Tuition Fees for Higher Education in the UK lead to a record drop in applications

As detailed in an article in The Guardian, an independent study has suggested that there has been a drop of 15 000 applications for higher education in the UK compared to 2010 – http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/aug/09/tuition-fees-increase-15000-less-applicants .

I would be very surprised if it is the rich and privately educated who are being deterred from applying – the real agenda behind the tuition fee increases, which will leave students with higher averagedebts than in any other developed country (including the US) is for the privileged to move a step further towards re-claiming higher education as their own property. Gradually, the post-war era has seen a very significant expansion of the demographic of students entering HE, especially during the New Labour era. With this has come a less deferential and more critical attitude to many fields of study, especially in the arts and humanities, with formerly hallowed ‘great works’ being held up to critical scrutiny in terms of the ideologies contained therein with respect class, gender, race, sexuality, imperialistic attitudes, militarism, and much more (though classical music, the most haut-bourgeois of the arts, took some time to catch up, and such an approach is anathema to many of this music’s listeners). This phenomenon infuriates those who would prefer to use the arts as some sort of means for instilling aesthetic discipline and instilling a sense of respect for authority and tradition. This perspective cannot have been absent from current government policy.

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