Are degrees in the UK value for money?

Arklight

GreatApe wrote: »

Sure but the number of kids that really love their subject is probably below 5% they are the ones that tend not only to get grade As but very high grade As.

But even then it can be a bad choice. At 17 if I was given £60k I probably would have spent it on an education because I loved physics and mathematics and was the best at it at my college. With hindsight though I feel it was wasted for myself and the country. I only worked a graduate job for about 3 years of my life but even then I could have done it with just my A-levels knowledge.



There must be a limit of diminishing returns. If not why not train everyone to masters and phd and maybe multiple degrees? Clearly everyone draws a line somewhere so dont pretend otherwise.



If you want to get rid of state pensions it would have to be a slow process over a few decades you can not just burn previous promises.

Most people don't want to do a masters or a PhD. Afaik compulsory schooling stops at 18 now, so a degree is also optional.


Sending people to university isn't going to solve the ills of mankind but the overall effect is positive.


Do you remember when you were beaten up going to the newsagent that night, by a vicious gang of Media Studies graduates?


No, neither do I.

Arklight

economic wrote: »

PS i cant believe its taken over a 1000 posts to still debate the value of uk degrees. Its as clear as daylight how much of a waste of resources and a scam the whole education system is.

It certainly was with you.

Voyager2002

economic wrote: »

As we have advanced and new technologies, why not just broadcast the lectures on youtube, students can pay a minimal course fee, do the lectures in their own time (many could be done within a year), and perhaps do an online test or if you have o a moderated exam. then you get the degree.

you have no need for all these universities, you can shut them down and save the taxpayer a lot of money.

Make use of high speed internet, streaming services, high def monitors/TVs, collaborative online environments, powerful computing.

Then eventually you will have AI to do many of the jobs so no one will even need to go into debt of 60k for a useless degree!

Congratulations, you have just invented https://www.futurelearn.com/

Sadly, for the on-line courses to be any good you do need a vast infrastructure, so there is not that much scope for cutting costs.

GreatApe

economic wrote: »

As we have advanced and new technologies, why not just broadcast the lectures on youtube, students can pay a minimal course fee, do the lectures in their own time (many could be done within a year), and perhaps do an online test or if you have o a moderated exam. then you get the degree.

you have no need for all these universities, you can shut them down and save the taxpayer a lot of money.

Make use of high speed internet, streaming services, high def monitors/TVs, collaborative online environments, powerful computing.

Then eventually you will have AI to do many of the jobs so no one will even need to go into debt of 60k for a useless degree!

I recall all the employers I have applied to make you do an online math/iq test anyway and many also in the interview tested my mathematics knowledge.

What should happen is that these employers should stop asking for degrees and just keep their online tests and interviews. So a mathematical banking job should not ask for a degree just that you pass their online tests and interview tests.

economic

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/dec/05/two-year-degrees-funding-university-student-fees

2 year degrees would be a step forward but still a long way to go in eradicating pointless degrees and resource wasting.

GreatApe

Arklight wrote: »

Most people don't want to do a masters or a PhD. Afaik compulsory schooling stops at 18 now, so a degree is also optional.

Sending people to university isn't going to solve the ills of mankind but the overall effect is positive.

Do you remember when you were beaten up going to the newsagent that night, by a vicious gang of Media Studies graduates?

No, neither do I.

So your reason for sending kids to university is so they do not commit crime?

Do you have any evidence that the same temperament kids who go and do not go have different crime levels?

And even if it were the case can you prove that £80k in media studies reduces crime more than £80k spent on security/police measures?

Grasping at straws

economic

GreatApe wrote: »

I recall all the employers I have applied to make you do an online math/iq test anyway and many also in the interview tested my mathematics knowledge.

What should happen is that these employers should stop asking for degrees and just keep their online tests and interviews. So a mathematical banking job should not ask for a degree just that you pass their online tests and interview tests.

i would have been much happier with that. thats 3 years starting work early which would have made a massive difference to me.

but for those who really want to do media studies, women studies and the like, why not just offer these course online, similar to open university? cut costs massively. in fact you could force this to happen by stopping all student funding for pointless degrees. the market will react.

EDIT: to quantify that, that would be 3 more years earning 100k gross, thats around 60k net and ignoring the 1k a year i would have saved, i would have benefited by an extra 180k, for me to buy a home earlier and benefit from that or apple shares in 2004 and become a multi millionaire by now.

GreatApe

economic wrote: »

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/dec/05/two-year-degrees-funding-university-student-fees

2 year degrees would be a step forward but still a long way to go in eradicating pointless degrees and resource wasting.

There should be a 1 year fast track degree
6 days a week 50 weeks a year 60 hours a week

Let the universities charge twice the tuition if necessary.
£20k for one year plus £10k living costs = £30k
rather than the current system of ~£10k tuition + £10k living costs over 3 years = £60k

Half the price plus the kids/country would benefit from 2 additional work years which would add ~£50k gross earnings. These one year fast track degrees would thus save ~£80k per kid

economic

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Congratulations, you have just invented https://www.futurelearn.com/

Sadly, for the on-line courses to be any good you do need a vast infrastructure, so there is not that much scope for cutting costs.

Open university offers a wide variety of courses via distance learning. Why not have more services like this?

http://www.open.ac.uk/courses/atoz

economic

GreatApe wrote: »

There should be a 1 year fast track degree
6 days a week 50 weeks a year 60 hours a week

Let the universities charge twice the tuition if necessary.
£20k for one year plus £10k living costs = £30k
rather than the current system of ~£10k tuition + £10k living costs over 3 years = £60k

Half the price plus the kids/country would benefit from 2 additional work years which would add ~£50k gross earnings. These one year fast track degrees would thus save ~£80k per kid

yes. it would probably make it easier to weed out the poor students from the good students as you would make it more intensive. tbh you could probably still easily do women studies in 3 months compared to 3 years.