got started seems ridiculous.