MSE News: 'We need war against student fee confusion'

2sides2everystory

wozearly wrote: »

I disagree. That would push universities towards becoming glorified training colleges for particular industries - great for the industries who would get their training courses subsidised by the taxpayer, of course.

But that is exactly what one university we visited recently were selling ... 'we turn out graduates with our particular degree course that businesses want because they do not have to spend very much on training them the ins and outs of the business - they already have a good understanding of the way the industry operates ... this is the feedback we get from business'

Oldernotwiser

Charlton_Taz wrote: »

In an ideal world it would be great that everyone who wanted to go to university got to go...but in the real world and considering value to the tax payer we should only educate those who need that education to further their careers and essentially pay more taxes in the future. It doesn't really make sense that we (as in the tax payer) are still (in the 'old' and 'new' system) pay many thousands of pounds to put people through degree courses that were never needed for the job they ended up with. Surely we should be concentrating our investment (and encouraging people of all backgrounds) to complete degrees related to industries that create weath for the country.

I don't think that everyone who wants to go to university should be able to - that's the situation now and it's a disaster. However, there are reasons for going to university that are at least as valid as wanting to further a career an become a high earner.

Charlton_Taz

wozearly wrote: »

I disagree. That would push universities towards becoming glorified training colleges for particular industries - great for the industries who would get their training courses subsidised by the taxpayer, of course.

I absolutely think there is a place for educational routes that gear directly towards a specific industry (university isn't necessarily always the right answer there), and that universities as a whole could consider employment prospects for their students more strongly than they currently do.

However, if you take that too far then you risk strangling future wealth-creators - we simply don't know for sure what industries will be our true wealth-generators in the next 20 years, so having a workforce with a variety of academic / practical backgrounds and the confidence and ability to learn something new is highly valuable, and helps to limit the effects of systemic shocks if the global market wrecks one of our traditional wealth-generators industries like mining, car manufacturing or, erm, banking.

I do mostly agree with you! I think its a shame that the idea of people studying history / geography / english could lessen because of the 'fear' that you might not get a decent job afterwards.

But is it right that those people who do end up earning more (and thus paying a lot more tax, and as a result, claiming a lot less or no benefits, are now also being asked to effectively pay for their own degrees as well, and then also partly pay for other people who decide to do a degree 'just because they could' and then end up earning say £15K a year.

The message to me just seems wrong....do a degree for free if you want to go and do a job you could have done straight out of school...or pay tens of thousands of pounds extra (on top of lots of tax ) if you actually manage to 'succeed' and get a reasonably paid job.

I guess we have to realise (and we need to educate people due to go to university) that there are only so many well paid jobs out there and maybe we should attempt to align the numbers going to university to match this better.

2sides2everystory

Charlton_Taz wrote: »

I guess we have to realise (and we need to educate people due to go to university) that there are only so many well paid jobs out there and maybe we should attempt to align the numbers going to university to match this better.

But the universities are actively propagandising the opposite - i.e. that their graduates largely do get well paid jobs ... one university strapline I saw recently on some expensive looking plasticised weatherproof banners said something like "Producing highly sought-after professionals". They of course don't say how many they produce or how many are required. Try Googling for that loose phrase without the quotes - clearly it isn't a trademark of just one university ... they're all at it to some degree and they are not looking to consolidate - they are all trying to grow now as I indicated earlier ...

£9,000 a hit per year, plus the possibility of selling accommodation and food and drink and books and introducing business to "partners" is just too tempting for university financial directors and chancellors with high ambition ... it will no doubt not be more than a year or two before we start hearing about the first major corruption cases.

At the lower end of the FE/HE scale I've seen feeding frenzies in earlier years after the previous government opened various floodgates, at two or three hundred quid a hit per NiNo, never mind the name, especially when no classrooms need be provided/attended and courses could be "self-taught" and marked to a large extent using CBT.

I also am old enough to remember when financial service companies started buying up estate agencies like there was no tomorrow (mid 80s) because they thought they'd hit upon the secret of the everlasting money merry-go-round - people buying houses needed mortgages and if they got mortgages worth tens of thousands then think of all that money they'd be unlocking against their names - what better time to tempt them to sign for more than they thought they needed, eh? Financial Service companies tripped over themselves to get control of some of that.

Well there are far more university applicants each year than housebuyers, and where are all the serious volume brand new moneyflows expected next year ? Yes that's right, straight into university coffers linked to unique UCAS registration numbers. If they have to pretend to be serious universities to get near it, then they will. The more serious looking the better. There will be those that simply cannot resist getting involved just so they can try to siphon off as much government released cash as they can ... just mark my words.

flimsier

Can we not just have war on student fees?

wozearly

2sides2everystory wrote: »

But that is exactly what one university we visited recently were selling ... 'we turn out graduates with our particular degree course that businesses want because they do not have to spend very much on training them the ins and outs of the business - they already have a good understanding of the way the industry operates ... this is the feedback we get from business'

Which is brilliant - if your course leads neatly and naturally towards a certain type of job in a certain field of industry. But how many of those are there? Can an 18 year-old student be sure that's the industry and the field they will want to spend their career in?

Also, what employers want from a new graduate may not be the most stretching things to teach the graduate that might be better for them in the long-term.

Its also increasingly common for people's careers not to stick to one job in one field in one industry. Even within certain fields you still end up with all kinds of odd mixes of skillsets that can be valuable. Does that mean you teach all students about accounting methods, people management, economics, marketing, computer science, etc.

I'm not sure how any course could attempt to tailor for that potential variety...and I'd be sceptical that a wide number of employers have any particular views on the course content of a specific university - those that partner with it in some way may do, but are they really so impressed by the university that they'd immediately prefer one of its graduates over impressive candidates from rival universities?

I get the feeling that you're as sceptical about this as I am, but it does make for a great sales pitch to students worried about getting a good job after graduating.

globalds

There is a big picture here that is being missed.

The world ,not just the UK needs managers , engineers, designers ...And almost the entire world now draws the same minimum entry line on the application.

It asks whether you are a graduate. If the answer to this is no, then you will not get a chance to prove yourself or talk yourself into a position.
With applications on line or run through recruitment agencies there are not cracks to sneak through.

And by reducing the amount of UK graduates we produce, in a world that is only offering real opportunities starting at that level,then we are effectively creating 2nd class citizens in a world that will soon have masses of Chines or Indian graduates who may well know there degrees are useless but know too that it is what the global employers are asking for.

I would like my kids to spend a year in Japan after they graduate.
There is a great scheme called the JET program where Native English speakers can spend a year teaching in Japanese schools , paid well and all accommodation, tickets ,etc. sorted ...Criteria need to qualify 2 , Native English speaker and graduate (any old degree will do) ...That's how it works.

wozearly

Charlton_Taz wrote: »

I do mostly agree with you! I think its a shame that the idea of people studying history / geography / english could lessen because of the 'fear' that you might not get a decent job afterwards.

But is it right that those people who do end up earning more (and thus paying a lot more tax, and as a result, claiming a lot less or no benefits, are now also being asked to effectively pay for their own degrees as well, and then also partly pay for other people who decide to do a degree 'just because they could' and then end up earning say £15K a year.

The message to me just seems wrong....do a degree for free if you want to go and do a job you could have done straight out of school...or pay tens of thousands of pounds extra (on top of lots of tax ) if you actually manage to 'succeed' and get a reasonably paid job.

I guess we have to realise (and we need to educate people due to go to university) that there are only so many well paid jobs out there and maybe we should attempt to align the numbers going to university to match this better.

Whether its 'right' or 'fair' for higher earners to pay more for their degrees to subsidise lower earners is pretty subjective and mired in politics. :cool:

However, I do think its wrong to judge whether a degree was worthwhile solely on someone's future earnings - and I don't see how we could accurately predict this in advance either for courses (e.g. how many doctors do we think we need to educate this year) or for individuals.

I suppose it comes down to two points - firstly, whether a university education gives value to the student (and by extension to society) as a result of how it challenges them and encourages them to learn to rapidly absorb and make use of new concepts, irrespective of what the content of their degree is. I personally believe this to be true, which is why you find successful people in fields that are utterly unrelated to their degree content.

Secondly, the view that there are only so many well-paid jobs available and that university access should reflect this. I don't think that this is necessarily true. These things change over time, and there is a greater proportion of 'well-paid' jobs in the UK now than there was a century ago. Rising education standards are almost certainly a critical part of that.

setmefree2

flimsier wrote: »

This is the key thing and I don't understand why ML is ignoring it. Successive governments aren't going to go "oh it's raising less and we've a bigger hole, but carry on".

And the subjective (ie predicting the future, including assuming terms will stay the same) parts of the guide are the parts that means that most people, including students I teach, are very very sceptical of his guide.

And that's why he's failing to get his message across. It's a message that is one step from the government (by virtue of being appointed by them). The provenance of the message is tainted - and that's something every history student is taught to question. ie the message ML is broadcasting is only one side of the story - not THE story as he is claiming it is.

Agree. The fact that ML fails/refuses to deal with the clause that allows future government to change the T & Cs of student loans makes his guide feel like government propaganda.

oldvicar

setmefree2 wrote: »

I could go on but I will stop (you'll be glad to hear). I really, really don't understand MSEs position on SLs. How anyone can support this pile of junk is beyond me.

According to the MSE news, the MSE :money:is head of a Task Force