Petition to get student loans for postgrad study

eryn_kathleen

studentphil wrote:

Sure you can research without a PHD. If you do it in your free time and are not bothered about publishing.

It's unethical not to publish research. That's the whole point of doing research - it's disseminated to other researchers, they comment on or react to your research, and they build upon your work. That's how the body of knowledge grows.

eryn_kathleen

NOWSE wrote:

My daughter is presently at Uni studying for a masters and more than half of the students are from overseas. The overseas stutents have been grouped with British students for the purpose of completing joint studies. This has put added pressure on the British students as they are having to compile and write the reports as the overseas students all have English, as a second language and are not capable of writing the reports.
My daughter has taken out a career development loan to fund her masters. I don't see why she should be providing support to the overseas students whilst the Uni rakes in the fees.

What's she studying? I'm just curious. It seems like a pretty crappy situation for her.

tr3mor

Karnam wrote:

no one pays for post graduates to study.

most of them are self funded through thier own employment (where most of us are playing NI and income tax)

I'm well aware of this, Pinkfluffybabe was suggesting that there should be financial support, presumably funded by the taxpayer, which I disagree with if the research isn't going to benefit society.

NOWSE

eryn_kathleen wrote:

What's she studying? I'm just curious. It seems like a pretty crappy situation for her.

Marketing and advertising at one of the "redbrick" universities.

aurora_borealis_2

studentphil wrote:

Sure you can research without a PHD. If you do it in your free time and are not bothered about publishing.

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

studentphil

aurora_borealis wrote:

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

If you think it is stupid then why are so many of my lecturers so knowledgeable with long research histories and yet they have no doctorates?

elisebutt65

eryn_kathleen wrote:

In order to teach at University these days you need a PhD. Teaching positions in arts and humanities subjects are extremely competitive, and generally even having a PhD isn't enough. You need a strong publication record, and in areas like archaeology (which I'm in) you also need to have an established research project that attracts national or international funding.

Errr..Not quite true actually - I'm going to be doing a PGCE-PCE (Post Compulsory Education) which is fully funded by a further loan and attracts a bursary of £6-9000 in Business Studies/Travel and Tourism in September, which will enable me to lecture anywhere I want as long as the students are over 16.

I then intend to take up a post where I can get my Masters funded as I really want to start researching material and writing articles as well.I intend to use my current dissertation as the basis of a book or series of articles and to start as soon as I have my PGCE under my belt.

Karnam

tr3mor wrote:

I'm well aware of this, Pinkfluffybabe was suggesting that there should be financial support, presumably funded by the taxpayer, which I disagree with if the research isn't going to benefit society.

lets get this quite clear. the petition is NOT for grants or for total funding for post graduates. it is an extension of student loan system which will mean students will have to pay the money back to the government. neither is this inflation free. anyone who has been surprised by a statement of student loan half way through a degree that adds on £30 will know what i mean.

the 'funding' of student loans is that they do not charge interest and make a profit in the long run from getting students into debt. i think it is completely fair to expect our government to not PROFIT from the crippling debts of students.

all student loans are paid back eventually and this is not free money. this is a request from desperate post graduates who are willing to get into crippling awful debt in order to continue researching and learning. this is a personal choice from which the govt. should not profit but should at least facilitate.

AddieH

It's worth bearing in mind though that the existing student loan scheme does cost the government to run and so also the taxpayer and extending the scheme to postgraduates would have to be funded somehow.

pinkfluffybabe

AddieH wrote:

It's worth bearing in mind though that the existing student loan scheme does cost the government to run and so also the taxpayer and extending the scheme to postgraduates would have to be funded somehow.

Yes but surely it is worthwhile to help people to become more educated.