Are degrees in the UK value for money?

SingleSue

None of mine went to a uni in London, eldest was the closest but it still wasn't London. Only one went to a city university (almost 200 miles north from home)

One did look at London universities but then discounted them due to cost and reliability of travel back home and of course, the cost of halls and private student lets.

SingleSue

economic wrote: »

So from you are saying universities are like holiday camps for 3 years where students get to experience the local area? And get into 50k worth of debt for? Do you not see anything wrong with that?

I didn't get that from his post so no idea how you did!

economic

SingleSue wrote: »

I didn't get that from his post so no idea how you did!

Read his post again, carefully this time.

Cakeguts

zagubov wrote: »

Yes that's true. Many even came from abroad as everywhere's heard of London. However, all my friend's kids are off around the country to Exeter, Manchester and elsewhere. Years ago they would have had a few big English cities to go to. Now there are many more places.

For London, neighbouring towns like Chelmsford, High Wycombe, Bedford, all have unis. Most counties have them now (I'm not claiming they all do, but the vast majority must have).

Locals may not go to them but people from the big cities may go there. The desire to leave town to go to uni elsewhere is a very positive aspect of the uni experience. I expect a lot of the students want to reinvent themselves and experience somewhere new and fresh to them.

We're all stuck in the past with our old-fashioned ideas that kids are born to large families out in the countryside who then move into the big city to escape the constraints of country life. Let's get real. This is a massively urbanised country. Most kids are being born in small families in big cities and towns. Spreading the HE experience around as many places like that as possible is the way forward.

The main problem with the idea of the university experience is that £50k is a lot to pay for an experience. 3 wasted years is also a lot of time to use for an experience. Most universities have accommodation these days so the experience of a different part of the country boils down to living in a university campus somewhere else.

The students who suffer are the ones who don't get good A level grades. 3 years is a lot of time to waste on a degree that you can't use for anything because it is too easy and doesn't go into enough depth for anyone to get a job with it. It isn't even good education because it is too easy. You could do just as well or better with books from your local library for free.

So who wants their child to waste 3 years doing a degree that is so easy they could have learned more using books from their local library? They can never get those wasted 3 years back. Those 3 years are job training, work experience, apprenticeship time that can never be recovered. For many degrees 3 years of full time working experience offers a better education than a degree.

Those same students will then be taxed on their poorly paid jobs so that other students can waste 3 years on a degree that is worth nothing. They may not have to pay the loans back but they will have to pay income tax that will be spent on someone else who is having an experience.

I am not that keen on taxpayer's money being spent so that people can have an experience.

SingleSue

economic wrote: »

Read his post again, carefully this time.

I read it carefully the first time.

What he was saying was that students are not just choosing London or their local area, they are going everywhere and as a by products of going to these (sometimes) far flung places from home, they are also experiencing different areas and have the chance to be someone different to who they were at home.

He wasn't saying they were just going for the experience.

All 3 of mine went to universities away from here for the exact same reason, to get out of the area and discover new places in the country (plus the local uni is not very good).

None of them wanted to go to a uni in the local area because, well, it's the local area, somewhere they know very well and with the same old faces. They not only wanted the education but a chance to meet new people and discover new places.

economic

SingleSue wrote: »

I read it carefully the first time.

What he was saying was that students are not just choosing London or their local area, they are going everywhere and as a by products of going to these (sometimes) far flung places from home, they are also experiencing different areas and have the chance to be someone different to who they were at home.

He wasn't saying they were just going for the experience.

All 3 of mine went to universities away from here for the exact same reason, to get out of the area and discover new places in the country (plus the local uni is not very good).

None of them wanted to go to a uni in the local area because, well, it's the local area, somewhere they know very well and with the same old faces. They not only wanted the education but a chance to meet new people and discover new places.

It is pretty clear that there has been a huge expansion of the number of degrees/unis available over the last few decades. This has been funded by the taxpayer on day 1 (eventually repaid by the graduates but with the taxpayer taking a significant haircut).

Also clearly the local economies (including BTL landlords) have benefited hugely from this because effectively what has happened is that there has and there continues to be a transfer of wealth from the taxpayer to the local uni towns. Has there been genuine net wealth being created? I think very very little on an aggregate basis. Wealth would be created by teaching skills such as how to be a doctor so that they can save lives in the future. Wealth is not added by providing a photography grad skills on how to use a camera and take the best photos, when that grad becomes a tesco shelf stacker or a telephone customer service person.

This is because you really have to go back to fundamentals and ask yourself what actual value is a degree providing to both the student and the economy. Some degrees clearly show some benefit to both (and probably value too) like medicine, dentistry, most hard science degrees etc. Others do not like photography, women studies, media studies etc. Even history and English are debatable.

Now the benefits are clear for these certain degrees like medicine as they are training future doctors. It probably is worth 9k a year for them taxpayer for them to study this. But is it worth 9k a year for someone to study photography? What about a maths degree? I did one and i have forgotten 95% of the content and didn't use 99.9% in my jobs.

The massive rise in the number of graduates over the last few decades should correlate with a rise in skills too. Has there been a massive rise in skills? I am not sure there has.

When i was looking at universities to go to, a lot of my fellow students were primarily thinking about uni life and how fun it would be. subject choice was dependent on what they thought would be interesting and what they would be good at. No thought at all went into what they would do with the degrees (unless someone did a vocational degree). Of course back then degrees cost 1k a year, so the taxpayer really got shafted. Now the cost is placed more on the student, so as Cakeguts has said, its the B grade or below students who will be worse off.

So the question is are we really spending the taxpayer money wisely? Wouldn't we get better value for money elsewhere for the economy? Most people do not need a degree, i am confident that 90% of grads don't need to be grads. Companies need to stop requiring degrees and provide apprenticeship programs and on the job training straight after Alevel.

Otherwise this massive transfer of wealth will continue to uni towns who do not deserve it and uni chancellers getting paid 100s of thousands a year.

GreatApe

zagubov wrote: »

Yes that's true. Many even came from abroad as everywhere's heard of London. However, all my friend's kids are off around the country to Exeter, Manchester and elsewhere. Years ago they would have had a few big English cities to go to. Now there are many more places.

For London, neighbouring towns like Chelmsford, High Wycombe, Bedford, all have unis. Most counties have them now (I'm not claiming they all do, but the vast majority must have).

Locals may not go to them but people from the big cities may go there. The desire to leave town to go to uni elsewhere is a very positive aspect of the uni experience. I expect a lot of the students want to reinvent themselves and experience somewhere new and fresh to them.

We're all stuck in the past with our old-fashioned ideas that kids are born to large families out in the countryside who then move into the big city to escape the constraints of country life. Let's get real. This is a massively urbanised country. Most kids are being born in small families in big cities and towns. Spreading the HE experience around as many places like that as possible is the way forward.

People all over the country in every village town and city have children
Since universities are not in every village town and city the system obviously takes from everywhere and concentrates to university towns

As for the university experience most 18 year olds are children.
Some may indeed want to move away from their parents for more independence but they could do that if they just got a job.

The university 'experience' is just part of the hype and miss selling
Almost irrespective of where you are or what you are doing most people live normal 'boring' lives

It would be better for the majority kids to forgo university live at home and save most their earnings. At age 22 they would have £40k in savings instead of £60-80k in debt. Couple up with someone else who did similar and together they have a £80k deposit. Borrow a £40k mortgage and this couple can buy a 3 bedroom terrace in most parts of the country for £120k

Starting life at age 22 owning your own house with just a £170pm mortgage is going to be a much better experience than starting life in a low end HMO shared house paying £500pm for a room with no savings and £60k of university debt.

economic

SingleSue wrote: »

I read it carefully the first time.

What he was saying was that students are not just choosing London or their local area, they are going everywhere and as a by products of going to these (sometimes) far flung places from home, they are also experiencing different areas and have the chance to be someone different to who they were at home.

He wasn't saying they were just going for the experience.

All 3 of mine went to universities away from here for the exact same reason, to get out of the area and discover new places in the country (plus the local uni is not very good).

None of them wanted to go to a uni in the local area because, well, it's the local area, somewhere they know very well and with the same old faces. They not only wanted the education but a chance to meet new people and discover new places.

If your son had a choice between:
a) doing a degree at a uni in your local hometown
b) doing a degree at a uni in a far away town

Assuming both degrees and unis are of equal quality and standards and everything is identical apart from the fact that one is local and the other is in a far away town, what would your son choose? And what would you want him to choose?

GreatApe

Cakeguts wrote: »

The main problem with the idea of the university experience is that £50k is a lot to pay for an experience. 3 wasted years is also a lot of time to use for an experience. Most universities have accommodation these days so the experience of a different part of the country boils down to living in a university campus somewhere else.

The students who suffer are the ones who don't get good A level grades. 3 years is a lot of time to waste on a degree that you can't use for anything because it is too easy and doesn't go into enough depth for anyone to get a job with it. It isn't even good education because it is too easy. You could do just as well or better with books from your local library for free.

So who wants their child to waste 3 years doing a degree that is so easy they could have learned more using books from their local library? They can never get those wasted 3 years back. Those 3 years are job training, work experience, apprenticeship time that can never be recovered. For many degrees 3 years of full time working experience offers a better education than a degree.

Those same students will then be taxed on their poorly paid jobs so that other students can waste 3 years on a degree that is worth nothing. They may not have to pay the loans back but they will have to pay income tax that will be spent on someone else who is having an experience.

I am not that keen on taxpayer's money being spent so that people can have an experience.

Its nonsense I have had many student renters in my time and their experience is living in a shared house mostly broke as they mostly are too lazy to get a part time job. They sit at home or go to university sleep eat and repeat. Almost none of them are staring companies or inventing new stuff or even forming proper relationships that lead to marriage and kids.

The kids would be better off staying at home and getting a job and saving 75% of their income.
Working is just as much of an experience as university in fact it's much better as its better routine and with a wider range of ages. With university many don't even go to tutorials or lectures

Not only has excessive 'education' lead to lots of debt and lots of lost earnings but it has also lead to people starting lives much later. My parents left school at age 15 and got jobs got married when they were 21 and had me at 22. Now the kids leave school age 22 broke and in debt. They work for 8 years and then get married (if at all) and start having kids in their 30s. Life has been pushed back a decade. Most the kids are miserable as they have no real responsibilities. I recall an actuary friend telling me suercides peak around age 25-35 as the kids realise they are alone have no responsibilities and their lives don't look like the made up Facebook and TV lives.

GreatApe

economic wrote: »

If your son had a choice between:
a) doing a degree at a uni in your local hometown
b) doing a degree at a uni in a far away town

Assuming both degrees and unis are of equal quality and standards and everything is identical apart from the fact that one is local and the other is in a far away town, what would your son choose? And what would you want him to choose?

Lots of kids are brainwashed into feeling that they have to leave home at 18 so the kids probably would want to go to the far away university. However the reality when they get there is not freedom and great things. Its a shared house that ends up as a tip that you just about accept and bear.

The kids would be better off living with their parents and saving the £15-20k in rents/bills.
That saved money can give them more freedom later on or they can spend it on more useful stuff maybe a holiday or two rather than independence living in squalor in a HMO