"If you're studying, no matter how hard you may think you're working, from the point of view of a conservative you're goofing off, beause you're not getting paid. So you ought to starve."

Nonsense - you're making an investment in your own future, and these days almost certainly borrowing to do so. More than that, though, you don't actually receive any government money to live on, just a loan (unless you're actually a researcher doing government-funded research - in which case, of course, you're working for the government, not studying) - all the government provides is a subsidy for the actual tuition and the interest costs on your loan.

"A piece of logic that's apparent to every government that looks at it logically, but conservatives cannot get their heads around it because they can't get past the horror of someone being paid by the government to read books. The fact that society is far better off in the long run as a result is not as important as the fact that someone is getting SOMETHING FOR NOTHING and this has to be bad."

Also nonsense throughout - they aren't getting something for nothing, it's over a decade since that stopped being the case (and remind me, which party was it that made that change? Not a Conservative one!) and, in theory at least, the government is getting a better qualified and skilled workforce thanks to that subsidy. Overall, last time I looked the higher income earned by graduates meant they more than repaid that investment to the government in the extra tax on that higher income - though the value of a degree has been eroded significantly in recent years with market saturation, so that may no longer be the case.

More than that, though, if you go back and read the passage you quoted, Lucy's brother is not being paid by the government - rather, he's actually being penalised for doing that rather than sitting there doing nothing .. far from 'paying him to read books', they essentially offer him extra money not to become better educated. Being on that path myself, I sympathise - and to be honest, a large part of the appeal of a PhD to me is that it makes an effective ticket out of here and away from a regime far too eager to take from those who work and give to those who don't.