Are degrees in the UK value for money?

economic

some interesting data from the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-40511184

GreatApe

economic wrote: »

you give them choice by:
- empowering them with unbiased knowledge of the usefulness of different degrees

How?
And if you say to a kid look media studies at luton will mean you wont earn much and wont pay any of the debt back. He may well say well that sounds a lot better than stacking shelves in tesco. Give him an actual alternative use for the capital and he will think differnetly

- providing more options in the job market as you now have employers having to hire non grads and more apprenticeship programs

I doubt you are going to be able to force quotas on employers and which paper shuffler is going to deice the proportions for each and every industry and employer and location and time?

GreatApe

economic wrote: »

Also by giving the option to a kid to spend £50k on either:
- degree
- pension
-house

I think by far most will still choose the degree. They wont care about a pension (they need to earn to spend now), they wont bother with a house as their first priority is to get a salary (which with a degree makes it much more likely - they cant even get a mortgage until they get a salary), so they will just choose the degree option.

They can use the £60k at any time for the housing deposit they dont need to use it there and then. I would also have a couple be able to combined their loans so £120k which is enough to buy outright a 3 bedroom terrace in much of the country so they would not need a mortgage.

Unemployment for the young is not that bad some >95% are employed if you ignore those unemployed for less than 6 months. Youth unemployment looks quite bad because there are about 150,000 full time students looking for part time work who count as unemployed. They have high unemployment rates because obviously they can only offer to work certain hours of certain days which is no good to most employers

Even if your idea will have more of an impact then mine, how much more would it be? Your costs will be much higher then mine, in fact from day 1 my idea will have an impact on reducing the deficit (which will gradually over time have a bigger impact as funding for degrees gradually reduce).

There is no way you are going to be able to cut funding for higher education directly its so easy to say but you wont be able to do it.

We have already had this discussion it wont be a cost you can resell the loans at close to 100p in the £1
First order savings for the state will be in the region of £5 billion annually. Second order savings probably the same again

my idea you can spin it politically easily. you would say yes we are reducing funding for education, but we are making more jobs and apprenticeship programs available which means your kids don't end up in 50k debt, and can start earning at the age of 18.

and the media and opposition will hunt you down with stories of closing universities people losing their jobs (of course other jobs will be created but you cant point to them as easily as you can to the closed universities) kids not being given the opportunity and you just being an evil tory taking from the poor to give to the rich etc. Also the kids who would have got !!!! jobs, would get !!!! jobs but 3 years sooner however now you are the one to blame for their !!!! jobs because you denied them a university education. If you say hand on a minute you would have only managed a !!!! job anyway they will hate you more for it. On the lefty side they will cry you are evil and they will reverse the cuts to universities and expand them more than they ever were.

GreatApe

In 1980, there were 68,000 people starting university - this autumn there will be more than 500,000. Twice as many people are now getting a degree as were getting five O-levels in the early 1980s

If you assume core intelligence has not changed a lot since 1980 which it probably hasn't as it is mostly biological you get the marginal degree today to be equivalent to no more than five O-levels (GCSEs) in 1980.

A huge amount of grade inflation
Something like £25 billion extra cost to increase student numbers and we have not much to show for it
Cut student numbers back to 100,000 kids and you could cut VAT to 16% helping everyone but poor people more so than rich people. Or cut business rates towards zero and many more businesses would open up and be based in the UK. Or cut corporate tax to 10% to draw the worlds companies to come and set up in the UK and hire uk workers. Or expand the size and scope of the NSH by 15%. Or use the money to build 100,000 homes a year.

Such a huge waste of actual people capital and time only so we can pretend kids worth 5 o-levels are degree level smart

economic

GreatApe wrote: »

How?
And if you say to a kid look media studies at luton will mean you wont earn much and wont pay any of the debt back. He may well say well that sounds a lot better than stacking shelves in tesco. Give him an actual alternative use for the capital and he will think differnetly



I doubt you are going to be able to force quotas on employers and which paper shuffler is going to deice the proportions for each and every industry and employer and location and time?

Thats why you educate them about the alternatives which the government would have introduced - apprenticeship programs and that there is an allocation for non grads for jobs that otherwise would have required degrees.

I dont think it would be a huge administration problem for employers. you dont force absolute quotas, you just force relative so x% of all intake must be non grads and/or apprentice programs.

itll be done for those companies who have a decent sized HR departments - if they have grad schemes they will have a HR department that can handle it.

Another way to do it is to use discrimination laws - we have this diversity !!!! going on so why not include diversity of educational level? you don't need to force quotas but you do make companies hire non grads as they don't want to seem like they are being discriminatory against non grads.

Those who do genuinely require a degree like medicine are obviously not going to get any pressure.

GreatApe

economic wrote: »

Thats why you educate them about the alternatives which the government would have introduced - apprenticeship programs and that there is an allocation for non grads for jobs that otherwise would have required degrees.

I dont think it would be a huge administration problem for employers. you dont force absolute quotas, you just force relative so x% of all intake must be non grads and/or apprentice programs.

itll be done for those companies who have a decent sized HR departments - if they have grad schemes they will have a HR department that can handle it.

Another way to do it is to use discrimination laws - we have this diversity !!!! going on so why not include diversity of educational level? you don't need to force quotas but you do make companies hire non grads as they don't want to seem like they are being discriminatory against non grads.

Those who do genuinely require a degree like medicine are obviously not going to get any pressure.

Sounds like too much meddling

Give the kids choice let them choose. You are worried its going to cost more it wont its going to cost a lot less. At the extreme end it could be a boost of £15 billion annually directly and possibly the same again indirectly

economic

GreatApe wrote: »

Sounds like too much meddling

Give the kids choice let them choose. You are worried its going to cost more it wont its going to cost a lot less. At the extreme end it could be a boost of £15 billion annually directly and possibly the same again indirectly

yes your approach would be a lot easier. im just not convinced enough kids will take the pension or saving for house. i think still far too many will want to do the degree.

A degree is seen as an insurance policy by students especially the ones doing the useless degree. Im not convinced they would rather chose the pension (which would be many decades in terms of being able to use it).

for the savings for a home some may choose it. but not sure how many. i think you still need some level of unbiased education to teach them about the options and also encourage companies to start apprenticeship programs to make it easier for the student to choose the house then the useless degree.

so some combination of your idea and mine i think would work.

phillw

economic wrote: »

Thats why you educate them about the alternatives which the government would have introduced

The government has tried various schemes, they aren't terribly popular with employees or employers.

I think universities need to deal with mis-selling, which definitely happens.

Arklight

economic wrote: »

A step in the right direction but still a lot more to do:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-42268310

I would still like to see all useless degrees scrapped (by reducing funding), apprenticeships forced by the government, force companies to employ a % of non grads each year, educate kids pre university about the pros and cons of different degrees, universities and stats on wages and employ-ability per degree.

Degrees already are ranked by these metrics.

Here is one of about umpteen different collations:

https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings

The fact that you have been sounding off at such immense length and volume and didn't know that, is quite astounding.

Arklight

economic wrote: »

why cant we tax your airmiles to help the poor? is that ok with you?

Air travel is taxed.