Why not Send this Letter to All the Newspapers?

Dear Editors,

 

I am a reader of your publication, and I hope you will be able to act responsibly not only for me but also many other of your readers, as well as their children, and ultimately the broader society at large.

 

My concern is with the proposed cuts to the funding of Higher Education. Like yourself, I’m sure, I have read a lot about these proposals – a lot of media and social commentary, as well as responses from academics and such bodies as the Institute of Fiscal Studies, The Higher Education Policy Institute, etc. – and all of these people and institutions are worried about the consequences of the proposed cuts. So I know I am far from alone in believing that these proposals are not only morally wrong but also potentially destructive of English and British university education, and damaging for our society as a whole.

 

The arguments against the proposed cuts come from both sides: both from the side of potential students (who will be lumbered with mortgage-sized debts to simply attain a degree) and from the side of the universities (many of which may struggle to provide not only arts and humanities subjects but also science subjects). Not only that, but there is a strong possibility that the funding cuts will make the delivery of all financially viable degrees into ‘production lines’, with massive staff-student ratios and formulaic and generic formats for (inferior) teaching and learning. So graduates will have a mortgage-sized debt for a generic McDegree (even if that degree is allegedly ‘vocational’).

 

There are many other concerns and worries, of course. And I know that the Coalition Government is trying to argue that ‘because of the deficit’ these radical cuts are ‘necessary’. Of course, as I am sure you are well aware, they are not “necessary”. They are rather political *decisions*, and there are of course many other options available for balancing the books (books which are not too far out of balance anyway), and which do not involve the wholesale destruction of institutions that are the very fabric of our society – the university being just one such institution.

 

So I hope I can count on you and your publication to speak out against the proposed cuts – at least to frame the debate about the cuts in more sophisticated terms than ‘students not wanting to pay more for their education’. The majority of the students protesting this month and last month will not be affected by such cuts anyway. The protestors are attempting to defend basic rights and frontline public services – of which university education is but merely one example.