Whiny students

I saw on the news a few days ago the story of some University of Amsterdam students protesting by holing up in a university building until they were kicked out by the police. I didn't catch though what they were protesting about until yesterday. The students were protesting a proposal by the Education Secretary to increase school fees if a student takes longer than 5 1/2 years to finish their study. This is a big problem here, and especially at the UvA, that people just drag their studies on for years, for one reason or another. O's brother was guilty of this, at least in part because it wasn't really costing him anything (the govt paid some living costs, and his mom was putting up money as well), no one was pushing for him to be done with school already, and it's easier to sit on your ass being a student than to go out and get a job and such. He only finally left school after his mom said she was pulling the plug on his finances. He had been in school for about 5 years and still never got his propedeuse, the mark that you've finished with your first year of study.

I found out about the reason of the protest in Het Parool, which interviewed 5 UvA students to ask their opinion on this proposal. Out of the 5, only 2 agreed that you should start paying more if you take so long to do your study. The others went on about having a job and wanting to study abroad and this and that, so how can you expect them to be done in 5 1/2 years?! As one of the students who agreed with the idea said, in his first year he'd spend 10 hours a week on school, and spend the rest of the time watching television and generally sitting around on his arse. Perhaps the school is to blame as well, since it seems some studies are designed to be slow-going, or are so disorganized that they end up that way. Also, it just seems to be the norm here, since one of the disagreers to the proposal said she planned to do her study in 8 years, just like her father. There's (unfortunately) one parent who won't be saying "What the fuck are you still doing in school anyway?!?"

So, a lot of students are happily still going strong in their mid-20s, no one's pushing them to get out faster, so why not make them pay more if they take so damn long? And the amount they want students to pay for being in school so long? 4500 euros a year. Boo-fucking-hoo. I think that might have maybe covered most of my room and board at college. Ok, I went to an expensive school, but still, I think most students in the US would love to have a tuition that low. Yeah, US schools are too expensive and they should make education more affordable, but I think 4500 eur is reasonable to pay _before_ you're there 5 1/2 years. Like one of these students interviewed said, in America it's really expensive, so you value being there more and don't waste your time (generally speaking, heh). Anyway, so some students avoided more studying to occupy a building and get beat around a bit by some cops. They say they occupied this particular building because some student protest had gone on in the same building in 1969 (I don't know what against). How retro. Now get the fuck back to class and quit your whinging.