IPPN

It's difficult not to sympathise with students, soon to face debts of up to £30,000 for a three-year university course. It would be callous if generations of parents and graduates, who enjoyed comfortable maintenance grants, or paid relatively low tuition fees, felt otherwise.

That sympathy is certainly being tested by scenes of youthful nihilism, which last week accompanied anti-fees demonstrations in London and Belfast. The students' arguments are undermined whenever a minority of protesters misbehave.

'Anarchists' and others aren't representative of the vast bulk of students, whose anxieties about the future of third level education in the UK are well-founded.

Some protest organisers, though, are decidedly ambivalent in their condemnations of misbehaviour. It has been a frequent refrain that while acts of vandalism are wrong, they are also 'understandable'. The National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, for instance, advocates 'direct action', which even if it were non-violent, risks provoking trouble.

There's little doubt the hysterical tenor of the protests is impeding a more fundamental debate about who has a right to third level education and how it should be funded.

Full Story: www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk