This week has seen the release of a document from the organisation Universities UK detailing the options for the future of tuition fees – the cost for a student to get a degree.
Originally coming to university cost nothing, then it cost around £1,000 a year and now it costs around £3, 000 a year.
UUK have recommended that the cost now be from £5, 000 to £7, 000 a year whilst a BBC poll of Vice Chancellors showed that 2/3 wanted it to be from £5, 000 to £20, 000 a year!!
This is just outrageous, this government set out in 1997 that up to 50% of people should experience Higher Education and that university should be accessible to all, irrespective of background.
These changes, if implemented, could mean an average debt of £32,000 and possibly anywhere up to over £60, 000 for an undergraduate degree – the entry point for many careers.
This is not accessible. Consider the 18 year old with the potential of Higher Education but with no family financial support – would they really want to pay £60, 000 for a degree? I certainly wouldn’t.
Universities need to consider the impact fees will have on accessibility to higher education – an education that is and should be a right and not a privilege – and think of other ways to innovate income streams to keep the bottom line happy.
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Thursday, 11 December 2008
James Redfearn - Saviour of Radio 1 Chris Moyles comes to upsu:
As I’m sure Herald readers will be aware, on Wednesday 10th December self-professed Saviour of Radio 1, Chris Moyles visited the University of Plymouth Students’ Union along with the rest of the Breakfast Show team to host a special evening of Christmas karaoke. This exclusive event was attended by 400 lucky students and local residents who managed to get hold of a free ticket. Overall, it was a great evening of rubbish singing, traditional for an evening of Karaoke – including a particularly bad rendition of “I Wish it could be Christmas every day!” from myself and colleagues!
It was a great showcase for the city of Plymouth and indeed the University, with pictures of the city and event being viewed online by Radio 1 listeners all over the UK. It also was another great opportunity for us to engage with local people. The event was open to both students and the public, and was enjoyed by all.
If you were there and want to see pictures from the event, please see the upsu website (www.upsu.com/chrismoyles)
At the same time, the building played host to a Mutley and Greenbank Christmas Quiz which was written and hosted by the PCSOs and Devon and Cornwall Constabulary. Here, awards were also given out to community groups and volunteers who have shown commitment to bringing down crime and the fear of crime in the city. Students from the University of Plymouth received an award for their work during the Mutley and Greenbank festival.
This is the last blog of the year from me so Seasonal Greetings to you all on behalf of upsu, and I wish you a happy, successful and peaceful 2009.
As always, feel free to get in touch on vpactivities@upsu.com or post to UPSU, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA
James Redfearn
VP Activities & Communications
Tuesday, 16 September 2008
The Arrival of the Masses – Don’t Panic!!
So this week is officially the University of Plymouth ‘arrivals week’ where all of the new students arrive with their parents and bags to embark on the exciting time that is higher education.
Yes certain roads will have been blocked. Yes there would have been many queues and yes, hundreds of new students will be moving into the local area – on top of the thousands of students that already live in and around Plymouth.
But it’s not all that bad. I promise.
I’m going to talk about statistics now, as exciting as they are, to try and paint a more realistic picture of the demographic of students we have here at Plymouth:
• Around 50% of undergraduates at Plymouth come from Devon and Cornwall originally
• Around 30% of these undergraduate students are 18-21 years old
• Around 42% are 25 years and older
• Around 30% are part time students
So the point from these statistics is that the hundreds of new students coming to Plymouth this year will not all be 24-hour alcohol drinking, loud, unclean monsters but that most are young people taking the next step in their careers, coming to a University of excellence to learn, work hard and enhance their lives.
Now I’m not being naïve about the problems that may arise with increased young people in the area, moving away from parental homes for the first time (in some instances!) but my plea to you all is to not stereotype all students and tarnish them with the not so realistic bad image that they don’t deserve. Let’s work together, cohesively as a community for all of its residents, and work to solve the issues but to also celebrate the successes that we all bring to Plymouth by living and working in the area.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to get in contact with me on president@upsu.com or in writing to UPSU, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA and I’ll back to you as soon as I can.
Yes certain roads will have been blocked. Yes there would have been many queues and yes, hundreds of new students will be moving into the local area – on top of the thousands of students that already live in and around Plymouth.
But it’s not all that bad. I promise.
I’m going to talk about statistics now, as exciting as they are, to try and paint a more realistic picture of the demographic of students we have here at Plymouth:
• Around 50% of undergraduates at Plymouth come from Devon and Cornwall originally
• Around 30% of these undergraduate students are 18-21 years old
• Around 42% are 25 years and older
• Around 30% are part time students
So the point from these statistics is that the hundreds of new students coming to Plymouth this year will not all be 24-hour alcohol drinking, loud, unclean monsters but that most are young people taking the next step in their careers, coming to a University of excellence to learn, work hard and enhance their lives.
Now I’m not being naïve about the problems that may arise with increased young people in the area, moving away from parental homes for the first time (in some instances!) but my plea to you all is to not stereotype all students and tarnish them with the not so realistic bad image that they don’t deserve. Let’s work together, cohesively as a community for all of its residents, and work to solve the issues but to also celebrate the successes that we all bring to Plymouth by living and working in the area.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to get in contact with me on president@upsu.com or in writing to UPSU, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA and I’ll back to you as soon as I can.
Tuesday, 9 September 2008
Carnage and Molecules
So this is my very first post on The Herald blogs section and it will be a first of many I’m sure!
I imagine if you’re reading this you probably have some idea about who I am and/or the organisation and people that I represent. But if not, I’ll put it to you in a nutshell. Here goes…
My name is Darren Jones, I’m a 21 year old graduate of the Human Biosciences from the University of Plymouth and am the elected President and Chair of the Board for the University of Plymouth Students’ Union (UPSU). UPSU is what it says on the tin, a union for students. We are located on campus at the University and have many areas of partnership with it but we are politically independent.
UPSU is here to do two main things (as I see it):
• To represent students, their opinions, their problems, their frustrations and their celebrations to the University, the community, the council, national bodies, the media and to Parliament.
• To enhance the student experience whilst here at the University. Our vision at UPSU is to ‘Transform lives Through Experience’ and we are all passionate about working to do just that. This experience building may be based around sports, politics, dance, media, volunteering, socialising in our venue, campaigning, feeling empowered with support to achieve one’s own goals – to name just a few.
So who are ‘we’? UPSU is a student led organisation with its Executive Officers being elected every year in February. The five executive officers include the President (me!), the Deputy President and three Vice Presidents in Sport, Education & Welfare and Activities & Communications. It is our job to ensure that the union is being run in the way that it should be, in the way that we feel it should be for the benefit of our members (students), in a way that is responsible for the £3 million we turn over every year and in a way that secures our vision for the future.
As a board of trustees (remembering that UPSU is a charity) we employ a Senior Management Team and a total staff team of up to 200 people during term time (including student staff) to advise the Board and to ‘run’ the organisation on our behalf. Staff are accountable to the General Manager, who is accountable to the Board and we are accountable to the Student Parliament – which has the power to remove us from Office if we are particularly bad!
So there we go…a little more than a nutshell but still, in my opinion, not justification enough for the amazing work that all of our staff, our students and our volunteers do on a daily basis.
So be prepared to see more of UPSU in the community over the year ahead and beyond and certainly here at www.thisisplymouth.co.uk and in print every Friday on the comments page under “UPSU in the Community”.
We’re already making the headlines (I say headlines….we were in the paper a couple of times) with our massive disapproval of the organised pub crawl company ‘Carnage’ coming to Plymouth (Click here to read this article) and with a ‘mini interview’ with yours truly (although politics isn’t that scary…honest) (Click here for this one).
And remember, to all those student types out there, you are automatically a member of UPSU when you become a student of the University of Plymouth so make sure you us you union to its full advantage.
For more information about UPSU please visit www.upsu.com or email me on president@upsu.com and I’ll get back with an answer / comment as quickly as I can.
I imagine if you’re reading this you probably have some idea about who I am and/or the organisation and people that I represent. But if not, I’ll put it to you in a nutshell. Here goes…
My name is Darren Jones, I’m a 21 year old graduate of the Human Biosciences from the University of Plymouth and am the elected President and Chair of the Board for the University of Plymouth Students’ Union (UPSU). UPSU is what it says on the tin, a union for students. We are located on campus at the University and have many areas of partnership with it but we are politically independent.
UPSU is here to do two main things (as I see it):
• To represent students, their opinions, their problems, their frustrations and their celebrations to the University, the community, the council, national bodies, the media and to Parliament.
• To enhance the student experience whilst here at the University. Our vision at UPSU is to ‘Transform lives Through Experience’ and we are all passionate about working to do just that. This experience building may be based around sports, politics, dance, media, volunteering, socialising in our venue, campaigning, feeling empowered with support to achieve one’s own goals – to name just a few.
So who are ‘we’? UPSU is a student led organisation with its Executive Officers being elected every year in February. The five executive officers include the President (me!), the Deputy President and three Vice Presidents in Sport, Education & Welfare and Activities & Communications. It is our job to ensure that the union is being run in the way that it should be, in the way that we feel it should be for the benefit of our members (students), in a way that is responsible for the £3 million we turn over every year and in a way that secures our vision for the future.
As a board of trustees (remembering that UPSU is a charity) we employ a Senior Management Team and a total staff team of up to 200 people during term time (including student staff) to advise the Board and to ‘run’ the organisation on our behalf. Staff are accountable to the General Manager, who is accountable to the Board and we are accountable to the Student Parliament – which has the power to remove us from Office if we are particularly bad!
So there we go…a little more than a nutshell but still, in my opinion, not justification enough for the amazing work that all of our staff, our students and our volunteers do on a daily basis.
So be prepared to see more of UPSU in the community over the year ahead and beyond and certainly here at www.thisisplymouth.co.uk and in print every Friday on the comments page under “UPSU in the Community”.
We’re already making the headlines (I say headlines….we were in the paper a couple of times) with our massive disapproval of the organised pub crawl company ‘Carnage’ coming to Plymouth (Click here to read this article) and with a ‘mini interview’ with yours truly (although politics isn’t that scary…honest) (Click here for this one).
And remember, to all those student types out there, you are automatically a member of UPSU when you become a student of the University of Plymouth so make sure you us you union to its full advantage.
For more information about UPSU please visit www.upsu.com or email me on president@upsu.com and I’ll get back with an answer / comment as quickly as I can.
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