I've been thinking a lot about the privilege and right of education over the past few weeks. Here in England, education funding is on the verge of tumultuous change, potentially raising fees for students, effecting future students as well as those currently enrolled in higher education. Outcry, protests and demonstrations have been part of the recent landscape here in London, and for good reason. It is very likely that higher education, once a given in the U.K., will now become a privilege available only to those who can pay for it, more akin to the American framework. Right now, thousands of people in London are marching to Parliament to protest and demonstrate to protect the availability of an education.
I have a weird relationship with the U.K. situation because, although I am a student here in London, I am an American. I was raised in the US, and never had a doubt that the expectation of me was that I would attend attend college (university to the Brits among you). There was never a question of this. From the time I was in junior high school, I was working to 'get into a good college.' I come from a financially average, middle-class family. My parents didn't have huge stockpiles of money set aside for my tuition. Implicit in the knowledge that I would attend university was the imperative that somehow we would struggle to pay for it. And yet, even though school would be a large financial burden on my family, it was accepted that regardless, I would be going. I went to a private liberal arts school, with a very very hefty price-tag. I had worked hard and was very lucky to receive scholarships from the school and from outside entities that shouldered some of the burden, but, nonetheless, I will still be paying off my undergraduate education in the years to come, as well as the graduate degree I've embarked on this year. In the United States, although education is almost certainly a requirement for most people, it is not at all a right. We "have" to have to degrees, and we have to pay for them.
I'm not saying that this is good. In fact, I'm saying the quite the opposite. In my professional life, I don't work in a field where I make the big bucks. As such, I monthly only the pay the minimum on my loans. At this rate, I'll be paying the government a monthly pittance for the next 20-odd years for five years of school, and two pieces of paper listing my credentials. Education, just like healthcare, I believe, should be givens. One should have access to the tools one needs to better themselves. To me, I find it appalling that institutions of higher learning in the US are predicated on profit margin, not academic prowess and availability. I greatly admire the UK system currently under imminent threat because it makes higher education a reality for anyone who dreams of it. If you have the desire to get a college/advanced education, it's yours. At least currently. Parliament is voting on the funding increase in less than two hours. This vote could change the dreams of some young people, and alter the courses of their lives.
To me, that's the real tragedy of this funding nightmare. I think about the 18 and 19 year olds who have just started their university lives. I remember my own freshman year of college and what a formative experience it was for me in my life. Through my parents' determination to see me through my four years (and the help of some amazing scholarship money) I got a stellar education that I could not have paid for. Had I been in my freshman year, in love with my newfound independence and academic confidence, I would have been devastated to not be able to move onto my sophomore year because I couldn't pay for it. There are young people in university across the country for whom this may be their last year of higher education, by no fault of their own. Having to shell out the money for own tuition is fine I suppose, when you have the appropriate amount of time at your disposal to save up that money. But, for those students already in school or just getting ready to start, the very dire threat is that they will suddenly be derailed because of a 9000 pound bill.
As an American, I am in some ways used to be 'ignored' by my government. Even though I worked 50+ hours a week most weeks in the US, I spent the vast majority of my 20s without health insurance. There was no public recourse available to me to look after my health. A broken arm or hospital stay would have bankrupted me. Literally. I'm an artist, and although structures like the National Endowment for the Arts etc. dole out money for art-making, I will never qualify as a recipient unless I become a machinated arts entity appealing to the mass public. I'm a social liberal, and see, on a regular basis, rights I hold dear threatened, revoked and ignored. Because of this governmental marginalization, i suppose I feel a lot of empathy and solidarity with my UK student counterparts. They've been raised in a culture that values higher education, and now that it is their turn to reap those benefits, they're having the door slammed in their faces. That is not a kind situation to be in. In current economic times, it seems to me that the last resource a government should threaten is the education of its people. That kind of shortsightedness ill impact the nation and the world for years to come. The foibles of political mismanagement should not bring further punishment on the students of a country.
There's another, more personal impact of these proposed fee hikes as well. A lot of art is made possible through the agency of the education system. Many professors in the arts are also working artists, who's work is supported and enabled through the educational frame. Students have the opportunity to study, engage and immerse themselves in the arts through their university studies. Some of those students will become working artists. Others will use their education at university to move into theoretical discourse, shaping the intellectual landscape of my field. I fear that what happens in the US will begin to happen here. I have many talented artistic friends who were not "allowed" by their parents etc. to study the arts in college, because it wasn't financially worth it. These parents, concerned about shelling out huge sums of money for "worthless" art degrees funneled their kids into more profitable majors. In a framework where credits cost big bucks, this will happen. When an education is financed by family etc., it takes agency out of the hands of the student. Personal passions and interests aren't as crucial as the potential for return of investment on tuition fees. It happens a lot in the US, and I find it very sad. I know some very unhappy economics majors, who probably would have had very fulfilling college experiences had they been able to study drawing or singing or acting. But the choice was to a large degree made for them by their 'investors.'
Education has an innumerable number of benefits, only a few of which in my opinion are tied to bankrolls. We should take pride in academics as a beautiful condition of being rational thinking beings. Access to so many things in this world is controlled by money; let's try to protect education as something that can exist outside of that financial paradigm, something we have a right to because we long for it, not because we can afford.
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