| Comment | I'm a current post-grad, from a working-class family and all I can say is that I've been extremely lucky. I was able to secure a discount for my Masters' fees (which I still had to borrow some money to cover completely) but I was forced to give up my flat and move back home to an overcrowded house to finish my degree - I just couldn't work and do my coursework at the same time.
If I hadn't secured PhD funding then I wouldn't be here sitting one. My fellow students from WC families are all fucked in one way or another - housing issues are especially prominent, but there's also a sense that a future in academia, the reason we all chose the path that we're one, is increasingly remote. More than likely we'll end up with decent jobs, but only so many of us will actually get to do what we've trained to do due to a lack of places, shit conditions and a lack of financial assets to fall back on when there's no work.
I do have colleagues who are clearly better off and can rely on generational wealth and connections - I don't resent them, but there is certainly a gap there.
I would say the posho's who are only there to get a degree because its expected of them usually fuck off after undergrad. They've neither the talent nor the will to study their subject area in-depth. Dealing with them at undergrad really sucked though! |
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