speedking

So the conservatives seem to be becoming more like labour on this topic.

If tuition fees are increased then only the wealthy will be able to afford to go to university. Where will all the future engineers and doctors come from?

IMO the rot set in when the Polytechnic Colleges were re-branded as Universities and started dishing out degrees in Media Studies, Pop Music etc. Access for all should be about reducing costs, making the end result worthwhile, and not about introducing courses based on subjects that anyone can do. Access should be based on academic ability, not the ability to pay.

Just because other countries have twice as many graduates as the UK does not mean that giving twice as many degrees to people in this country will make us better.

Let's remove University status from some institutions and limit degree courses to those that are shown to be beneficial to the nation. This will reduce the number of students and hence reduce the required budget. Let the job market decide whether a qualification in Media studies is worthwhile and therefore worth the student investing (their time and money) in. Jobs that are significant for national prosperity; lawyers, engineers, doctors etc., should be supported through university as their contribution to society exceeds the initial financial outlay required.

Rant over and flame suit on.

dpb

Couldnt agree more ....!

except that degrees should probably be more expensive to 'collect'


ffs you can get a degree in jus about anything nowadays , bugger all use to anyone

and then get funding to concoct a *report* on the bleedin obvious

least thats the way i see it

RJMS

iTrader: (2)

I totally agree with the point about too many degrees but I'm not so sure about tuition fees going up being that bad an idea. You can get a student loan for the fees regardless of your income level which only has to be paid back as and when your income reaches a certain level and only then as a relatively small proportion of your income.

If you never earn enough to pay back the loan it gets written off (after 25 years I think). As far as I can see the bad thing about increasing the fees is that more of the loans will not get paid back which presumably costs the tax payer in the long run.

The way that student finance works at the moment it is significantly tilted towards making it easier for children from lower income families to go to University, not only do they get non-repayable grants to cover a proportion of their living costs they are also entitled to borrow more on their loans than those from higher income families whose parents are expected to support them.

speedking

I suppose my problem is that I'm a middle income family which earns too much to get support, but not enough to afford to pay the tuition fees. So, student loans, here we come.

RJMS

iTrader: (2)

I'm much the same there is simply no way we could afford to pay the £40-50,000 or so that would be required to get both our kids through university + living costs. The student loans are quite heavily subsidised so the interest rate is far lower than commercial rates and as I said they don't have to start paying them back until they're earning a reasonable salary anyway.

You will almost inevitably have to subsidise your offspring anyway, the "living cost" part of the loan barely covers rental of Uni accommodation if they live away from home and then there's the hidden costs like transporting all of their stuff to and from Uni which in may case means one 330 mile round trip last night and another next week (and that's just for one of them)

Leslie

As ever, it is down to what the taxpayer can afford to subsidise with the country in such a parlous financial state and the fact that we are all going to find life a lot more expensive in all directions.

Not too difficult to allocate the blame for our present situation.

Les

Richy P1984

Hmm, the problem seems to be letting too many people take the degrees that wont get them a job, rather than the actuall numer of degrees out there. If you want your country to prosper and develop, then you need to offer a diverse education system which will cater to all of our gifted pre-university students.

What a lot of people tend to forget is that university is just not about getting a degree, its about learning key skills, developing as an adult and learning how to make it in the big wide world.

I think it would be a good idea to have a system in place identifying the areas that the country is lacking in, so that studens can pick degrees which will allow them to develop a carrier after they graduate. At the moment it seems to be guess work and what you hear down the pub.

I was quite lucky as I was able to pick a subject area which I knew would get me a job and one that I was interested in. Six months after uni finished I started my first proper job, and I'm still there.

Leslie

That was the best way to do it!

Les

BlkKnight

Top tip:

Rather than taking One year out between a-levels and a degree - take TWO.

When you are then assessed for a student grant, you are then classed as a independent person from your family. As you probably haven't been earning much, you will get the full allowance. As it's a grant, you don''t have to repay.

Grants differ depending on the field of the degree. I got about £3.5k per year.

tathan

I went to an open day at uni the other day and I saw a course called "Equestrian Psychology".

So, I would agree with the OP's point about a lot of degrees being useless. We need more engineers and people that actually have skills to increase economic output, then degrees would pay for themselves.

Lee247

Same here. My lad has just completed his first year at Uni studying Criminology. He got his student loan.
He goes mad as some of his mates get all sorts of other help too, that he can't get. Such as EMA and the like.

subaruturbo_18

I don't really see why it's based in income.

When i applied, both my parents were employed, and they told me what i was getting, and it was fvck all. then my dad became unemployed, and they adjusted it but by a minimal amount. My sister also goes to uni, and they say on their website that they split the amount your parents earn, and it's not what they actually do.

The way it works out is, if you come from a super wealthy family, you will be as well off as your parents make you, with the added bonus of having no debt when you leave.

If your poor then you get given loads of grants, and have very minimal debt when you come out of uni. Typically poorer background students that I've come across have been better off than the rest.

Then there is the middle class families. The student only gets loans and does not get grants, so they will have huge debts when they leave uni, plus throughout the duration of their time at uni, the students parents will have to struggle a bit to pay for the student.

So there you have it, unless you're super rich, or super poor, expect to be stitched up if you go to uni.

tathan

Like Legal Aid then. Or tax credits. Or [insert here]

Richy P1984

Useless unless you wanted to go into the business of horse breeding and training, which when working for the right people could earn you many £s.

These days you dont need to do science or engineering to end up with a good job or contribute to the growth of the country.

subaruturbo_18

true, but if any I'd choose science, maths or law type degree.