A bad scene.

[pipme]

Student debt from BBC
I personally feel it is disgusting that a country as rich as this one, puts a charge on the keyholders of the future... Given of course the zillions of our dosh they hand out to already wealthy people.
I wonder if, with the advent of £3k annual index linked, virtually trebled fees, in one strike, we will see any difference in the 'service' provided ? I doubt that, a cascade of bull c rap no doubt, but more of the same at the coal face. Waiting for market forces doesn't help the vanguard of kids, step change is so wrong ...
How can the Govn voice concerns over property prices for the young then force crippling debt on them from the outset .. of course Bliar already has his education ...
He had the gaul to announce the fee increase as better for us all ... "don't have to pay £1120 up front ... will pay £3k on loan"... I Wouldn't pay 'em in co-op checks. ... At least you know where you stand with a thief (Browner), But you never know with a Bliar !!
Tone is bu##ered I think.. he looks like a man with a heavy conscience, and actually sounds like it ...
P

 

[Diyisfun]

Nice little Rant
How about no loans, all education to be paid by the student/parent.
I wonder what the state of the country would be like in 10 years or so.
People dont have a gun put to their head, 'saying get a loan, go to uni', They do it in the belief that they will gain from it in the end. There are many people out there holding down jobs, maybe bring up a family & still manage to study.
Re property prices, there are more of us with than without, & all those with what to see it increase, so WHO is to blame?

 

[pipme]

Ok, so we carry on giving from our taxes to the wealthy .. as long as it is not publicised .. and charge for that most wonderful gift, education ?
We treat children and youth abonimably in this country ... IMHO.

 

[2scoops0406]

I think a good start here would be to get away from the notion that if you haven't got a degree in something then you're not worth anything. I can't see the point, both financially and educationally of having a load of grads with totally cr@p degrees, and at the same time having an absolute dearth of skilled tradesmen. I can see no shame in a country that sends only x% of its brightest to continue their studies at univerity, but by no means does that mean that 100 -x% are not able to contribute to society. (It also doesn't imply they are not bright either)

All well and good beaming politicians saying 95% (made up stat) of all young people in the country go on to further education, but useless if 95% of the degrees aren't worth f'all.

 

[jtaunton]

Absolutely right - Everyone is packed off to University, racking up debts, being told that they will get the money back in the long run because of their enhanced earning power, but in truth they will be sat about with their sociology, psychology and geography degrees, scratching about for call centre jobs, looking on in awe at the people who left school at 16 or 18 to learn a trade and now coining it in.

And its all because there are not enough graduate jobs to cope with the number of graduates being produced. In fact, many of the current undergraduates would have been on the dole - only difference now is that they're not on the figures, and are paying the government rather than vice-versa....

 

[Diyisfun]

It doesn't much matter much what your degrees are in & even if you fail, even watching discovery / history, channel etc on tv is far better that looking at your belly button or watching soaps.
Uni is about more than formal education.
Many people took evening classes or had day release, Uni was for the VERY clever, now it seems to be that its a right, it has to be earnt.
Lifes never been so good, for the majority, yes the rich may be richer, but are the poorer any poorer.

 

[AdamW]

So many people go to Uni for the wrong reasons:

1) Wards off the prospect of gainful employment for another 3-5 years
2) Ooooh, students all sleep in until 3pm every day, drink every night and get to have sex with lots of student girls
3) If you go to Uni you're pretty much guaranteed to earn loads of money!
4) The "little Timothy" syndrome, i.e. parents throw their offspring at university even though academia isn't what the offspring wants or needs.

So many people are at university who really shouldn't be there. Granted, there are transferable skills, a builder with a degree in accountancy will find it easier to do his books, if he has a degree in mechanical engineering then he might be able to take on more complicated structural jobs that can't be solved by following the normal rules. But, someone who is going to be a builder better spends his time at builders' college and in an apprenticeship.

We are told graduates are retraining as plumbers. Surely this points to a need to reduce the number of university places and increase the number of plumbing school places?

I would probably be earning more now if I had left school at 16 and done a building apprenticeship. But, I don't think I would do particularly well as a builder: I moan when my hands are cold, I worry too much about inhaling dust, I like to be able to do my own thing and approach things my own way, and I get very bored if I am not thinking very hard all the time. I would be rubbish at being a full-time builder.

 

[AdamW]

Many people took evening classes or had day release, Uni was for the VERY clever, now it seems to be that its a right, it has to be earnt.

100% true. I think evening classes and Open University degrees show a higher level of devotion than going to uni at 18. You are giving up your free time and doing something out of the ordinary.

I reckon that the peak of the British higher-education system came in the 1960s or 70s: it was the first time that people from any background could go to study en masse.

 

[mg_graham]

There are so many lines of argument we can go down regarding the rights and wrongs of going to univerisity. Personally, I think the growing train of thought that you have to have a degree or you are considered second rate is a dangerous path to follow. To live in a county that has a derth of skilled people will ultimatley lead to the need for further immigration and potentially lead to a society divided not only be education, but by nationality, language, etc...

With respect to the fee of going to university, perhaps high fees will encourage people to look for aternative careers and avoid the scenario above. Howeverm for those who decide they do still want to take on board huge potential debt, it is important that they are getting their money's worth. My brother is coming to the end of a history degree. He has to pay the £1000 per year fees, however, he is only reuired to attend between 1-3 lectures a week. In fact, in the final term of each of his 3 years he has had no lectures at all but has essays to write. How can you charge for something you don't provide. To then want to charge £3000 a year for the same thing baffles me. A major role of universities is research, in fact most lecturers are research academics. If we begin charging students to attend university then the emphasis must move to teaching and not research.

 

[kendor]

So many people go to Uni for the wrong reasons:

1) Wards off the prospect of gainful employment for another 3-5 years
2) Ooooh, students all sleep in until 3pm every day, drink every night and get to have sex with lots of student girls
3) If you go to Uni you're pretty much guaranteed to earn loads of money!
4) The "little Timothy" syndrome, i.e. parents throw their offspring at university even though academia isn't what the offspring wants or needs.

So many people are at university who really shouldn't be there. Granted, there are transferable skills, a builder with a degree in accountancy will find it easier to do his books, if he has a degree in mechanical engineering then he might be able to take on more complicated structural jobs that can't be solved by following the normal rules. But, someone who is going to be a builder better spends his time at builders' college and in an apprenticeship.

We are told graduates are retraining as plumbers. Surely this points to a need to reduce the number of university places and increase the number of plumbing school places?

I would probably be earning more now if I had left school at 16 and done a building apprenticeship. But, I don't think I would do particularly well as a builder: I moan when my hands are cold, I worry too much about inhaling dust, I like to be able to do my own thing and approach things my own way, and I get very bored if I am not thinking very hard all the time. I would be rubbish at being a full-time builder.

Spot on there Adam

 

[2scoops0406]

What is the point of research without any manufacturing capability. Research obviously eats cash, which hopefully is recouped in manufacture. However in order to reap the full benefits of this it is a good idea to actually manufacture in your own country rather than have to licence it out to old Johnny foreigner and his workforce.

WRT to charging university fee's this simply goes back to the times whereby only the rich went to university, not at all based on talent, just get rid of any stigma about NOT going to university, accept that skilled trades are exactly that (and increasingly so), and I reckon a lot of problems will be solved, we really don't need huge amount of television studies grads, I did that as a subsidiary subject at uni

Also, had 30 hours lectures and practicals every week..... I'm sooooo hard done by!!

 

[felix]

Everyone is packed off to University, racking up debts, being told that they will get the money back in the long run because of their enhanced earning power, but in truth they will be sat about with their sociology, psychology and geography degrees, scratching about for call centre jobs, looking on in awe at the people who left school at 16 or 18 to learn a trade and now coining it in.

That was the seventies. It's still true of course but the loo roll in the students' union bog now says "Media studies degrees. Please take one".

A lot of people do go to university for the wrong reason.

Wards off the prospect of gainful employment for another 3-5 years

That's true. That's why I spent three years doing a PhD. The head of the maths department said there was no better reason because it wouldn't be worth anything once I stepped out of academia. He was right!

Ooooh, students all sleep in until 3pm every day, drink every night and get to have sex with lots of student girls

Not quite true, except for postgrads. Who do the girls have sex with?

If you go to Uni you're pretty much guaranteed to earn loads of money!

B****x!!! On the contrary, it can limit your options. The first job I got that I liked and could do was as a lab technician at a polytechnic - and I wouldn't have got that if I hadn't worked there for a year already! Our other half spent a year on the dole with a General Arts degree. She had to do a secretarial diploma before any employer would even look twice.

 

[2scoops0406]

Yeah, it was "sociology degrees, please take one" in the chemistry bogs back in the mid eighties, how times change eh ?

 

[AdamW]

Oh felix, I agree!

I was going to earn a sociology degree but the union had a food-poisoning outbreak and ran out of "certificates"

Seeing as you studied maths and I studied physics, it is likely that we had similar levels of top-class totty on our courses (actually to be fair, maths departments seem to have a slightly greater number of attractive women than physics departments). So, the "having sex with student girls every night" would have required either

a) a change of subject or,
b) a horrific accident in the optics lab involving a couble of NdYAG lasers and some carelessly-placed mirrors.

Who do the girls have sex with?

Well, it depends who the highest bidder on ebay is (or was that just that one girl who did that?)

That's why I spent three years doing a PhD

I have to ask this, but as Dr Felix, PhD, can you do long division and long multiplication? I never managed to learn it at school because I always found it easier to just do it in my head, but the teachers insisted on it.

 

[Damocles]

That would be 'attractive women' as distinct from 'any women', would it?