PhD blog: 17
Graham Foster is a PhD student at the English Research Institute of Manchester Metropolitan University. Finance  There are other factors to weigh up when doing a PhD. Things that orbit around a different planet than the academic sphere. While what I’m talking about relates mostly to the unfunded student, this isn’t another piece about balancing work and study. No, this piece is about the Banks. Who designed such institutions, where people check their humanity at the front door, and eyes become neon dollar signs? My current bank is the largest in the world, a faceless monster that devours my money as if it were the carcass of a felled caribou. Their customer service is, for want of a more eloquent way of putting it, raw Boxing Day sewage, and when I phone, or visit a branch, to change aspects of my account they attempt to sell me mortgages, holiday insurance, high-yield savings accounts - you name it. So enough is enough. I want out and I’m shopping around. This is easier said than done.
Ideally, I want to revert my account to a student account, which will allow an interest free overdraft and thus help me soak up the impact that my fees have on my stretched budget. First I went into the plastic branch of my current bank, and they said that I’d ‘been a student far too many times to warrant this reversion’. I argued my point, and they reluctantly began the process. But that’s when things went wrong. I’m part-time and, in the cold, dead eyes of the bank, not a ‘proper student’. ‘Presumably you have a job,’ the woman behind the counter said. ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘I am earning.’ ‘Well, there you go.’ She smirked at me, thus proving her point. ‘You’re not a student.’ ‘Isn’t there anything you can do,’ I asked. ‘Maybe give me a graduate account instead?’ ‘No, and for merely asking that question I’m removing £100 from your account. Would you like a mortgage on a castle in Scotland?’ [I’m paraphrasing here, of course]. A second opinion I left the bank feeling low, and quickly went into a neighbouring institution - still one of the Big Four, as business magazines like to say. Here I was served by a twelve-year-old, who twiddled his pen as he phoned his head office. Once again, I was told that doing a PhD part-time does not constitute being a student in the twisted eyes of the financial world. ‘This is the wrong way round,’ I wailed. ‘People that can afford to do a PhD full-time probably have funding, and don’t have to pay their own fees, and therefore have less need of the perks of a student account.’ ‘I understand,’ the twelve-year-old said, but I could see that his overwhelming indifference to my cause was providing him little motivation to help me. He had, after all, sold his youth to finance; is there a bigger declaration of a human being’s intent to deny all natural and creative impulses? I left again, my shoulders slumped and a frown on my face. The next bank proved the same story - I’m part-time, not a ‘proper’ student, I live in a limbo world between categorisation. But then suddenly, there was a glimmer of hope. The manager of this bank (it was NatWest, I can name it because I’m going to be as complimentary as I can be about a bank, which isn’t much) was a different breed. I declared that my current bank was so bad that it was causing a not-so-mild melancholy to wash over me. I told her being with my current bank was a constant worry about becoming bankrupt after paying fees. I even showed her my receding hairline. She got the idea, jumped from her chair and declared, ‘We want your business.’ I am now waiting for the Graduate Manager of NatWest in Manchester to get back to me, in the hope that they can offer something that is better than I currently have. But it is worth knowing that if you are re-entering higher education, the banks may not be as excited as you. Negotiating a decent overdraft, and credit card facility is extremely hard to do. While I am not a ‘proper’ student in the eyes of the banks, they still view me as a slacker and someone who is not earning (and will never earn) enough for them to warrant giving me any help now, when I need it. However, change is coming. The phone is ringing. Is it NatWest, riding to my rescue? Read Graham's previous blogs: Graham's other blog (on BlogSpot)
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