Privilege – The Orbital

Academia is limited to a privileged few, and there needs to be a more significant push to create a space for those lacking such privilege. The means test is a critical part of the university admissions process but, regardless of the support systems fashioned by some institutions, many students from low-income backgrounds fall at the first financial hurdle. Universities, or more specifically the makeup of the university; its staff and students, need to acknowledge that this is a systematic failure that they are all too complicit within. Some students are unable to wage a space in the academic world as it becomes a commodity that is afforded by a few. This embrace of commodification favours those with an element of financial privilege. However, the growing marketisation of academic institut...

At this moment, our youth is more ideologically and socially tangled then it has ever been before. The glamourisation of drugs and gang activity in the mainstream is slowly ruining our mentalities. Instead of thinking for the long-term, we are obsessed with grabbing short-term gains, such as conditional acceptance and temporary self-fulfilment. We are not stowing money away to pay for a mortgage or worthy future investment because systemic class and racial oppression has made it impossible for us to do so. Unfortunately, the enormous property price rise in London and surrounding areas doesn’t enable many people our age to buy their own houses, but there’s still a lack of knowledge on how to finance ourselves sensibly as well as a lack of opportunity for us to get into a better position ove...

Tag: Privilege

Financial Privilege: Academia’s Worst Kept Secret

Trapped Youth