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Student panic over possible Brexit
Photo by CC user jeffdjevdet on Flickr
A current hot topic in the UK is the EU Referendum vote, there are two campaigns the ‘In’ campaign which obviously wants the UK to remain in the EU and the ‘Out’ campaign which wants the UK to leave the EU. Both sides have been working hard to persuade the UK electorate to get out and vote, whether it’s to remain in or go out. However one group feel like their concerns and questions have not been answered by either campaign nor do they feel like both sides are giving a lot of miss information.
University students are feeling maligned by the EU referendum, research conducted by My Voucher Codes shows that 64% worry about what will happen if we leave the EU, whether it will be harder to travel and work around Europe and what effect it will have on jobs in the UK. Students also felt that there has not been enough information from either campaign on key issues, nor has either campaign shown any thought out arguments and most importantly students felt that neither campaign cares about the views of the younger generation nor engage with them. You can read the full results from the survey of students here.
The students spoke of their concerns:
“Both campaigns seem inherently biased and it’s difficult to access impartial views”
“There has been a lot of scaremongering however there has been no clear statistics as to what will happen with both sides using ambiguous stats to support their own argument”
“Mudslinging campaigns that feel designed to discredit the other rather than reinforce their own argument although the in campaign feels more credible”
As the cost of attending university and forging ahead with further education increases, it’s understandable that students are worried about the effects if we left the EU, there would be loss of funding from EU grants that universities receive, also collaborations between UK and EU universities could also be complicated or stopped. In addition foreign students studying here in the UK could also suffer as well as British students studying abroad who could easily see higher fees.
Looking after university students were also worried about job prospects and workers’ rights. Currently worker’s right protection laws in the UK have come from EU ruling such as the working time directive and holiday, maternity and sickness rights, however the out party have not said whether these will be kept or if the government will pander to big business and scrap worker protection. Prospects for jobs in the UK isn’t easy either whether you hold a degree or not and with mounting debts leavers will not want to see a loss of jobs if we leave the EU.