Are degrees in the UK value for money?

Arklight

GreatApe wrote: »

Are degrees in the UK value for money?

Find a kid about to start a 3 year media studies degree at Luton poly and say you will give them £60k not to go to university and just start working and see which one he values more

Bedordshire's Media course is 88th in the country, with 39% of graduates in graduate level jobs or further study within 6 months of leaving.

https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings?s=Communication+%26+Media+Studies

While this isn't very good, it is hardly secret. Again though, what do you know about Bedfordshire's intake and why do you think the kids who go there have access to jobs from school?

GreatApe

economic wrote: »

when i decided on universities, i just chose the most reputable i could get into for my course. i didnt bother looks at average salaries - i knew they were misleading. there was no granular enough data.

all i knew was my course at my uni would likely lead to very good paying jobs in the future. thats why i did it. no guide or survey helped at all in making my decision.

Same here

I feel both at college and at university there was no financial advise at all on anything
I had no idea what tax rates were what the bands were what average earnings were what it cost to buy or rent a house and of course I had no concept of what £50k was as I had never had anywhere close to that money at age 17 when you are meant to make a decision.

I wasn't even properly aware of what value any of the courses had I kind of knew the subject I had picked was respected and just went to the best reputation university that said ok. Like 95% of the kids I was just going with the flow mostly ignorant

Knowing what I know now I would probably just have started working age 18.
One of the big myths is of course that getting work is impossible or that young people can only get !!!! jobs. The stats do not show that to be true unemployment even for those who do not go to university are very low

More people are now awarded degrees than people were awarded 5 GCSEs in 1980
There is no way the kids of today are so much smarter than the kids of 1980
The difference is marginal degrees have been so debased they are worth roughly 5 GCSEs
This makes sense, you can get into university having failed all your A-Levels and then go on to get a degree. If you can not pass your A-Levels why cover it up with a pass in a supposedly higher level of study. Clearly if you can pass the degree but cant pass the A-Level then the A-Level is actually superior

Maybe government should push some big employers to completely ignore if someone has degree or not and just to look at A-Levels. That way the kids can say ok I will do well in my A-Levels that is sufficient which of course it is it was sufficient for decades before the 2000s university inflation

chucknorris

Arklight wrote: »

I don't have any problem with paying tax if it's used for inward investment. I have a problem paying tax which is then used to provide corporate welfare for companies that don't pay any themselves and don't pay their staff a living wage so the state has to provide working benefits, or to plug holes in tax avoidance by the very rich.

I have a real problem with the demonising of the poor that is repeated over and over again on this forum.

I have a problem with paying all my various taxes, then having to pay yet another tax based on my wealth, which really was the basis for all the other taxes that I just previously paid. Given that you 'don't have a problem with it' are you sure that you would be eligible to pay a wealth tax? Maybe I am wrong but I think that it is aimed at the more wealthy members of the population. I can understand you not having a problem, if you were not eligible to pay it, as you would be a net gainer.

Arklight

Cakeguts wrote: »

Yes I read it like that to start with. I read graduate prospects as graduate level jobs. However it doesn't say that. It says graduate prospects. When I looked at it properly I realised that it actually meant percentage of graduates who got a job in the first 6 month. Any job not a graduate level one. Once you realise this you also realise that no university actually says how many of its students on each course actually get a job that needs a degree. It also doesn't say how many of those that get a job get one in a subject related to the degree.

The way these things are written so that they can deceive people who are not used to reading between the lines is another thing that annoys me. How much experience of misleading advertising have 17 year olds had?

A lot of the information that universities provide about their courses is very misleading. How they get away with it I have no idea.

It very clearly says that non graduate outcomes are not included in the methodology. The fact that you think it doesn't - says more about your apparent reading comprehension than anything else.

I think generally it's just another fact that you don't like because it doesn't fit in with your prejudice (prejudging) so you have decided to ignore it.

Eric_the_half_a_bee

Arklight wrote: »

I don't have any problem with paying tax if it's used for inward investment.

So if the government wanted to tax you more so that 6 year degrees could be offered to 100% of teenagers, or so that a high speed railway could be built between Shrewsbury and Bangor, that would be fine?

Not all investment is worthwhile investment.

Arklight

chucknorris wrote: »

I have a problem with paying all my various taxes, then having to pay yet another tax based on my wealth, which really was the basis for all the other taxes that I just previously paid. Given that you 'don't have a problem with it' are you sure that you would be eligible to pay a wealth tax? Maybe I am wrong but I think that it is aimed at the more wealthy members of the population. I can understand you not having a problem, if you were not eligible to pay it, as you would be a net gainer.

I think if you judge everyone by your own standards you would write what you have just written.

Arklight

Eric_the_half_a_bee wrote: »

So if the government wanted to tax you more so that 6 year degrees could be offered to 100% of teenagers, or so that a high speed railway could be built between Shrewsbury and Bangor, that would be fine?

Not all investment is worthwhile investment.

.................
Sophistry.

chucknorris

Arklight wrote: »

I think if you judge everyone by your own standards you would write what you have just written.

I have no idea what you are trying to say. Does anyone actually judge people (not that I am judging anyone) by standards other than their own?

economic

GreatApe wrote: »

Same here

I feel both at college and at university there was no financial advise at all on anything
I had no idea what tax rates were what the bands were what average earnings were what it cost to buy or rent a house and of course I had no concept of what £50k was as I had never had anywhere close to that money at age 17 when you are meant to make a decision.

I wasn't even properly aware of what value any of the courses had I kind of knew the subject I had picked was respected and just went to the best reputation university that said ok. Like 95% of the kids I was just going with the flow mostly ignorant

Knowing what I know now I would probably just have started working age 18.
One of the big myths is of course that getting work is impossible or that young people can only get !!!! jobs. The stats do not show that to be true unemployment even for those who do not go to university are very low

More people are now awarded degrees than people were awarded 5 GCSEs in 1980
There is no way the kids of today are so much smarter than the kids of 1980
The difference is marginal degrees have been so debased they are worth roughly 5 GCSEs
This makes sense, you can get into university having failed all your A-Levels and then go on to get a degree. If you can not pass your A-Levels why cover it up with a pass in a supposedly higher level of study. Clearly if you can pass the degree but cant pass the A-Level then the A-Level is actually superior

Maybe government should push some big employers to completely ignore if someone has degree or not and just to look at A-Levels. That way the kids can say ok I will do well in my A-Levels that is sufficient which of course it is it was sufficient for decades before the 2000s university inflation

yes this is what i have been saying, there had been absolutely no teaching about life skills at school - things like you say like taxes, mortgages, interest rates etc etc. IMO one of the main reasons why the poor stay poor. if you are poor chances are your parents wont have a clue about finances so you cant even learn from them. luckily there is a lot on things like youtube to learn from, but at 16 are kids interested in that BY THEMSELVES?

there is no doubt in my mind that there is an education bubble. like most things, money is spent without thinking about value. its the fault of successive governments to bribe voters to get voted in power. this is the way government works. almost all of societies problems is the fault of government.

GreatApe

Arklight wrote: »

Bedordshire's Media course is 88th in the country, with 39% of graduates in graduate level jobs or further study within 6 months of leaving.

Just because an employer or a kid says their job is a graduate job does not mean it is what should be classed as such

For instance lets say we went back to 1987 university numbers. Would Aldi the supermarket which has a graduate program for middle management close up and declare bankruptcy as they could not recruit graduates or would they do what business in 1987 did which was to promote people internally to middle management?

Degrees also discriminate against kids who did not go. In the past maybe you were not that keen on school or a bit lazy or destructive at age 17 but maybe you got a lot better by age 25 you could then get your life on track and get better paid employment. Now that same kid is forever tared by not having a degree and much more limited. What is worse is as time goes on company HR departments will be filled with women with mostly worthless degrees and to maintain the illusion of the worth of their useless degrees they will slowly make sure more and more jobs require a degree. A self fulfilling cycle

While this isn't very good, it is hardly secret. Again though, what do you know about Bedfordshire's intake and why do you think the kids who go there have access to jobs from school?

Everyone in the UK has access to jobs
Youth unemployment is very low in the uk and is in fact made to look a lot worse by the fact that FULL TIME STUDENTS who are looking for Part Time work count as unemployed yooof.

Do you really think this generation is so much smarter than their parents?
More kids get degrees now than their parents got 5 x O-Levels

We spend £25 billion a year to give degrees to kids that failed their A-Levels and failed most their GCSEs but at least we can give them a certificate saying they are a graduate from luton.

£25 billion for a pretense.
Would you rather not hire 500,000 additional nurses and doctors instead of have this nonsense?