FIFTEEN HUNDRED QUID A MONTH FOR TUITION (think about it)

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

jackieblack wrote: »

Going to University is like any other financial commitment, each individual needs to weigh up the pros and cons and make a judgement on whether the cost equals or outweighs any realistic potential benefits.

Anyone just going for the 'student lifestyle' or who just sleepwalks into it without giving it proper consideration must accept the potential consequences of poor financial judgement IMO. The same goes for those choosing courses that don't lead to well paying jobs.

This is all much too easily said without much thought, isn't it?

We are talking about our young people who by definition as prospective undergraduates have nowhere near completed any education of the sort that would enable them to distinguish the wheat from the chaff in the propoganda they are fed by schools, universities, the government and even MSE!

And as photome says, the accommodation set up is all wrong too - even university-linked accommodation whether you like it or lump it typically comes with a 40 week contract.

Atidi

TurnUpForTheBooks wrote: »

This week and the next one or two are when first year students will be headed home after finishing their exams.

I never was brilliant at Maths but I got some A levels in it once.

Seems these students barely got started 6 months ago.

£1,500 per month is more than many of them can dream of taking home at any time in the first couple of years after graduation, yet apparently, not including the cost of books and materials, or of course the cost of living, it is right to burden these young people with debts the size of which only greedy commercial minds and dumb politicians who don't know the price of milk could dream up.

So I encourage everyone to think about it, for this is a uniquely English phenomenon.

As you say, you're not brilliant at maths.

The fact you claim to have obtained an A level in the subject just reinforces the belief that A levels today are not worth the paper they are written on.

DomRavioli

TurnUpForTheBooks wrote: »

This is all much too easily said without much thought, isn't it?

We are talking about our young people who by definition as prospective undergraduates have nowhere near completed any education of the sort that would enable them to distinguish the wheat from the chaff in the propoganda they are fed by schools, universities, the government and even MSE!

And as photome says, the accommodation set up is all wrong too - even university-linked accommodation whether you like it or lump it typically comes with a 40 week contract.

Your comments are assumptive TUFTB - it is what it is, if you don't like it, then please bog off to a country where university is free, but paid for by a basic 40% tax rate, even for those who didn't attend university. Denmark springs to mind there.

You seem to have some chip on your shoulder; do you have some kind of mental health issue where you cannot take criticism?

jackieblack

TurnUpForTheBooks wrote: »

This is all much too easily said without much thought, isn't it?

We are talking about our young people who by definition as prospective undergraduates have nowhere near completed any education of the sort that would enable them to distinguish the wheat from the chaff in the propoganda they are fed by schools, universities, the government and even MSE!

I don't think it's fair to judge every young person by that yardstick. (Although I guess we can only judge by what we know.)

My DD spent many months researching various courses and weighing up the cost/benefit of their prospective choices and most of her friends did the same.

For the career she wishes to pursue there are two routes of entry, a degree route and a non-degree route (achieving the professional qualification by employment and a diploma) but the career prospects for someone who has the degree are much better and, since the economic downturn, opportunities to obtain employment with an improved training practice are as scarce as hens teeth (even though there is a shortage of qualified professionals).

She researched different courses, different universities and the varying costs associated with each and made her decision taking all that into account. Part of that process included considering accomodation contracts and the costs of alternative accomodation and travel (the course requires several blocks of placements).
She thought it all through, worked out the relevant merits of each and made her decision.

All the young people I know are far more 'clued up' about the costs involved nowadays than they were a few years ago.

amiehall

TurnUpForTheBooks wrote: »

This is all much too easily said without much thought, isn't it?

We are talking about our young people who by definition as prospective undergraduates have nowhere near completed any education of the sort that would enable them to distinguish the wheat from the chaff in the propoganda they are fed by schools, universities, the government and even MSE!

And as photome says, the accommodation set up is all wrong too - even university-linked accommodation whether you like it or lump it typically comes with a 40 week contract.

I have 24 teaching weeks a year. But when you add on my 5 exam weeks a year, 8 weeks of Christmas and Easter holidays (believe me, NOONE wants to have to clear out their halls room for the holidays...), freshers week. That's a 38 week rental you'd want. And that would mean potentially having your last exam on the Friday and owing your keys back on Sunday. I think 40 weeks is a sensible length of let. I stayed in my halls of residence in my first year until about 3 days before the end of my contract and so did a lot of my friends.

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

Atidi wrote: »

As you say, you're not brilliant at maths.

The fact you claim to have obtained an A level in the subject just reinforces the belief that A levels today are not worth the paper they are written on.

Don't be silly Atidi. I actually attained a rather higher level of maths than A level, and it was in the days when far fewer people went to university. I am not sure what has encouraged you to suggest my maths might truly be woeful, yet I make no wild claims as you do that A levels today are not worth the paper. I don't think I could easily pass if I sat any right now, that's true!

DomRavioli wrote:

me wrote:

This is all much too easily said without much thought, isn't it?

We are talking about our young people who by definition as prospective undergraduates have nowhere near completed any education of the sort that would enable them to distinguish the wheat from the chaff in the propaganda they are fed by schools, universities, the government and even MSE!

And as photome says, the accommodation set up is all wrong too - even university-linked accommodation whether you like it or lump it typically comes with a 40 week contract.

Your comments are assumptive TUFTB - it is what it is, if you don't like it, then please bog off to a country where university is free, but paid for by a basic 40% tax rate, even for those who didn't attend university.

Assumptive? Well I can see you haven't thought to find out much about it or yet found the imagination to do much about your observation of "it is what it is"

Denmark springs to mind there.

Yes Danes pay quite high levels of tax and don't mind because they have a country that has worked pretty well in recent decades. They haven't suffered quite the same corporate excesses and cronyism we have. And even if they don't go to university themselves, they will probably have undergone some kind of higher technical education and understand the value of it to their country and families and friends, and unlike you, they don't see education as a luxury. And clever Europeans might indeed have Denmark on their "Must learn more about" list.

You seem to have some chip on your shoulder; do you have some kind of mental health issue where you cannot take criticism?

I can take it and I can also dish it out. Hows your mental health? Hope you get better quickly when you've lived through the worst bits if you haven't been there yet (no-one is immune).

No I am simply like a large number of Brits who have grown up here in the much fairer good times for working people and then seen so much go down the drain through viral cultures of rotten greed and downtrodden or naive worker turned against co-worker by the politicking of ignorant toffs. Call that a chip if you like - I don't go much on rotten greedy politicking ignorant toffs.

I am also perhaps a little more traveled than most, have had a broader education than most, and am still adding to it, been a little bolder and in your face than most, and consequently have worked at a bigger variety of jobs than most. I work and chat regularly with a much more varied bunch of many nationals than most (probably even more than most undergraduates do), so maybe I get exposed to a wider variety of views ...

All very assumptive claims I know, but from the moment we wake in the morning to the moment we sleep we are making assumptions based upon what we have seen and what we know and therefore what we expect, fear or look forward to.

I don't claim to be successful or any kind of role model, but I think I am fairly happy doing, saying and from time to time writing what I do, and I do know which way is up. So I offer my take on things, in the hope it might just provoke thought that might eventually change things for the better.

Yes I am different, and it is uncomfortable perhaps to read some of my views because they are based on simple and valid observations and they perhaps jar your particular comfort zone a little ... ask yourself why if you like.



Amiehall, appreciate your view but my own experience years ago wasn't really like that, and the three current first years I know (all at different unis but all on STEM courses) were already organised to be out and set up somewhere better well before the end of this month. Two have already finished their first year exams and even already got the results of some of them, yet have another month of rental contract to run. They won't be using university recommended accommodation again, and to be honest no-one should ever now. It is simply a greedy captive market which gives a fresher a short-lived feeling of "belonging" through lemming like rental activity, but most are at grossly inflated rates for sub-standard living.

In each of my example cases who won't be hanging around for any longer than is needed to get away to somewhere nicer we are talking about well rounded students who have made lots of friends and engage centrally in sport and social events at university. But they have interests outside university too. They aren't simply taking what comes, and they won't.

So that means they will be critically assessing what they actually got for their nine thousand quid this year that was long ago paid to the universities and upon which they, the students, have already incurred interest at 6.3% on their burgeoning loan balances which will no doubt have been securitised and privatised within ten years. And that is 6.3% by the way, where RPI and CPI have been running at less than a third of that rate (like the majority of existing mortgage rates too I think).

I think they are being ripped off, and the worst thing is so many citizens don't care, and say "Well that's their choice". That is not evidence of a mature national culture, just a sick or simplistic and ignorant one I think.

DomRavioli

OP, you have been reported. You don't talk to other humans like that, simple as.

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

DomRavioli wrote: »

OP, you have been reported. You don't talk to other humans like that, simple as.

You reap what you sow, and now you don't like what you reaped?

Gloomendoom

I'm still wondering how this is a uniquely English phenomenon.

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

Gloomendoom wrote: »

I'm still wondering how this is a uniquely English phenomenon.

Well students ordinarily resident in England got shafted, didn't they? Welsh and Scots students didn't. And whilst an English student can go elsewhere in Europe and take advantage of whatever local student deal is on offer, that excludes going to Scotland and Wales. It is a disgraceful and unlawful discrimination but no-one has prosecuted a telling case to stop it.

£9,000 pa just for tuition was supposed to be for top notch courses only - only an English parliament could introduce and make plain that idea and then sit idly by and let universities trample the door down and all start charging £9,000 bar the few.

Then students are told its not really a loan, it's a tax and it won't affect their affordability status when it comes to other types of loan later. That's all a uniquely English type of political lie all dressed up with typically English financial services ribbons to make each year's book securitiseable within a few short years and sold to politicians' favorite privateers. Why else would it have interest rates over three times typical current mortgage rates? All above board of course ...

How uniquely English does it need to be before you realise it?