I’m delighted to see that more or less the entire House turned up for the vote on top-up fees tonight. At least they’ve got more interest in this than they had in the debate on how the issue of truancy.

There are many people who have been more eloquent on this subject than I could be (Adrian and Gert to name but two). Facetious comments aside, my own two euros worth are in line with their thoughts.

Top-up fees are the only way forward without increasing general taxation. The universities are in decline and to maintain them will cost a lot of money. And as Gert rightly points out, any increase in taxation would be better off spent on primary and secondary education.

I think top-up fees will focus students minds far more the is currently the case. Degrees, in my informed opinion, are ten a penny and relatively easy to come by. At the moment, going on to tertiary education is considered the norm for many people, as seen in the increase in student numbers over the last 10 years. It has gotten to the stage where students will put off entering the “real world” (i.e. one where you have to actually work for a living) for as long as possible while they dither about what it is they want to do with themselves. And they felt that this was their right, that they were somehow owed a tertiary education.

In my mind, all this has done has lowered the meaning of a degree and the standard of University education. But if students are faced with the prospect of leaving university in debt then they have a choice: either make sure they get the most out of it, work hard and achieve results in the knowledge they will have to work hard to pay off the debt when they leave OR forget about going to university and go straight to work.

To say that they won’t get as good a job without a degree as they would with one is tenuous at most. Sure you won’t be able to become a doctor without spending years of your life studying but if you want to seriously, earnestly want to become a doctor then you will find a way to get to university.

It was only when I left tertiary education in 1995 with a BA(Hons) in Philosophy that I had to decide what I wanted to do. I chose I.T. because it was either that or accountancy. I had limited skills and had to become an autodidact (not as rude as it sounds) to get anywhere. In my first job I met a man who was my age and did the same job that I did but hadn’t gone to university. He had a nice car, good clothes, a house of his own and money in the bank and all because he was 3 or 4 years further down the same path. I had a small rented flat and was up to my neck in debt. I really felt that I didn’t make the most of my time at university but had no-one to blame but myself. Eight years on and I’m better off than I was but I often wonder how much better off I would be still if I hadn’t pissed away four years of my life doing a non-vocational degree.

I do feel that if I’d had something to concentrate the mind a little more (like, say, the prospect of a huge debt) I would have studied harder and made more life affecting decisions earlier on. And I probably would have studied a totally different subject. That, of course, is the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.

If I carry on with this I’m probably going to end up back at the conclusion that despite what anyone says, A-Levels are getting easier, more people are getting higher grades and everybody is going to Uni. Tertiary education is no longer the domain of the elite intelligentia and standards are slipping as a result.

However, having said all that, I can’t say that it’s going to affect me much. The tax man is still going to take his pound of flesh and it’ll be twenty years or so before any future children of mine are ready to go by which time it all could have changed again.