phew! said Daniel

I was smacked in the face today, coming to the harsh realisation that post-graduate study is not even a remote possibility for me, nor anyone short of the rich. This fills me with rage, sadness, disillusionment, homicidal thoughts and apathy, at once.

A couple of years back I was so pleased to find that post-graduate study was a possibility. At the time I was stunned because I thought Howard would have clipped back people like me from having a double dip.

That was then, this is now and holes have been closed.

While there is some financial relief, where the government will loan you money to study, it does not cover the cost of the degree I am interested in. In fact there will be a shortfall of around $40k. One would have to agree that is quite the nice gaping chasm.

Admittedly, I'm looking to study law, a very fee heavy course, but this is beside the point. Whether it were landscape architecture, design, engineering, arts, whatever, I'd be in trouble, because post-graduate study is so heavily penalised. The (often silent) conservative reasoning for this is that if you've done one degree, you've done enough. If you need to do more than one you can damn well fund it yourself, hippy.

The more media friendly explanation is heard in the press all too frequently:

Why should Mr. and Mrs. Jones from Broadmeadows have to pay for some perpetual student to go off and receive degree number 4?

I'm not going to get into the spin behind that kind of statement but it does expose the heart of conservative politics on this matter. Keep them uneducated, keep them deprived, that way they'll never know and never challenge.

Sad, but true. It is made even more disgusting given that most of the politicians sitting at federal level did not even have to pay for their education. I wonder who did? Oh, that's right, the taxpayers.

Wait. I think I can hear some land that needs a freeway built over it.