Another way of completing studies within two years would be to reduce university holiday time.The introduction of top-up fees has led to fears among organisations planning “gap years” for students that the numbers participating will dwindle. Everybody knows wherever they go they may have to pay more fees. Many people know they’re going to have to work anyway to make ends meet. Studying with the OU is one way they can do that with a full-time job and maintain their economic status.”Ministers are also planning an expansion of two-year degree courses to avoid students getting into greater debt.In a letter to David Young, chairman of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, Charles Clarke, the Education Secretary, says he wants to see the numbers taking two-year foundation degree courses expanded to 50,000 over the next two years. Last year, the number of 18- to 24-year-olds studying through the OU was 14,459 – almost three times as high as 1997, before fees were introduced.A senior OU source said: “One factor is the fees going up. Younger students are finding that studying with us is financially, socially and intellectually rewarding.”International research shows that in other countries that have introduced top-up fees, such as Canada, recruitment of working-class students has increased as a result of government aid to soften their debt burden.

However, the number of middle-class youngsters whose parents earn more than the threshold for help has fallen.Academics expect a similar trend in the UK – with many youngsters whose parents just fail to qualify for the university of their choice opting for an Open University degree and a job instead.OU leaders first spotted the trend about six years ago when Labour introduced tuition fees for the first time. However, the largest increase is among under 21s – where the numbers have risen by 5.6 per cent to 5,347.”Open University students can earn while they learn and fit their university around their work and personal commitments,” said Professor David Vincent, the university’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor.”While many people perceive Open University students to be older students, the number of young students choosing to study with us continues to increase. Academics expect the figures to rise even further if the Government wins its battle to bring in top-up fees of up to £3,000 a year from 2006.Figures obtained by The Independent on Sunday show the number of students enrolling with the Open University for this year is around 156,000 – a 2.2per cent increase on last year’s total. Record numbers of teenagers fearful of running up huge student debts are shunning traditional three-year degree courses – and opting to “earn-as-you-learn” by doing an Open University degree.
Thousands of 18- to 21-year-olds now work full-time while doing degree courses. I’m only sorry that I spent 10 years not sure I would be any good at it, and that I didn’t bite the bullet and take a risk sooner.. Consequently, I missed being part of some fascinating developments both at ITN and in broadcasting in general.When I did start working at ITN, it was the fantastic, exciting job that I’d thought it would be, and I was lucky enough to become a presenter and correspondent quite quickly.

I really don’t think you’d enjoy it at all,” was his response, and to my chagrin I believed him and allowed myself to be thoroughly put off.For about 10 years, that opinion kept me away from television, and although I’m not sure I would actually have been a threat to him, I suspect he just didn’t want me to play. Although I have worked at ITN for 19 years, before that I spent about the same amount of time working on Fleet Street. In the early Seventies, while I was at the Financial Times, a friend moved to work at ITN, and it suddenly seemed to me that it was a rather exciting kind of job – particularly because it was a time of great expansion and new ideas about what television news should be.I made the mistake of ringing a friend (who shall remain nameless, but was very well known in his time) and asking if he thought there was a chance I could follow him to ITN.”Oh, I don’t think it would suit you, Nick… I have, of course, made the usual mistakes a broadcaster can make – although I have only once missed a bulletin (for no reason other than that I didn’t realise the time – and I took six flights of stairs so fast, I have no clear memory of how I didn’t kill myself).
However, the worst mistake I ever made was listening to someone who said that I wouldn’t like working in television. His financial problems were highlighted last night when it emerged he has failed to make a $100,000 donation to the New York Public Library despite pledging the sum at a Literary Lions dinner on 3 November.The New York Times reported a spokesman for Lord Black, who co-chaired the dinner with his wife Barbara Amiel, saying he “informed the chairman of the library that there might be a delay in the contribution but that he would keep his commitment and intends to make it”.. Lord Black’s two colleagues made their repayments but the Telegraph Group chairman declined, pending his own investigation into whether it was required.A spokesman for Lord Black said last night: “We have nothing to add to the statement made by John Warden, Lord Black’s legal representative, earlier this month.”On 5 January, Mr Warden said: “There is substantial additional material relevant to the disputed non-compete payments that has become available to Lord Black’s legal counsel since questions about those payments were first raised in November, and we are reviewing the implications of that information.”Hollinger International’s interim chief executive, Gordon Paris, set today’s deadline for Lord Black to make the repayment. Tomorrow is Martin Luther King’s birthday and a holiday in the US.Lord Black is also at risk of being removed as chairman of the Telegraph Group, owner of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph and The Spectator.

Corporate law allows a weekend payment to be made on the next business day. With just days to go before the deadline for Conrad Black, the Canadian press baron, to pay part of the $7.2m (£4m) he owes Hollinger International, there was last night no indication that he had made the payment. Last night both Hollinger and Lord Black’s New York office declined to comment on whether any payment had been, or would be, made.The sum is due under an agreement reached by Lord Black and two associates – former company president David Radler and vice-president Peter Atkinson – to return $7.2m in non-competition payments that Hollinger had paid them, allegedly without the board’s approval. I recognise the difficulties this has caused the BBC, and I believe my decision is the right way to resolve the situation.”.