You think you’ve got it hard? Well try being a student in the current cost of living crisis: let’s eat the rich!

With the discussions of raising tuition fees to nearly 28 grand a year and relying on food banks, this is probably the worst time to be a student.

With the cost of living it’s becoming harder for those who truly want to earn a degree as we are being deprived of a brighter future.

Call me an optimist but I was taught that earning a degree is the biggest success you can earn in your life, the sense of completing something through its hardships has been engraved in my brain before I could even talk.

Being a woman in the new generation of having the opportunity to earn a degree is pretty arrogant but in the good way, I earned something that I truly deserve without any support from a self-reclaiming man.

But as life goes, we can never succeed without any trials and tribulations in the way, you would think maybe the journey is never ending essays or extremely hard exams that don’t make quite sense.

The problem my generation has to face is the rising costs of living. You may think because we’ve been through a global pandemic, we can live through a recession. 

Wrong! The total opposite and it’s frustrating to listen to the upper class spewing nonsense that it’s not as bad as we think. These are the same people who earn within the tax bracket that doesn’t require them to actually pay taxes.

What happened to the rich? It seems we’re living in a world where we eat the poor to make them poorer. Are we trying to have a very definite line between classes?

We allow the government to create a system where it is extremely unfair and ethically wrong. God forbid, the rich lose less than 10% of their earnings for the country’s future like the NHS and rehabilitation for those leaving the terrible prison system (which was also created by the upper class).

I don’t know how they are going to live without their prosecco and fancy cheese once a week.  

I don’t remember voting or choosing to live with a government where their incompetence has been destroying anything good about this country every single day.

I’m not stupid, I’m not ignoring the fact that we live in a system where the working class will forever work hard but never move up in the hierarchy that they never created. 

I don’t know which system is more messed up. Student finance determines how much money we deserve depending on the parent’s earning or having to put ourselves in financial debt for the rest of our lives. 

Unless you are in the certain percentile where you are very lucky to have parents who are financially comfortable to pay off any extortionate fees universities may throw in our faces. 

I remember my first year of university worried that my education would leave my parents broke after learning I had to pay 6k just for a cube room and a shared kitchen with those who never had any home training. 

The anxious feeling was eating me inside as I felt guilty for a semi-good grade thinking I did not work hard enough for the same parents who sacrificed everything to be where I am right now.

As if education is not already exhausting enough, we are expected to work during the summers where we can actually catch a break and during the term times where lectures are becoming harder to understand.

Why should I as a student need to worry about money? Society has taught us that to have a decent career with a decent pay we must at minimum have a degree, it’s already depressing that the current average graduate pay is £24,000 according to the Graduates Outcomes reports.

Why aren’t we rioting like the French until the government has heard our basic demands? 

I understand that it is strange to ask questions in an opinion article but I’ve got many unanswered questions that I know will never be fulfilled. It’s heart breaking to watch those who are currently struggling as you read this with basic necessities like food and water.

Worrying about not being able to afford food is frightening, I’m afraid to even look at my bank account because I fear it’ll be a number I don’t want to know. 

I envy those who have the luxury to not time themselves in the shower, so they don’t have to reserve water and those who can turn on the heating through the night without layering until it’s physically uncomfortable to sleep in.

If I knew the cost of living would be this high, I regret saying this but I wish I never applied to university. I wish I never signed my 30+ years of my life to student finance. I wish I never had the enthusiasm of having big dreams for a future which is already looking slim to none. 

Dreaming big is the least of my worries, I should be focusing on which jobs will be helping me pay 1% of my student finance per year. Forget actually enjoying a career, the government believes that we are machines made to work and pay our dues.

To fear the future is sad but this is the life that was given to me. Do I have hopes that our lives will change if we reform our government and create an equal living for all?

Honestly, no. The government has failed us time and time again and sadly we are the hamster in their hamster wheels. Their entertainment is seeing us fail time and time as we try to better our lives.