Are UK Universities a drag on our economy?

lostinrates

I recommend going to something if you can, I think its part of the experience...the stuff going on forever (and the constant emails asking for money ). I enjoy going with DH who always leaves relieved that he didn't follow the path expected of him: a career in academia

borntobefree

Price of Admission - America's College Debt Crisis.
Student Debt is nearing $1 trillion. Could this be the next bubble to burst?

As millions of American families struggle to cope with college costs that are rising at twice the rate of inflation, CNBC investigates a system that encourages widespread borrowing—often with little regard to a student's ability to pay—leaving the average college graduate with tens of thousands of dollars in student-loan debt.

How long can the system be sustained? Are student loans the next subprime mortgages? And if the bubble bursts, who will pay the price? CNBC Senior Correspondent Scott Cohn speaks to borrowers, lenders and school administrators to measure the real “Price of Admission” to the nation's higher-education system.

http://classic.cnbc.com/id/39911910

borntobefree

The (American) Student Loan Debt Clock

http://www.finaid.org/loans/studentloandebtclock.phtml

borntobefree

This is not a long-term solution, because the interest on the loans continues to pile up. So in an eerie echo of the mortgage crisis, tens of thousands of people like Ms. Munna are facing a reckoning. They and their families made borrowing decisions based more on emotion than reason, much as subprime borrowers assumed the value of their houses would always go up. Meanwhile, universities like N.Y.U. enrolled students without asking many questions about whether they could afford a $50,000 annual tuition bill. Then the colleges introduced the students to lenders who underwrote big loans without any idea of what the students might earn someday — just like the mortgage lenders who didn’t ask borrowers to verify their incomes.
Ms. Munna does not want to walk away from her loans in the same way many mortgage holders are. It would be difficult in any event because federal bankruptcy law makes it nearly impossible to discharge student loan debts. But unless she manages to improve her income quickly, she doesn’t have a lot of good options for digging out.
It is utterly depressing that there are so many people like her facing decades of payments, limited capacity to buy a home and a debt burden that can repel potential life partners. For starters, it’s a shared failure of parenting and loan underwriting.
But perhaps the biggest share lies with colleges and universities because they have the most knowledge of the financial aid process. And I would argue that they had an obligation to counsel students like Ms. Munna, who got in too far over their heads.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/your-money/student-loans/29money.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all

borntobefree

I thought this was an interesting article

The disposable academic
Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time - Doctoral degrees
Dec 16th 2010 Economist

Many of those who embark on a PhD are the smartest in their class and will have been the best at everything they have done. They will have amassed awards and prizes. As this year’s new crop of graduate students bounce into their research, few will be willing to accept that the system they are entering could be designed for the benefit of others, that even hard work and brilliance may well not be enough to succeed, and that they would be better off doing something else. They might use their research skills to look harder at the lot of the disposable academic. Someone should write a thesis about that.

http://www.economist.com/node/17723223?story_id=17723223