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Crossing the country for freedom
Students moving away for university often cite more freedom as a motivator – but what does this really mean?
I write this post from Tofino, B.C., a small surf town on the beautiful west coast of Vancouver Island. I am on a final family holiday before moving across the country to start university at the end of August. One might reasonably assume that I would seize this opportunity to spend quality time with my dad and younger brother, enjoying their soon-to-be-rare company and our incredible surroundings. And yet, this simply hasn’t been the case.
I find myself almost constantly caught up by thoughts of my impending departure and thus very much removed from the present moment. This absence from the moment necessarily impedes my enjoyment of my family and the experience as a whole; obviously not the best way to spend my final days with them, but perhaps excusable given the relative enormity of the change ahead.
This has all lead me to consider what exactly it is about moving away to university that so excites me (and pretty much every other college-bound friend I know). What, truly, are the differences between living with and without your parents, and why are they so appealing?
The obvious answer, of course, is more freedom, but this too begs further investigation. Freedom to do what? At this point, most somewhat reasonable 18-year-olds I know enjoy the trust of their parents enough that they are allowed to do pretty much everything they want. So again, freedom to do what?
A concept that keeps coming up in discussion with fellow soon-to-be- as well as current university students is a desire to re-invent oneself. Of course, our parents aren’t forbidding us from doing this now, but the freedom that comes with moving away to a place where you don’t know (many) people makes re-inventing oneself a lot easier.
Before I go any further, I think it’s important to clarify that a desire to “re-invent yourself” need not carry a negative association with low self-esteem or an explicit dissatisfaction with your current self. To me, it represents a recognition that any negative behavioral trends or patterns are much easier to correct (at the same time as putting new emphasis on those traits you like) when surrounded with people who don’t already expect you to behave a certain way – and this is a good thing. This is what I think that notion of freedom ultimately means – a fresh start – and this is pretty exciting.
So as the countdown to move-in day begins, I’ll keep this in mind as I try to stay present and enjoy the last days with my family, friends, and old self.
Privatize top 5 British universities, create “Ivy League”
“It is one of the few things we are world competitive in,” says UK university pres
The president of one of the UK’s leading universities, Imperial College London, has called on the government to privatize the country’s top five universities.
He suggested that these leading universities be able to charge unlimited tuition, to allow them to compete with and raise funds equivalent to those at the disposal of the leading US institutions. UK tuition is currently capped at around £3,000 per year — equivalent to approximately US$5,000 or C$5,500. That’s one-seventh the undergraduate tuition fee at leading US universities, such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton. According to Sir Roy Anderson, head of Imperial College, London, the goal is to create a pool of universities that could compete with the US Ivy League. To give these British universities the tools to do so, Sir Roy proposes that tuition at the top 5 UK universities be allowed to “float free” of the government’s cap on tuition, effectively removing these universities from the UK’s publicly funded university system.
Though the Ivies charge very high tuition, the extra cash allows them to offer extensive financial aid to lower and middle income students.
The five universities Sir Roy singled out for privatization were Imperial College, Oxford, Cambridge, the London School of Economics and University College London. They are generally seen as the UK’s most prestigious institutions, and are highly ranked by such international surveys as the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the Shanghai Jiao Tong Academic Ranking of World Universities. (There are some serious questions about the methodology of the second survey, but we’ll leave that discussion for another day).
Sir Roy told the Standard:
“How important is higher education to UK Plc? Staggeringly so. It is a multi-billion-pound industry. It is one of the few things we are world competitive in.
“If you take the top five universities, they have enormous potential to earn income for Britain. How best to do that? My own view would be to privatise them. You don’t want to be subject to the mores of government funding or changing educational structures.”
…
“Higher education is a product that Britain does superbly. Even if in 20 years’ time Imperial is a private institution able to compete with the Harvards and Yales, like them, I very much hope we would have the scholarship endowment to continue to take people from all walks of life.”
Sir Roy also condemned the Government for being preoccupied with dying industries such as car manufacturing.
