From: mkb30@cam.ac.uk (Matthew Belmonte)
To: CAMPBELLA@parliament.uk
Subject: support higher education reform
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004 11:34:01 +0000

Dear Mrs Campbell

I was disappointed to hear of your abstention in the recent vote on reform of
higher education funding.  A vote in favour of this legislation would have been
a great service to your Cambridge constituency.  Cambridge and other
universities need this reform in order to remain competitive; the university
is badly under-funded and the money must come from somewhere.  Furthermore,
examples from outside Britain prove that the introduction of top-up fees need
not lead to the realisation of any of the NUS's shrill predictions.

I went to university in the United States some years ago, and taught in US
universities before I came to Cambridge.  I did sometimes hear stories and see
examples of people whose unfortunate circumstances demanded that they take a
term or a year away from university in order to pay for it -- and that always
did strike me as terribly wrong.  However, the Government's recently passed
legislation, with its restoration of maintenance grants and its generous loan
scheme with a lower limit on earnings before repayments commence, would not
lead to the situation that exists in the United States.

It has always struck me that the majority of students in Britain seem to want a
free ride.  Although the American system of funding for higher education has
many drawbacks, one of its strengths is the personal investment that students
feel in their education: when one has earned part of one's tuition and living
expenses by washing dishes (as I did when I was a student), it becomes a lot
more difficult to justify to oneself spending a night out drinking when one
needs to be spending time in the library revising.  The Government's reform of
higher education funding will not only preserve and expand access to higher
education, but will give students a personal stake in it.  I'm disappointed
that so many people in Cambridge and in Parliament seem not to realise that.


Sincerely

Matthew Belmonte
[address]