Huge student fees to limit house prices further?

carolt

The_White_Horse wrote: »

what is the point of a degree if everyone has one?

It depends on what you see as the value of education. If you see its value as being primarily to sort out the men from the boys, so to speak, ie establish a pecking order, then clearly you are right.

If, however, you take the normal reasons for educating a poulation - namely socio-economic, ie you have a better-educated workforce and therefore more successful country, and personal ie individuals develop their personal interests/skills, benefitting them in their personal as well as work lives, then educating everyone to degree level is a valuable thing to do.

In practice, I agree that not everyone actually benefits from a university education - some people are not academically-minded and are just wasting their time/money on courses they have no interest in/aptitude for, and personally,I'd like to see a return to more vocational training along the lines of old style apprenticeships eg havean English plumber be the envy of the world, say. Certainly Germany, which has a far more developed vocational training system than us is also far more successful in manufacturing/industry than us - because they have people who still know how to make things properly.

IveSeenTheLight

carolt wrote: »

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Consider: current middle class parents have just been hit by the double-whammy of losing child benefit plus suddenly discovering that they need to put far more money aside than they had previously to help their children pay for university education.

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Which means far less to spend on housing, and investing in BTL, say, entirely out of the question.

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Big, big impact. = Lower prices.

You seem to be making a rather personal viewpoint to your thread given your personal circumstances.

I can agree with you on the impact and the ability to purchase will be affected.

Would this not make the rental market and rental demand stronger?

As you know, I have a son and we have another on the way.
My focus is on providing a future for my family, including being able to fund my childrens education in the future.

To that end, it is on my mind to invest further in property.

We will also make further sacrifices, less holidays, less eating out etc to put away a monthly contribution for their future.

I'm sure you as well as I will make sacrifices to ensure our children have a better start.

If that means you will not be able to buy, then that is extremely unfortunate but I know you would accept the position if it meant your children are better supported

olly300

FTBFun wrote: »

I wonder if this will lead to more shared rooms in student accomodation? As unlike in the US and some places on the continent, its quite rare to see shared rooms in halls over here.

No because most halls rooms are designed only to fit one student in, and there has been a lot of building of student halls in the past 12 years by both the private sector and the universities themselves.

In fact in one the places I went to university in, the universities and some private sector companies built so much student accommodation that those landlords with dilapidated properties which they solely relied on students to fill couldn't get anyone to live in them.

There as those landlords with better quality accommodation decorated their properties so they could be rented to either students, workers or families had no problem getting them filled.

carolt

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

You seem to be making a rather personal viewpoint to your thread given your personal circumstances.

I can agree with you on the impact and the ability to purchase will be affected.

Would this not make the rental market and rental demand stronger?

As you know, I have a son and we have another on the way.
My focus is on providing a future for my family, including being able to fund my childrens education in the future.

To that end, it is on my mind to invest further in property.

We will also make further sacrifices, less holidays, less eating out etc to put away a monthly contribution for their future.

I'm sure you as well as I will make sacrifices to ensure our children have a better start.

If that means you will not be able to buy, then that is extremely unfortunate but I know you would accept the position if it meant your children are better supported

It seems to be you imposing a personal viewpoint on my opinions - actually, I didn't really mean me, as I don't currently have money invested in the housing market, so my not doing so would make no change whatsoever to the staus quo; I referred to all those families who do currently own but are likely to find themselves a lot more strapped for cash as a result of recent measures.

IveSeenTheLight

carolt wrote: »

It seems to be you imposing a personal viewpoint on my opinions - actually, I didn't really mean me, as I don't currently have money invested in the housing market, so my not doing so would make no change whatsoever to the staus quo; I referred to all those families who do currently own but are likely to find themselves a lot more strapped for cash as a result of recent measures.

Fair enough, the middle class, multiple children, losing benefits scenario seemed so specific and closelt likened to yourself.

While your not an owner, I understand your position and desire to provide for your children.

You may not be an owner or potential owner but you are still crucial in this discussion as you are included in the role as increasing the rental demand.

I raised the point earlier that this is likely to add to less people being able to pay off their debts / save for a deposit and is likely to simply add to the rental demand in the years ahead.

Orpheo

The_White_Horse wrote: »

i think its about time poor people realised they don't deserve anything. if Oxbridge want to charge 12k a year and you can't afford it, then that is tough luck.

i want a bentley. i can't afford one. that's tough. I might be the world's best driver. I might "deserve" one, but I can't afford one. but guess what, if my parents were extremely rich, they might buy me one.

the sooner people realise that life IS unfair, the sooner people can just get on with things.

stop moaning!!!!

in my opinion, this whole problem, like most problems, is completely the fault of the moron lefty. what the hell is the point of 50% of people going to university??????

university should be for the academic elite only. typical lefty devaluing of something special. a degree 50 years ago is worth 100 degrees now.

david beckham studies, golf course management studies. what a crock.

Make your mind up, is higher education for those who can afford it or for the academic elite?

Most people do not realise how many young children have natural talents, sporting, gymnastic, musical, academic, technical, which either go completely unnoticed (by their teachers) or are never nurtured because of the circumstances of their parents. These children never reach their potential and the nation and economy lose out because of it.

So many express an idealogical bent on what they believe is "wrong" with education in this country and how their ideas are the answer, but the truth is that you have the education system that you want. Otherwise you would be writing to your MP.

If a business identifies talent in its workforce then it raises it up, nurtures it, trains it and invests in it for it knows that the returns will follow. Why can't we think about education in the same way?

Orpheo

The_White_Horse wrote: »

a degree 50 years ago is worth 100 degrees now.

There is nothing quite like a qualified and evidenced fact.

ultrawomble

Orpheo wrote: »

There is nothing quite like a qualified and evidenced fact.

True, but the drive to get 50% of 18-30 year olds in HE by 2010 does mean that there has been a cheapening of the worth of a degree.

jamespmg44

olly300 wrote: »

I know people who got less than BBB in their A levels and got firsts in engineering subjects from a Russell group university.

One thing you are presuming is that schools teach properly................

I also know mature students who got less than that in other subjects again they did very well once they were at university.

Excluding people because they weren't rich enough or encouraged to go to university is what use to happen now you are going to again exclude people because they again aren't rich enough to be able to pay for their education to ensure they get the entrance grades. Or do you really believe that richer parents don't pay to ensure their children get the right grades for uni?

We need to constrain places at university to get the value of degrees back up and also because there's not enough money to fund 50% of the population going to uni - for further education, surely educational achievement at secondary level should be the most obvious entry screening requirement?

ILW

We may see a situation where all the graduates are living in grotty little rented flats, whilst all the decent places are being snapped by by people who left school at 16 and got on with earning a living.