Students

Another week, another spate of barmy campus bans and ‘safe space’ shenanigans by a new breed of hyper–sensitive censorious youth. At Oxford University, law students are now officially notified when the content of a lecture might upset them. In Cambridge, there were calls for an Africa-themed end-of-term dinner to be cancelled just in case it caused offence to someone somewhere. It all seems beyond parody. ‘What is wrong with these thin-skinned little emperors?’ we cry. But while we can harrumph and sneer at Generation Snowflake’s antics, we miss a crucial point: we created them. First, it is important to note that young people who cry offence are not feigning hurt

David Cameron can be a frustrating figure at times. He wrote an article for the Sunday Times this week in which he drew attention to the under-representation of disadvantaged students in Britain’s universities, which he was quite right to do. But he is wrong about the ethnicity of those students and wrong about where the problem lies. It’s working-class white boys who fare the worst, not black boys, and when it comes to broadening access, the track record of our tertiary education sector is pretty good. It’s state schools that could be doing more. First, a few facts. If you broaden the definition of non-white Britons to encompass all ethnic

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/projectfear/media.mp3″ title=”Julie Burchill and Tim Stanley discuss Brighton’s Brideshead set” startat=1352] Listen [/audioplayer]My adopted hometown of Brighton and Hove has always had a somewhat well-to-do image, it’s fair to say. Though we have pockets of poverty, I was surprised by the size of the houses and gardens — room for a pony! — when I started going to house parties on the notorious Whitehawk estate. The old Cockney phrase ‘You think your aunt’s come up from Brighton!’ to denote a person who is free and easy with their money pays tribute to this agreeable state of affairs. But although B&H may appear affluent, it hasn’t really been posh since

  Things I am going to ban when, by popular acclaim, I am elected your Dictator For Life in 2016.   1. Onions where the brown skin doesn’t come off easily. You know the ones: where the papery outer layer clings so tightly that you have to pick it off laboriously with a sharp knife and it takes forever. I hate these onions so much. I’m pretty sure they’re all foreign, though I may be mistaken.   2. Slimline tonic water. (See also: Diet Coke; semi-skimmed milk) ‘Oh? Is it really? Sorry about that. I think it’s all we’ve got.’ ‘Aspartame? Oh, is that not good?’ ‘Not sure I can

University towns are already awash with fur-trimmed gowns and proud parents, but behind the smiles there’s a glimmer of resentment: four in 10 of those graduating this year think they’ve been ripped-off. According to a survey of 1000 final-year students by ComRes, students are split over whether they think their degree was good value for money. One factor determining their verdict was their subject, with two-thirds of those studying science, technology, engineering and maths saying their course was worth the fees. Just 44 per cent of humanities and social science students agreed. An obvious reason for this discrepancy is contact time: medics get at least 20 contact hours a week

I get defensive when feminists are accused of being prudes. There’s nothing prudish in critiquing a monotonously promiscuous culture; in despairing of unrealistic body standards, or believing, as I’ve argued before, that porn is healthy, even necessary, when it’s privately stashed under the mattress, but doesn’t belong on the high street. Then a bunch of students does something so reactionary in the name of feminism that we may as well scatter séance candles about the university library and revive en masse the spirit of the Victorians. At Columbia University – where Emma Sulkowicz’s campaign for redress against an alleged rapist has inflamed debate about universities’ approach to sexual assault – four undergraduates

If I had a penny for every time a politician or a journalist insinuated that of all the issues facing Britain in the 21st century, public transport was the thing that affected my life the most, I would own a bus company. If I had a penny for the amount of times someone asked how angry I was about Clegg and tuition fee rises, I would have no student debt. But this is the political climate we currently live in. Modern politicians have well and truly shafted young people, and not just through policy changes or obvious attempts to bribe their older, greyer core vote. I’m talking about Westminster’s desire to

Could the current generation of parents be the first ones who won’t want their children to go to university? Until now that mortarboard photo on the sideboard has always been the dream, visual proof that your offspring have munched their way to the top of the educational food chain. Advancement by degree. But that was before tuition fees. Now there’s a price tag attached to your little one’s ‘ology’ (to quote Maureen Lipman in those BT ads), how many people will automatically see it as a good thing? Perhaps more of us will refuse to prostrate ourselves before the great god Uni? If so, that can only be a good