Nice people thread part 5 - nicely does it

zagubov

PasturesNew wrote: »

I've googled it.

But I don't really understand, so can't say what it says really ..... looks like: Student Loan, Maintenance Grant, Tuition Fees and no Council Tax to pay.

Sounds like a better deal than getting a proper job!

Maybe this website will start you off in your search. Good luck.

PasturesNew

I just looked a bit more, it's still a bit unclear... but it looks like the maintenance grant and the loans are worth about £11k in your hand .... which is more than working for a living.
Tuition loan is on top of that, so should be ignored.

£11k in your hand.... loads-a-dosh. And there's still the holidays to work in and evenings etc. And Uni hours are part-time of physically having your bum on a seat!

LydiaJ

zagubov wrote: »

I never heard about the Nottingham inflexibilty, just noticed it myself from years of applicants. Only people that got lesser offers were for less popular courses. I suppose that a uni with a medical school will have life science courses that are good back doors into medicine and can make high offers.

I'd heard the Bristol rumour but never promoted it as I'd no evidence for it.

I did have loads of students trying to get to Brighton and did warn them about the high cost of living (similar to Aberdeen and London, but with no London weighting).

I'm not doubting that you noticed a pattern, zag. Sorry if I sounded as if I was. I just feel that more students and teachers should adopt your policy of not propagating these things on the basis of rumours, but only if they've got some evidence.

I don't know exactly what you do. These students of yours who were applying to university - were they all for the same sort of subjects? A pattern of inflexibility specific to, say, life sciences, could well be down to the policy of that department. Or if it was across the whole university, it could be a feature of how popular a place it has become. Or there could even be a centrally imposed policy of making x% more offers than places, to decrease the possibility of having places unfilled - that would have the effect of making them inflexible with candidates who didn't quite make their grades.

lostinrates

zagubov wrote: »

I'm under the impression that the government wants an indebted workforce educated at their own expense.
Ticks so many boxes.
Less expense to employers as we've paid for our own education. Debts mean we think twice about industrial action and sticking up for our rights.
Don't have to properly finance schools as tertiary education will make up the shortcomings of that particular area of underfunding.
We're at least in theory able to take our qualifications and move around the country to where the current jobs are, when our employers downsize and lay us off.
Pity our mortgages affect that plan like a full stop affects a sentence.

The thing with the 50% fihure is that it has included people whose jobs didn't used to require a degree. Nursing is one, solicitors are another....dh actually feels his lpc had use but that the LPC was expensive and not terribly userul at all.....because law is such a wide area he has used none of what he studied in.

His uncle has just very recently retired from the firm he headed for a while...he joined there as a school leaver, as did many of his peers.

lostinrates

chewmylegoff wrote: »

I personally think there should be a charge for higher education- when I was there, there were so many wasters there it wasn't funny. No one is helped by a system that enables people to just have a free party for three years whilst scraping a 2.2 learning nothing useful.

However, the govt should has really missed an opportunity to make the system work for the economy. If it was free to do an engineering degree, but £20k a year to read law, for instance...

This was my experience to chewy. Those of us who worked got more out because we put more in....

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

I think the American system that a lot of my online friends do seems to be ideal: a system of night-schools, where you go "like evening classes". People over there seem to all be working full-time, then doing nightschool.

The buildings exist.... so it isn't unreasonable.

Some employers show a definite highering preference for fulltime students. E.g. It is said american law firms (london offices) prefer fulltime, law degree not conversion students. In italy all the junior advocates were still studying and at certain times of year the office seemed very quiet as deadlines or exams were happening and lots of the younger ones were at those. That seems ideal to me.....people learning while applying under guidance, earning and not spending money on a law conversion before earning.

vivatifosi

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Part of the problem is that the "median graduate salary" is meaningless as there are so many graduates with worthless degrees skewing the figures. The average salary of a job which really requires a degree (e.g. Solicitor, accountant, doctor) vs. the average earned by people who have a degree (e.g. Including all the aforementioned but also charity mugger, call centre phone jockey, barman) are two completely different numbers (artificially skewed again by jobs which do not require a degree but which start requiring one just cos everyone has one (e.g. Management trainees).

With the exception of some particular degrees (doctor, vet), that's changed over time too. For example, when I left school you could get into accountancy via the technical (AAT?) route and into the bottom end of the legal profession via the paralegal route. So a further impact of the march towards having a degree is that you now need one for these too. Very few people are getting in via a technical on the job training route.

Interestingly, the opposite is happening with librarianship. Until a few years ago, librarianship was a closed shop requiring a named degree in the subject. Now, I think the Librarian school in at least one university has closed due to lack of interest. When you know you will get a maximum starting salary of £20k per year - if you are lucky - given job cuts but probably no job at all, then stuck at about £26k pa due to diminishing management layers, while being told that you are in a profession in its death throes due, why would you go into it? Interestingly this means that there is now an increasing use of a technical route to librarianship, an on-the-job qualification if you like. Incidentally, my view of libraries is more positive than that posed above, but it is what you hear. I'm not a librarian (qualified or otherwise) btw.

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

I think hairdressing is a great idea.... as I see it, it's something you can get a job at, build up your own "mobile hairdressing" business evenings/weekends, or just specialise and do "wedding hair" on Saturdays. Then there's the whole "rent a chair" system at a lot of salons.

I've never seen a hairdresser with a cheap car.... however, there's a stigma. At my school, if you couldn't read or write, you'd be bussed out to hairdressing school from 14-16, so I always associate hairdressers with thick people

Our (poor) town has a hairdressing course. I went for a terrible session their to have my hair done, and while the result was not good it was interesting to talk to the girls doing my hair. Few are hopefulof a job (they were the more advanced students so already able to work, only one in the year has one i was told) our town has lots of hairdressers as do the surrounding ones. Quantity of them is not an issue, quality is, i would not have those girls touch my hair again, nor one of the critters tbh.

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

I have 2 O levels and 1 A level
I hate mushrooms
I have never lived in Herts
I'm not/never married
I earn peanuts

I'm in the wrong room aren't I.

Most definitely not.

Ithink mushroom lovers are evenly split with the [STRIKE]foolish[/STRIKE] mushroom haters. I would hateto be in a room where everyone is just like me.

lostinrates

chewmylegoff wrote: »

The chap who cuts my hair charges £10 a go. He said his shop rent was £17kpa. I dont think he'll be making megabucks.

It's all in cutting birds' hair, and charging then £100 for the "experience". Typical OH comment "yeah it sounds expensive bit they gave me a free glass of champagne." Don't think she understands what "free" means.

She gets champagne for a measly hundred smackers? I used to pay more than that and ety offered coffee with a nice biscuit. Humph.

I have expensive hair, but still not found a hairdresser here. Dh is still not liking brunette, and i cannot find anyone i can entrust the curls to. So much so i am thinking of getting the train to london to have my haircut, which will add almost £100 to the bill for the ticket, and more for the hairdresser too.

Perhaps your gf would like to recommend somewhere i can at least drown my wallet sorrow.....