JENNI MURRAY: University made me - but this is why my heart breaks for today's students...
By Jenni Murray Published: 12:11, 25 July 2024 | Updated: 12:11, 25 July 2024 e-mail View comments Every year at this time, young school leavers wait on tenterhooks for their A-level results. Will they have achieved the requisite grades for the course of their choice? Now that's normal anxiety. But this year it's different — because many can't be sure the course they've applied for will even exist by the time term starts in just a few weeks.
Nor can they be absolutely certain the university they've chosen will still be functioning. Might it have gone bankrupt? Jo Grady, chief executive of the University and College Union, has begged for financial help from the new government to 'stave off catastrophe'. 'We don't think parents and prospective students understand the total mess some of our universities are in,' she said.
Jo Grady, chief executive of the University and College Union, has begged for financial help from the new government to 'stave off catastrophe' There are 66 universities identified as being in big trouble. At the top of the list are Goldsmiths, University of London , Kent, York and Winchester. For too long, universities have relied on the huge fees — around £35,000 a year — paid by foreign students, compared with the £9,250 paid by British students .
But the number of foreign students applying has gone down and that's left many in dire straits. Regardless, foreign students are no help to home-grown students. They're often more interested in science and engineering, so courses in languages, arts and humanities are being shut down.
The plight of young people today breaks my heart. They've weathered Covid and the terrible disruption of their education at school, and now this. I've been forced to look back with more than a little guilt at how easy it all was for my generation.
My own degree course, in joint French and drama at Hull University, cost me nothing. Accommodation in halls or student houses was cheap — for those whose parents earned enough money to have to pay at all. I didn't even have to worry about that.
I was given a grant of £350 per annum by my local authority. It wasn't a lot in 1968, but it was enough to cover bed, food, transport and the occasional trip to the theatre, with a Chinese meal for one shared between two of us. It was even enough for the odd night at the pub.
What I remember best is the sheer enjoyment of it all. Whereas today's young people have to be laser-focused on being 'employable' at the end of their course, and so disdain the arts in favour of science or business, back then there was no sniffiness about being a humanities student. In fact, I think it was the science lot who had a worse time.
Those of us reading English or history or drama rather looked down on them as thinking too much about what well-paid jobs they would get as graduates. Read More JENNI MURRAY: I'm not soft, but here's why we should let almost all women prisoners go We worked hard, but not to the exclusion of all the fun that young people deserve. It seemed to work out OK in the end.
Most of my generation, in fact, felt immensely proud just to be at university — many of us as the first in our families to attend. We had no doubt the education we were getting was important, and as long as we studied more than we partied, it would lead to something more than our parents had achieved. That's an assurance many of today's students don't have.
When did we forget university should be available to anyone who has proved they have a genuine interest in and talent for academic study? There's no doubt my time at Hull planted the seed of combining journalism with performance — the two things I loved. Broadcasting was the obvious ambition to pursue and I doubt I'd have made it into the BBC without my degree. It taught me other things, too.
I spent two years in Hull and then took a year out in Paris. I've never been happier than strolling across the Pont Alexandre III, heading for my job as a tour hostess on the Champs-Élysées. When I came back to complete my third year at university, I was so fluent I even dreamt in French.
Students are so often vilified as scruffy, lazy ne'er-do-wells these days. Yes, we were often scruffy. But we were far from lazy, often discussing a play, a novel or politics late into the night with new friends.
The vital thing was we were learning to be grown-ups. University demanded we learn how to manage money, what was meant by free speech and its limitations, and how vital it was to get on with a range of people. I doubt today's young people are learning the same lessons — or enjoying the same freedoms.
It's time for the university experience to be reimagined. It must be properly funded. Students should not spend their time at university worrying about how they'll pay off their massive debts and vice chancellors must ensure the atmosphere on campus encourages debate, but no battles, and enables students to learn how to grow up.
They are our future. They matter. How Spider-Man fell for a witch Andrew Garfield is a wonderful actor, currently appearing in ads for Sky TV and out and about with his partner, Kate Tomas .
The Spider-Man star and his new love have faced quite a lot of trolling, presumably because Kate declares herself a 'professional witch'. It costs £1,500 for for one of her tarot readings. Charging those sorts of fees sounds like witchcraft to me.
I'm Team Kamala, watch out Donald! I do hope the US is finally ready for a woman to become president, as I'm rather taken by Kamala Harris, above. You've got to enjoy the old campaign ad that surfaced this week, billing her as the 'anti-Trump', and the supporters who point out that while she was a prosecutor who brought felons to book, he is a convicted criminal. Then there was the question she asked Brett Kavanaugh before he went as Donald Trump's anti-abortion choice to the Supreme Court — 'Can you think of any laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body?' He had no answer.
I'm sure she'll appeal to the female vote. Fingers crossed. Advertisement My new wars of the roses You may remember a couple of weeks ago I railed against the snails in my garden.
Like any sensible gardener, I'd been picking them up and popping them through the fence to my neighbour's garden. Little did I know snails are intelligent enough to fight back. I bought a beautiful rose.
The apricot-coloured flowers smelled divine and were prolific. But they faded quickly — and I found little snails actually buried among the petals, munching away. I removed them and posted them next door.
They came back, in greater numbers. How dare they! Now I'm trying coffee grounds around the root of the plant. It's the War of the Roses and I'm a Yorkshirewoman.
I will win! I'd waited three weeks for a phone consultation with my GP before my scheduled appointment on Friday. It didn't come. I rang the surgery and was told: 'It's the global outage.
' Just as well I'm not dying. Could be months before I get that call. BBC Jenni Murray Paris Share or comment on this article: JENNI MURRAY: University made me - but this is why my heart breaks for today's students.
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