Hugh Reilly: There's no such thing as a free education

Published on Monday 10 January 2011 15:10

It's the news every parent dreads: their child has received an unconditional acceptance at a distant university.

As the soon-to-be student excitedly hugs his parents, mum and dad do their best to feign joy; after all, given the financial outlay of supporting a young person's higher education, the brown envelope from the university admissions office may as well have contained a thoughtful thank you note from the nice man in Nigeria who has emptied their bank account.

Milton Freidman said there's no such thing as a free lunch - most parents would extend that economic theory to the notion of free education.

In a recent survey of parents in England and Wales, 48 per cent stated that they are unable to help with their child's costs and, added to the issue of crippling student debt, this has led to many questioning the value of a university education. Fortunately, students in Scotland do not pay tuition fees … yet.

On calculating the true cost of one's child embarking on a four-year degree course, a parent would be forgiven for lapsing into a depressed state that could only be relieved by attaching jump-leads to a car battery and one's temples. Having finally accepted that even the threat of suicide has failed to convince one's offspring to apply for a place at a university within commuting distance, the task of the concerned parent is to find appropriate accommodation for the stubborn parasite.

Luckily, universities provide affordable halls of residences for first-year students. I'll never forget my daughter excitedly informing me that an en suite room was only 3,800. I can still see her pretty, crestfallen face when I told her she'd be staying in a 2,600 standard room (budget room sounded a tad vulgar). Searching for a bed-sit in a faraway city used to be an awkward, time-consuming endeavour but, thanks to high-speed broadband, the websites of estate agencies can be accessed immediately. Experts in the property field claim it's all about location, location, location, but hard-pressed parents prefer to hit the "sort by price" button when browsing potential hovels, sorry, homes, for their loved one.

A sure sign one is plumbing the depths of the bargain end of the market occurs when a flat appears on a webpage with the words "no images available". This can only mean one of two things: either the dampness in the room has caused the letting agent's digital camera to malfunction or the TV show Homes From Hell has copyright on the visual surroundings.

Energy costs add to the financial headache for mater and pater, especially given the fact that teenagers seem to believe electrical switches only have an "on" function.

Apparently, those determined to drain one's disposable income require to eat, but most will eventually yield to the inevitability of developing a taste for all noodle-based products.If the idea of handing over rent money to a Rachman-like landlord goes against the grain, then buying a flat is a seductive solution to the housing crisis. When my son was studying in Dundee, I purchased a tenement property in a deprived part of town, or, in the parlance of salespeople, an up-and-coming area of the city.

To be fair, by dint of the council's subsequent efforts to gentrify the area by strategically placing hanging baskets and installing brighter street lighting so that mugging victims could more easily identify who had robbed them, I hit the jackpot when I sold the flat. But, due to the present depressed and uncertain future of house prices, only the brave would speculate to accumulate.

There are other expensive incidentals a parent incurs. For example, despite university libraries remaining open till late, a laptop is deemed to be an essential learning tool. Even the least savvy of parents know that, in terms of hits, coursework-related websites will come a distant second to Bebo and Facebook.

In my opinion, the financial sacrifice would be worth it for parents if a good career were guaranteed for their youngster. In my case, one son with an engineering degree is unemployed and the other is over qualified for the position he holds in a media company.

Free education? I don't buy that.