Students Against the NUS

I really wish Aaron Porter would shut his trap, I am sick of being spoken for by this socialist douchebag.  Yet again he has reared his ugly head in a further attempt to ruin the intellectual reputation of students, this time completely failing to understand the issues surrounding poor graduate employment rates.

Whilst he was quick to blame government for a lack of growth planning and again attempted to highlight the "problems" with higher tuition fees, he seemed to completely miss the fact that our higher education system is a failing system.  Aaron seemed to imply that it was solely the government’s fault that our education system is falling behind other nations and that the tax payer is responsible for creating graduate jobs.

Firstly whilst the government is currently in control of university budgets they are in no way in control of the quality of the education delivered (I could easily make the case for a market based system here but its a bit easy).  One reason many of our students are not employed is because they are unemployable, I am witnessing, first hand, the capabilities of the average student, and am constantly complaining about the lack of real educational content on my course.  It seems pretty obvious to me that students taking crap degrees will not be employable; hence perhaps we should start addressing this issue first and foremost.  Not to mention the complete over subscription and subsidisation of higher education places, which has left the job marked saturated and now there simply aren't enough jobs to go around.  Is this the fault of the government, yes, can this be fixed by further government intervention, no.

Secondly as for a lack of a "growth plan" I do not for a second believe that having the government attempt to craft a job market is in the slightest bit desirable.  I was highlighting this point to a fellow student the other day, markets are very good at allocating resources, ideas/products which are unwanted fail to find financial support, where as ideas/products which are sought after succeed thanks to consumers/investors.  In other words markets mean that good ideas float and bad ones sink.  Government allocation of resources results in support for ideas which they think there is demand for, not necessarily in line with actual requirements (the market); therefore they end up keeping bad ideas afloat at huge expense to the taxpayer (see the NHS).

How does this apply to student employability?  Easy, when governments meddle with the jobs markets (through tax adjustments or financial incentives) they are creating a job market fallacy, supporting jobs which would not naturally survive in a competitive market (i.e jobs the market does not want).  Eventually this will become unsustainable, costing the taxpayer a fortune and costing students their jobs.

The solution is simple, let consumers to purchase goods they want (lower taxes), enable companies to employ students to create the desired goods (lower taxes & no job market tinkering) and allow universities to take on students which these companies require & charge varying rates for education depending upon the employability and quality of the degree (market for degrees).  If there are not enough jobs do not attempt to force students through universitiy just for the sake of bragging rights, if there are not enough graduates allow market forces (supply & demand) to adjust the system.  There is no need for the hideous level of government intervention suggested by the NUS President.