University Fees

Mrs_pbradley936

Person_one wrote: »

The world would be a far far poorer place if people only ever went to university with the goal of a steady job and a mortgage.

I hope the innovators and inventors and artists and thinkers of the future aren't missing out because their parents think only a steady salary has any value.

I would like to agree and would not hesitate to if it was all still free if you were bright enough.

FBaby

The world would be a far far poorer place if people only ever went to university with the goal of a steady job and a mortgage.

You don't have to go to Uni straight after college if your reason to go to Uni is not job related. My mum did a PhD in the field of International Negotiations at the age of 55. She is now 65 and has just started a degree in Archaeology. Both were/are costing her, but she did it for her enjoyment/prestige and nothing to do with getting a job. She did however went to a renown business school after college for the purpose of a gaining a good job. I did a Masters in Business, but started a course in Public Health some years ago whilst working full-time and did a course in Counselling two years ago, both purely to develop my knowledge of the subjects.

I hope the innovators and inventors and artists and thinkers of the future aren't missing out because their parents think only a steady salary has any value.

Do you need to go to Uni to be successful in these fields? Can't you be an innovator/inventor/artist and not aimed for a successful career?

There is a thread that has just been started in the employment page that illustrate perfectly how I feel. A young lady who went to Uni and got a degree in 'childhood studies'. Decided that she wanted to do project work, so paid again to get a qualification in that field, now struggling to get a job for lack of experience. All normal, and she seems to be motivated and doing well and will no doubt find a good job at some point, but was it worth spending up to £30K for her degree? In my case, it could be £60+ for two kids, for some even more. That's a lot of money that could be invested elsewhere to provide for my children.

poet123

Mrs_pbradley936 wrote: »

I would like to agree and would not hesitate to if it was all still free if you were bright enough.

And therein lies the rub.

Gloomendoom

Mrs_pbradley936 wrote: »

I would like to agree and would not hesitate to if it was all still free if you were bright enough.

It was never free.

Somebody paid for it.

adindas

Person_one wrote: »

The world would be a far far poorer place if people only ever went to university with the goal of a steady job and a mortgage.

I hope the innovators and inventors and artists and thinkers of the future aren't missing out because their parents think only a steady salary has any value.

[FONT=&quot]If you have children who love science fiction and want to study BA in Science fiction and culture. Well good luck hopefully they have the chance in the future to get the job related to their degrees.

Mickey Mouse' degrees cost taxpayers £40m
(Well, now the student to pay their own fee, but if they do not earn over £21,000 they never pay it back and it is still the taxpayers money they owe)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1560894/Mickey-Mouse-degrees-cost-taxpayers-40m.html

£40m waste of the 'Mickey Mouse' degrees
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-476620/40m-waste-Mickey-Mouse-degrees.html

Here is another examples of taking a degree course which just wasting money and time
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Mickey%20Mouse%20Degree
[/FONT]

Person_one

adindas wrote: »

I always take the Daily Mail with a huge pinch of salt. A UCAS course search yields no results for the science fiction or aromatherapy courses, and only partial matches for the make up design and tourism ones.

I expect the first two are just modules within a broader BA if they exist at all, and the second two seem pretty industry specific and geared towards employment, which I thought was what people here were advocating!

adindas

Person_one wrote: »

I always take the Daily Mail with a huge pinch of salt. A UCAS course search yields no results for the science fiction or aromatherapy courses, and only partial matches for the make up design and tourism ones.

I expect the first two are just modules within a broader BA if they exist at all, and the second two seem pretty industry specific and geared towards employment, which I thought was what people here were advocating!

[FONT=&quot]Well it was written in 20 August 2007, we are now in 2013 are not we ?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]How many degree programmes have been closed sofar due to poor number of students, thus it does not meet the breakeven to run it.[/FONT] But at least it helps the uni to keep the people who are teaching that subjects to stay on the job for a few years.

[FONT=&quot]The specialist make up design, did they learn it at the university offering degrees or in the intensive 3-6 months training course and/or the job training through apprentice? Gok Wan become a fashion designer did he earn degree for it or did he get this skills from university of life ?[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The Martial art and adventure tourism design, did they learn it at the university offering degrees or in the intensive training course or on the job training?[/FONT]

anarchied

Gloomendoom wrote: »

Unless there really is no option, I wouldn't recommend a part time job during term time.

I'm hoping that I won't have to be in part-time employment (never thought I'd say that!) during my course as it's quite a hands-on course. Some unis recommend that you don't work more than 14 hours too if you're attending uni a few days a week. Obviously, if you're doing a 5-day week at uni, there's no chance in hell that you'll be able to manage to work AND study without making yourself ill or dropping grades.

VJsmum

adindas wrote: »

[FONT=&quot]How many degree programmes have been closed sofar due to poor number of students, thus it does not meet the breakeven to run it.[/FONT] But at least it helps the uni to keep the people who are teaching that subjects to stay on the job for a few years.

As a university lecturer on a highly vocational course in the construction industry, I can tell you that Universities do not keep courses running in order to keep people in teaching jobs. It costs most universities far more to keep in business than the fees earned from undergraduate courses. THe changes to fees meant that we earn less than we used to as we no longer get top ups from the government.

My university is in the bottom half of the so called league tables - unless you look at the one for employability, when we are very much in the top half.

Regrettably for the courses in my school, the construction industry is probably the hardest hit in any recession - it is always first in and last out, we have been struggling to fill our courses in the last few years and are very much under threat. the only reason we are able to keep running (I think, though I am not management) is because we "sell" our courses abroad and because we have many masters students, a large number of whom are from overseas. Yet our students all gain employment and our average graduate salary was £27,000 last year - they WILL pay their fees back.

Personally, I think that there are few courses that I would deem not worthwhile, there is so much more to it than what you are taught in the classroom. If I told my daughter I would not support her through the acting degree, she would do it anyway - by the way, she has been warned she will spend 30+ hours in lessons. My goddaughter, who has just started an English degree at a Russell Group Uni, spends 8 (and most of the graduates off that degree go into accountancy - go figure )

Prothet_of_Doom

Person_one wrote: »

The world would be a far far poorer place if people only ever went to university with the goal of a steady job and a mortgage.

I hope the innovators and inventors and artists and thinkers of the future aren't missing out because their parents think only a steady salary has any value.

Ah Yes but no but. Given that University is a money making cash cow of a business, convincing people they have talent, where they do not, just delays their entry into real society, and I see it as a self funding unemployment loan.

I know a couple of drama students who should have become primary school teachers, but one is now a letting agent (and not particularly good at it) and the other is scabbling around for bits of work, but TBH she's not that good and if she makes a living out of it, I'll be surprised. This married couple live in the loft of his parents. Nightmare way to start married life?

My wife reckons that of her 4 friends with kids as university, 3 give between £70 and £100 a week to the student during term time, and 1 gives thier child nothing. All are also eating into overdraft facilities from student bank accounts.

We give our child nothing, but then he gets the full maintenance loan, and becuase he gets that, he also gets a University Busary.

Before he went to university, we sat down with a spreadsheet, and did a weekly cash flow analysis, and were quite generous with estimates of spend. It showed that if careful, but not tight, he could finish the 1st year with money to spare.


He recently showed me 2 years of actuals on the spreadsheet, and he's actually saved the total of the Bursary, which he's planning on using for a car and insurance when he eventually finishes.

I think the problem that people have is not supporting thier kids in learning how to budget, and not going through a week by week cash flow, for 52 weeks.