Mature Students

I'm writing to-day on the basis of an article a fellow student showed me during the week from the newspaper and it revolved around the free fee's for students. The article expressed that all students were only interested in boozing and partying and why should fee's be paid by the taxpayer. Now as a mature student while driving to college this opened a number of thoughts for me. While I know that mature students are in the minority within the third level education system (possibly changing due to the downturn)  it bothered me that I was stereotyped into a particular category and that the term student brings up very many notions and myths for people. I am not saying that all my younger fellow students should be categorized in this way either but to me seems a very shallow opinion considering the amount of work that is involved in college life. Many mature students have to come to terms with computer skills, time management skills etc. and to be stereotyped into a category of drunken louts is not good. Another programme I watched on funding students stereotyped students into those posh wealthy kids from Foxrock. In my experience of college life I haven't seen too many rich wealthy people or too many boozy students. For some mature students a college social life sometimes doesn't exist due to family commitments and the workload of college.

Unfortunately, in the past college was not an option for many families and it was just a matter of getting out to work to make a living and work at anything in order to get an income, no such thing as a career didn't feature, working in factories the minute you turned fourteen for some on your birthday. I think it is fantastic that mature students can now go to college and experience what it is like. While it can be very hard with family and juggling life in general it can be a valuable experience. For mature students termed as over 23 there are many avenues into college life through Vocational Training Opportunity Schemes and Post Leaving Certificate courses which are all open to mature students.

With the cuts it would be sad to see college life becoming only for the minority and not providing everyone with an opportunity in life that they would like to experience so for all those myths about students all being of the ages of 18 & 19 and drinking their way through college is unfair. Of course our young people party like I did at that age, but this is also not confined to the student community. By creating this impression of student's it only adds to further resentment from the working taxpayers etc. Many students have to commute long distances to find a facility to cater for what they want to study and pay for accommodation, food etc. so I think students should get the break they deserve, after all society benefits from an educated community and other countries want these students as part of their societies so why aren't they valued. Please find attached an article about mature students and lifelong learning.

http://www.ucc.ie/publications/heeu/Mature/mature_6.htm