Higher Education (response to Guardian Blog)

http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/education/mortarboard/2012/jun/18/academia-not-stressful-for-me?fb_source=other_multiline&fb_action_types=news.reads
'Personally, I think we need to move away from the narrative of stress and focus instead on the opportunities for fulfillment that academia can offer.' I agree. I hereby withdraw all your funding, double your workload and expect you to teach for free.

The world should be 'preached' to about the value of our work by the Universities, the government and the media. Instead the latter continually berates students for being lazy party animals with rich parents (okay, some are) while the government look to cut funding to Universities and students (who are forced to pay for the privilege of higher education), hoping parents and private investors can fill the void (higher education should be a right for all young people who have the academic ability to be enriched by the experience, benefiting wider society).
(As they are not paid) It is not the job of students to 'preach' Students should study, teachers teach, disseminators disseminate.

Researching/studying is both stressful and joyful. Trying to think up new ideas, interpret difficult texts and write academically to tight deadlines is stressful, hard work. The knowledge that failure is possible and all the time and money invested could be wasted is the most stressful thing of all. That is what people are anxious about.
As someone who sees 'cheerfulness' as somehow opposite to stress you clearly know nothing about the latter.

UK Universities are in general chronically underfunded and shockingly managed (having worked for two, studied at another and seen how things are done in Switzerland). Since the credit crunch in 2008 Universities have purged staff to a shocking degree, generally expecting academic and administrative staff to pick up the slack resulting in higher workloads and less pay. Researchers on 2-3 year contracts have stress, as do lecturers on 2 year probation with REF. Lecturers and professors have the constant threat of redundancy from departmental cuts dependent on academic 'trends' that seem to involve an ongoing shift toward 'business studies' type courses and Mandarin at the expense of Humanities subjects that are at the core of our cultural identity. I have seen professors go blind with stress.

What is most worrying is the Conservative focus of your post. It seems to be heading towards 'Big Society' territory, implying that it is right for students to pay for the joyful experience of higher education, and perhaps that teachers should do so for free as well as it is so much fun. The government has already tried to make public librarians volunteers so this is not so far-fetched.

(I am final year distance learning PHD (who loves his subject) at a supportive University, with a 2 year old child and working a 4 day week).