No such thing as a free lunch

Back last term, UCLU gave £500 to the lefties to run a Free Education Week. They ran what they described as a 'free education picnic' with the tagline of 'there is such a thing as a free lunch'.

I'm sorry, but this is simply laughable. How on earth was it a free lunch - my Union paid for it! Which means that somewhere along the line, a more worthy cause than some lefties wanting to buy themselves lunch with my money was £500 short. To put it in perspective, other campaigns last term included the fantastic Darfur Week, which highlighted the ongoing crisis in Sudan. And there were the left, choosing instead to pretend they could get lunch for free.

So here's the thing. They were trying to promote the noble cause of Free Education by giving a free lunch. Which someone - my own students' union - paid for. Guess what else? Abolish tuition fees, and someone will have to pay for that, too. In fact, they'd have to pay more, because these are top-up fees, meant to top-up the income universities already receive, not replace it. So abolish tuition fees and universities would be much worse off. To the tune of £3,500 per undergraduate student per year, to say nothing of the astronomical fees MA and PhD students pay. Oh, and while we're at it, maybe we should give 'free' education to international students too? Given that we all know they're already treated as cash cows, such a move would have a devastating effect on universities' balance sheets.

Unless, someone still pays for it. That person is, of course, the taxpayer.

There is no such thing as a free education. It has to be paid for. Doesn't matter whether it's the student, the parents, the employer or the taxpayer - someone has to, because it costs a lot. Now, they already reject the notion that the student should pay, because we're not consumers and education isn't a commodity therefore the person receiving it shouldn't pay. (Not entirely logical, but there you go.) It can't be the parents because a) it's not their education and b) it would be hideously unfair and ruin years of widening participation. I would have thought that employers would be rejected because, again, education isn't a commodity and universities aren't factories and we're not here to get jobs (no, of course not - that doesn't go against all research to the contrary, which shows students do go to university to get qualifications to get better jobs! Hell, it's why I came...).

So the taxpayer must pay.

Which, given our current massive deficit, and national debt, means that taxes will have to go up...which means I will end up paying myself, when I get a job. (If I can get a job.) So, in the end, I will pay for my education. Whether the left like it or not, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Or, for that matter, a free education.