University or Bust: Tonight (ITV1)

The One Show (BBC1)

Is it just me, or does life as a teenager in England look incredibly hard?

Last night’s Tonight programme on ITV wasn’t about the youngsters that smash up high streets and loot sports shops. Instead it focused on those diligent youths that have been working hard to get a place at university this year, and avoid next year’s hike in tuition fees.

And following on from the contrasting fluff of The One Show on the other side, just brought it home even more, the struggle that youngsters this year face, let alone in the future when tuition fees rise.

The programme, called University or Bust, followed a group of year 13 students from Fairfax School in Sutton Coldfield as they waited for their A-level results. This year is the last that students from England will be able to pay £3,000 a year in tuition fees before it goes up next year to £9,000 a year at 64 universities. Of course, Scottish students don’t have to pay a penny – the taxpayer will be funding their education, while our youngsters will be leaving with at least £27,000 of debt.

Anyway, before I get on my soapbox, I have to say I was impressed with the group of youngsters followed in the Tonight programme.

We were told how fierce competition meant 684,649 students applied for around 436,000 places this year, but the first story we saw was a success with young Joe Collin receiving four A*s to study history and politics at Oxford University.

He has a goal of becoming Prime Minister – let’s hope he takes note of how his peers struggle with debt, unlike our present MPs who would have gone to university in the days of free education and grants.

It is amazing when you hear of students like Chelsea Davis, who was disappointed to receive two As and two Bs. The pressure for her to get three As to study medicine was colossal and luckily she was accepted by Sheffield to study medical genetics.

It was touch-and-go for some of the other students and my heart really went out to them as the UCAS website crashed and they, like thousands of other students across the country, nervously waited to see if they had a university place or not.

Starting your working life with an estimated £59,100 of debt is no laughing matter and yet the fact that the Government is trying to encourage young people to save for their old age seems quite ridiculous.

Meanwhile, on the One Show at 7pm they showed how the jargon used in pensions – such as ‘annuity’ – has a lot of people stumped. It seems pensions are going to get simpler in a bid to encourage more of us to save – especially those youngsters just starting out in their careers.

The One Show also spoke with radio DJs Tony Blackburn and Trevor Nelson about their love for soul music, focusing on businessman Carlo Gatti who was at the forefront of selling ice-cream and they also went to Cotswolds, which is popular with the Japanese who love their scones with jam and clotted cream.

Famous DJs, rich businessmen and scone eating tourists – it must seem like a different world to those students facing such crippling debt.

Of course, youngsters in England won’t have to pay off their debt until they are earning £21,000 – no, it will just squat on their horizon instead, waiting for them, like a spectre.

By Cathy Spencer