Many young people make the decision to go university believing that this will improve their prosepects. But, in the current jobs market, having a degree does not necessarily mean that you are more likely to get a better job than a person without a degree.

Also, many degrees on offer are not worth the paper the paper they are written on, the "mickey-mouse" degrees. People who study them are left without good job prospects and huge debts from student loans. It would be better if these degrees were discontinued as they are a waste of time for all concerned.

Classical degrees do not lead to a good career prospect either. The University of Sheffield recently attempted to discontinue its Biblical Studies course for financial reasons, even though it still had a fairly good following and was a traditional course that all Universities provide in some form or other. During a recession, a known catalyst for fascism, such an anti-intellectual activity is going to run the risk of creating the perfect conditions for the kind of ignorant population even more prone to following a fascist leader.

This country is in a huge amount of debt and ways need to be found to save money. All areas of the public sector face cuts so why should universities be any different?

The government has defended these cuts with one minister David Lammy quoted in the BBC as saying "these savings come against a background a record government investment in higher education."

There is a reason why the funding should not be cut from University funding as opposed to all other sectors; because it is through education that we will reform the country and improve our living standards. When looking at what to cut funding from, we should not make cuts in the things that will promote to countries economical growth and wealth. If we cut from University education, we will have a lower level of degree standards, a lower level of teaching standards and a lower graduation rate of the working classes. This will mean less social mobility; of people working their way out of manual labour via hard work in education.

We need to promote the things in society that solve our problems of the future and take funding away from the areas which will harm us. The bingo tax lowering should be scrapped, as should the funding of geriatric wards; we have far too many living old people to fund and they should see the cuts, not the productive youth. Given the recession, this is the harsh realistic view we need to take.

The goal of 50% of our youth going to University was an unrealistic and yielded no benefit. If 50% went to University who would take the manual jobs that do not need university education? We still need hairdressers, mechanics and builders. We need people to sweep our streets and collect our rubbish and fix our pipes. If 50% went to University, none of those people would be willing to do the manual jobs after obtaining an academic degree. Therefore the cut in funding of Universities will lower the amount of students attending, and therefore there will be a greater pool of youths ready to take manual jobs upon which our country depends. This is a good effect.

Last year tens of thousands of A Level students were unable to go to university as a the number of places were capped. University's who took too many students in were fined. This year the same will happen again. Those who missed out on a place last year, will have a priority over others for this years' places thus creating a bottleneck.

This is very unfair. This government set itself a target to ensure that fifty per cent of all young people would get the oppertunity to go to university. Now, the same government seems to backtracking on this promise. More people are considering university than ever as the jobs market is becoming increasingly difficult and more careers require a degree, for example, nursing which until recently you could learn on the job.

Cuts have to be made, and the Government recognise that there are some areas where cutting in funding will not benefit the growth in wealth of the population. Maths and science are areas where Britain lags behind compared to other European countries far fewer people research maths and the two mathematical sciences; physics and chemistry. Many people however, take the humanities route. This is an over subscribed subject area. It would therefore make sense to maintain the level of funding in under populated subject areas to encourage students to take them as opposed to the degree disciplines which too many people study anyway. It is the research of maths and science that will allow our technology industry to grow and will improve our livelihoods. Yet another piece of research into human behaviour would not derive the same benefit.

According to the Times, universities will lose around £950 million over the next three years. This will have a damaging effect on the quality of teaching and research projects. Some subject will suffer more than most as the government intends to safeguard subjects such as maths and science over other subjects. £10 million will be made available to universities so that they can shift teaching towards these subjects.

Other subjects are already underfunded. I studied a humanities degree at university and less money was spent on my subject than the many science courses on offer at the same university and yet I paid the same amount in tution fees. There were not enough books to go around which was particualrly bad when you had to reaserch for an essay!

People that go to university deserve a good level of teaching and support from their lecturers.

In the pre budget report the Government stated that it would help the youths by offering them a training placement in an industry. The scheme that ran before that offered this gave this opportunity to youths who were unemployed for 12 months. In the pre-budget report, Alistair Darling lowered the waiting time to 6 months. So there are positive sides to this recession for youths. This is especially true for youths who would not want to go to university any way; youths who want experience in more manual fields of employment.

Recently, times have been hard for young people. It is increasingly hard to find a job. Many companies are not hiring people. Youth unemployment has risen to a very high level all over the UK and things do not seem to be improving. Recently, a local company near to where I live announced that they were closing their call centre with the loss of 600 jobs. Many if these employees are young people who have worked there since leaving school. Youth unemployment is likely to increase.

The other option open to young people is to go to university but now that option is being taken away as there will be fewer places. Applications have already increased by ten per cent this year. What options are there left for young people?