Having read many thousands of column inches about students in the past few weeks, my eyes have been opened.
Rather than a diverse group of people from all backgrounds, ages and incomes, working in various topics and disciplines across the nation whether it be full-time, part-time or evening study, the media has bravely discovered that students come in only 3 types, and are practically designed to be loathed by economically productive parts of society (that is, everyone else).
Posh Right-Wing Reactionary
You are rich, or the kind of ‘middle-class’ that spends £22k a YEAR on private school. You are considered to be permanently dressed in Barbour, tweed, or white tie. Your hair is large and perma-windswept, your scarves are silky, your voice braying. You are congenitally Tory, take soft art courses, and are given top jobs by family friends.
You never do any academic work, and everyone over 26 hates you.
Unreconstructed Desperate Leftie
You are probably middle-class, but hide it. You complain about Palestine and East Timor to your philosophy lecturer, hold Campaign Weeks every week, and buy keffiyehs in bulk. You got Noam Chomsky’s entire output from Amazon and look up ‘hegemony’ on Wikipedia regularly to remind yourself what it actually means.
You never do any academic work, and everyone over 26 hates you.
Sponging Lazy Oxygen Thief
You wake up at 1pm every day, have 45 minutes of contact time a week, and are taking the first semester of your sociology course for the third time. You wear hoodies until they disintegrate and are constantly in an arms race of drinking capacity with everyone else in your disgusting, parental-supported flat. You are a drain on ‘hardworking families’ and should be sent down the mines.
You never do any academic work, and everyone over 26 hates you.
There are no exceptions. Glad that’s cleared up.
(*Note: Actually, there is one exception to this rule: ‘Your Kids’. The children of anyone reading an article about the future of HE are excluded. While ‘Everyone Else’s Kids’ are contemptible, misinformed sinks of your tax money, ‘Your Kids’ are clever, attractive and destined for success after their terribly difficult and important degree is finished)
