On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 19:45:05 +0000, Clive D. W. Feather wrote:

In article , Paul Weaver
writes
Vague memory says I paid 80 pounds a term for a bedsit at Trinity, and I
was a few years after you. Grants were something like 1400 for the year
So, no fees

There were fees, but they were included in the grant payment system and
were therefore normally ignored. The 1400 was net of fees, and was the
maximum if your parents were poor. IIRC, the minimum was 300 - your
parents were expected to fill the gap, and you were in difficulty if
they didn't.

and twice the grant,

Twice what grant?

6 times the grant (loan in our case), adjusted for cost of living.

and you didn't have to pay it back

Correct - that's what the word "grant" means. The governments of the

Grant Loan same thing (aside from paying it back)

previous decades had come to this strange conclusion that having
graduates was good for the country. Of course, we didn't have every
piddling little school for over-18s calling itself a "University".

Indeed

Then soon as you got into government you decided the rest of us wouldn't
have that.

Excuse me? I am not and never have been a part of government.

You as in "your generation".

And of course in 0 years time we'll have to pay for your pension too.

And that makes even less sense. *I'm* paying for my pension - a
significant proportion of my salary goes that way. And I don't get it
for a couple of decades.


Sorry, 20 years, useless keyboard.
--
Everything I write here is my personal opinion, and should not be taken as fact.