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Did anyone on here go to University in the early 70's?









Shuggie

Well-known member
Sep 19, 2003
666
East Sussex coast
Your starter for ten ...

We weren't charged any tuition fees.
We were given a grant to cover living expenses
We could claim travel to/from Uni at the start and end of term
We could claim unemployment benefit during the holidays
We could get housing benefit too
And we all ended up in debt anyway. Some had an overdraft as big as 200 quid.

We wore ex-army greatcoats and went on lots of demonstrations
We thought the world would be a better place by time we were 50
We thought 'cool' was uncool
Women's liberation was important
We were grateful to the previous generation for discovering sex
The pill
The girls that didn't think every man was a rapist were very 'friendly'
USA was the evil empire
The police were fascist pigs
The three day week was spent in candle-lit student bars
When we had electricity John Lennon's Working Class Hero was on the jukebox 6 times a night (poss mid 70s)

The Goldstone was a cauldron of noise, energy and passion (occasionally)
Sully was the bees knees
Brighton Rule OK
Willie Irvine 3rd in goal of the season

'A' Levels were proper hard
Tutors enjoyed humiliating hungover/indolent students

Student digs were cold, inhospitable places with two-bar electric fires

And much much more ...
 


el punal

Well-known member
Your starter for ten ...

We weren't charged any tuition fees.
We were given a grant to cover living expenses
We could claim travel to/from Uni at the start and end of term
We could claim unemployment benefit during the holidays
We could get housing benefit too
And we all ended up in debt anyway. Some had an overdraft as big as 200 quid.

We wore ex-army greatcoats and went on lots of demonstrations
We thought the world would be a better place by time we were 50
We thought 'cool' was uncool
Women's liberation was important
We were grateful to the previous generation for discovering sex
The pill
The girls that didn't think every man was a rapist were very 'friendly'
USA was the evil empire
The police were fascist pigs
The three day week was spent in candle-lit student bars
When we had electricity John Lennon's Working Class Hero was on the jukebox 6 times a night (poss mid 70s)

The Goldstone was a cauldron of noise, energy and passion (occasionally)
Sully was the bees knees
Brighton Rule OK
Willie Irvine 3rd in goal of the season

'A' Levels were proper hard
Tutors enjoyed humiliating hungover/indolent students

Student digs were cold, inhospitable places with two-bar electric fires

And much much more ...

That pretty much covers it! A few much, much more . . . . decent bands at both Sussex Uni. and Brighton Poly (as was then), sitting on bean bags and listening to LPs through headphones at Virgin Records by the Clock Tower, the great little clothes shop in Air Street that sold superb Grand-Dad shirts and Loons and scoop neck T-shirts. The Cliftonville by Hove station that was a proper boozer with a lino floor, nicotine browned ceiling and a thick fog of tobacco smoke that was so thick you couldn't see the other end of the bar. (All this before it was made into a purple and pink French boudoir!).

McEwans and Newcastle Brown on the cheap at the Student Union bars!
 




gripper stebson

Well-known member
Jul 27, 2004
6,653
Your starter for ten ...

We weren't charged any tuition fees.
We were given a grant to cover living expenses
We could claim travel to/from Uni at the start and end of term
We could claim unemployment benefit during the holidays
We could get housing benefit too
And we all ended up in debt anyway. Some had an overdraft as big as 200 quid.

This probably covers it...

Basically this is the problem. I am the writer on this - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2179231/ - and we are currently having a few issues with a bit of detail regarding Uni in 1970.

Basically the plot requires a young girls Dad to have to raise some money for her to go to University in Manchester, The problem is that it was all covered by grants / fees back then as you say.

Was this the case or were there other things you / your parents had to fork out for?

Cheers.
 


Gwylan

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
31,324
Uffern
Your starter for ten ...

We weren't charged any tuition fees.
We were given a grant to cover living expenses
We could claim travel to/from Uni at the start and end of term
We could claim unemployment benefit during the holidays
We could get housing benefit too
And we all ended up in debt anyway. Some had an overdraft as big as 200 quid.

I was slightly later and I couldn't claim travel to or from university at the start of term. And housing benefit didn't come in until 1982, we didn't claim that in the 80s.

The rest rings true - my overdraft after leaving uni was a whopping £240
 


GOM

living vicariously
Aug 8, 2005
3,222
Leeds - but not the dirty bit
This probably covers it...

Basically this is the problem. I am the writer on this - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2179231/ - and we are currently having a few issues with a bit of detail regarding Uni in 1970.

Basically the plot requires a young girls Dad to have to raise some money for her to go to University in Manchester, The problem is that it was all covered by grants / fees back then as you say.

Was this the case or were there other things you / your parents had to fork out for?

Cheers.

No claiming for travel to and from, but always needed more dosh than the grant.
 




Gwylan

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
31,324
Uffern
This probably covers it...

Basically this is the problem. I am the writer on this - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2179231/ - and we are currently having a few issues with a bit of detail regarding Uni in 1970.

Basically the plot requires a young girls Dad to have to raise some money for her to go to University in Manchester, The problem is that it was all covered by grants / fees back then as you say.

Was this the case or were there other things you / your parents had to fork out for?

Cheers.

Grants were means-tested: if you were well-off, you didn't any grant; if you were a povvo git, you got the full whack.

You had to be pretty poor to get the full whack, my dad wasn't well off by any means but still had to fork out £100 a year. I was at uni with people who didn't get a bean though.

But all fees were paid, no matter how rich your parents were
 


gripper stebson

Well-known member
Jul 27, 2004
6,653
Grants were means-tested: if you were well-off, you didn't any grant; if you were a povvo git, you got the full whack.

You had to be pretty poor to get the full whack, my dad wasn't well off by any means but still had to fork out £100 a year. I was at uni with people who didn't get a bean though.

But all fees were paid, no matter how rich your parents were

This is the news I wanted to hear!!
 


alfredmizen

Banned
Mar 11, 2015
6,342
That pretty much covers it! A few much, much more . . . . decent bands at both Sussex Uni. and Brighton Poly (as was then), sitting on bean bags and listening to LPs through headphones at Virgin Records by the Clock Tower, the great little clothes shop in Air Street that sold superb Grand-Dad shirts and Loons and scoop neck T-shirts. The Cliftonville by Hove station that was a proper boozer with a lino floor, nicotine browned ceiling and a thick fog of tobacco smoke that was so thick you couldn't see the other end of the bar. (All this before it was made into a purple and pink French boudoir!).

McEwans and Newcastle Brown on the cheap at the Student Union bars!
Or the crypt ?
 








Man of Harveys

Well-known member
Jul 9, 2003
18,731
Brighton, UK
The other thing was that it was on both parents' income. Mine were divorced by the time I went to uni but both their salaries were taken into account.

I seem to remember hearing something along the lines that having divorced parents was often taken as a reason for someone to get a full grant, relatively irrespective of how much money the parents had. Could be bolox/uni urban myth.
 




Gwylan

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
31,324
Uffern
I seem to remember hearing something along the lines that having divorced parents was often taken as a reason for someone to get a full grant, relatively irrespective of how much money the parents had. Could be bolox/uni urban myth.

It certainly wasn't true for me
 


Gwylan

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
31,324
Uffern
Just thought of something else about this. Grants were administered by local authorities so it's perfectly possible that one council treated divorced parents as two and another only considered one. I suspect that the same income in, say, Kensington and Chelsea and in Burnley would not be treated the same.
 


I seem to remember that, even with means-tested grants, every student got a minimum grant of about £50 a year. Beer up north was 13p a pint in 1973 and the weekly rent for a shared house in Brighton worked out at around £3-5 a room at the beginning of the seventies. By the time I got to be a second year undergraduate (in 1967), I'd managed to save enough money (mainly from holiday jobs and the period of full-time working before I started university) to enable me to buy a five year old Ford Anglia for £180.
 











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