A LESSON IN SCROUNGING

25-11-2006

Edward Cameron is unimpressed by universities' efforts to cadge cash off their graduates after receiving the equivalent of a begging letter from his alma mater.

I received a letter, personally signed, from the vice chancellor of my old university.

I say personally signed, it was a computer-printed signature, but it had that personal touch.

Oh how it brought a nostalgic tear to my eye as he reminded me about the steps in the old square and how rainy it always was.

Then in a twist of tack that is so typical these days he went on to ask me for £100 a year to help fund the Alumni Programme.

He revealed that the university is in the top 10 for research in the current league tables and how they needed to be able to provide a grant service for students to apply to.

It is here that my blood began to boil. I went to university as part of the first wave of Tony Blair's tuition fee scheme. I watched my uni plunge from number eight in the country to number 50 by the time I had left.

And this week it was revealed that students might be about to draw up charters insisting on what they expect to have received from the universities, now forced to run as businesses.

In my hazy days of uni I wrote articles for the student paper on the plans to close down the art department because it was the least profitable, even though it was the best performing for under-grads.

I listened to concerned post-grads who foresaw that their swanky new accommodation would not be ready in time because the company brought in for the private finance initiative scheme had stretched itself to thinly.

And I donned welly boots to photograph them standing on the mud heap that was meant to be their homes for a year while they were sent to hotels and boarding houses.

The unversity's alumni programme launched in 2001, about the same time institutions started to feel the pinch at the funding cut.

To cope with this the floodgates were opened to as many students as possible. It was disguised by claiming it was Tony Blair's aspiration to have fifty per cent of under 30s in higher education.

But my course, which needed an A and two Bs at A-level in 2000, found itself accepting Cs, Ds and even an E by 2004. I found myself on team projects with students who simply wanted to get drunk for three years. They had seen Hollyoaks and that was the life they craved.

So no. I'm afraid I won't give the cash. Universities and students need to be properly funded. I am sick of the argument that the dustman shouldn't have to pay for the manager. Anyone with the intelligence and ability should have university made available to them. But fifty per cent of us can't be lawyers, doctors and teachers.

The whole point of higher education is it's just that - higher.