Students on the march

Gabriel Rozenberg has some tough words for the National Union of Students in his Times Article. He describes the NUS protests against top-up fees as “dreary demos” and “embarrassing in their lack of gratitude”. In the later, Rozenberg may have a point. Prier to the student protest in London on Sunday the NUS commissioned an ICM poll which asked a thousand people if they thought the cost of University is a deterrent. The result was unsurprising, 74% said it was. However the paradox is that given this result there seems to be a lack of public support for the NUS position on top-up fees. This may be because that while the public agree that the cost is a deterrent, they might argue that it shouldn’t be, and that given the level of State subsidy and the recent increase in student numbers, £3000 is a perfectly reasonable sum to ask for. Therefore Rozenberg could be right in describing the NUS protestors as ungrateful, a view which if widely held, will only make the public even less sympathetic to the NUS position.