Are degrees in the UK value for money?

Cakeguts

zagubov wrote: »

I'm baffled how you got that from my post.

I'm not. Your post read like you thought it was a good idea to expand education all over the country so that students could move to a different area to experience it and university life there.

The problem is that there aren't enough jobs in the UK that need a degree. So if someone is going to university to get a graduate level job and there aren't any for people who get less than three As or A*s at A level then there are 1000s of students who aren't going to get a better job from having a degree. Coupled with that the degrees that people who can't get three As at A level study are easier otherwise they wouldn't pass them so the education standard of the degree is lower.

What this means is that there are 1000s of students who are spending 3 years at a university in another part of the country for nothing. All they are getting is an experience of being at university. They might just as well be at a holiday camp. A very expensive holiday camp. Then what happens is that they don't get a graduate job because their degree isn't good enough in education standard and they don't earn enough to pay back the loan so in the future the loan gets written off (who ultimately pays for that?) They spend 3 years at university get a huge debt that they don't pay back, someone else pays it (taxpayer?) When they leave university they are back to the same place in the job market as they would have been straight after A levels. So behind someone who had done an apprenticeship and behind someone who had done job training and behind someone who has worked full time for 3 years. This basically leaves them with a choice of jobs that need no training or qualifications. Which means that the time at university is roughly the same as being in a very expensive holiday camp for 3 years

The sad thing is that the people who can't get 3 As or A*s for A level are the people who are least likely to realise that going to university means it will be harder for them to get a job ( any job) because of the wasted 3 years at a glorified holiday camp that is being run only for the benefit of the university workers. The photography, fashion, media studies, journalism, film studies, drama, performing arts, etc courses are being run to attract not very bright students to spend their money at the universities to keep the universities in business not because the UK needs people with degrees in these subjects.

At the moment the students who can't get at least 3 As at A level are being conned into wasting 3 years going to university in order to arrive at the same point they would have done after their A levels but with a huge debt and no chance of getting a good job. It is exactly like going to a very expensive holiday camp for 3 years. The really bad thing about it is that the universities are exploiting the least able students. The least able students are keeping the universities in business. 1000s of not very bright students are being conned into wasting 3 years to keep universities in business.

In any other business in the UK if it came to light that so many not very bright people was being exploited in this way there would be a public outcry. These really are the not very bright students. The ones that go to work straight after A levels or get an apprenticeship or work training are actually likely to be brighter than the ones doing the silly degrees so we are talking about the least able students being used to make money for the university staff.

kinger101

Interesting set of stats here;

http://www.bstubbs.co.uk/a-lev.htm

Generally, we can see that A-levels are getting easier (either by dumbing-down, or better training in exam technique), but generally, A* today is rarer than A was in 1993. C and below typically puts you in the bottom fifty-percentile, where you'd have probably been in the upper in 1993.

Some interesting comparisons between subjects (perhaps due to different cohorts). In further maths, A or A* has been 60%-ish since records began, with 30.1% getting this grade in 2017. For the often-derided (myself included) Media, Film, TV studies only awarded A* to 1.7%.

The problem for employers is knowing how you compare to your cohort based on these ever-changing results. What's wrong with fixing the grades based on percentiles (e.g, A% top 5%, A top 20%, B top 35%, C top 50%, D top 70%, E = bottom 100%, but still an acceptable minimum standard).

GreatApe

kinger101 wrote: »

Interesting set of stats here;

http://www.bstubbs.co.uk/a-lev.htm

Generally, we can see that A-levels are getting easier (either by dumbing-down, or better training in exam technique), but generally, A* today is rarer than A was in 1993. C and below typically puts you in the bottom fifty-percentile, where you'd have probably been in the upper in 1993.

Some interesting comparisons between subjects (perhaps due to different cohorts). In further maths, A or A* has been 60%-ish since records began, with 30.1% getting this grade in 2017. For the often-derided (myself included) Media, Film, TV studies only awarded A* to 1.7%.

The problem for employers is knowing how you compare to your cohort based on these ever-changing results. What's wrong with fixing the grades based on percentiles (e.g, A% top 5%, A top 20%, B top 35%, C top 50%, D top 70%, E = bottom 100%, but still an acceptable minimum standard).

The problem with fixing the grades like that is that it won't work past mandatory education

So while you can have a GCSE in maths so the top 10% get an A* the next 10% get an A the next 10% B and so on. It doesn't work past GCSEs. Most Further Maths students get the highest two grades because only the very brightest do a course in further maths. Think of it like this say in a given year only 10 kids take maths and they are the 10 best mathematicians in the whole world. Using your method the fifth person would get a D even though they are #5 in the whole world. Clearly a bad way to do marking as in this example all 10 would easily be A* students

There has definitely been a dumbing down of some subjects. I was in one of the transitional years when the maths A-Levels were being changed. I recall asking my teacher who was changing and she said it appeared that they were just cutting about a third of it out.

kinger101

GreatApe wrote: »

The problem with fixing the grades like that is that it won't work past mandatory education

So while you can have a GCSE in maths so the top 10% get an A* the next 10% get an A the next 10% B and so on. It doesn't work past GCSEs. Most Further Maths students get the highest two grades because only the very brightest do a course in further maths. Think of it like this say in a given year only 10 kids take maths and they are the 10 best mathematicians in the whole world. Using your method the fifth person would get a D even though they are #5 in the whole world. Clearly a bad way to do marking as in this example all 10 would easily be A* students

There has definitely been a dumbing down of some subjects. I was in one of the transitional years when the maths A-Levels were being changed. I recall asking my teacher who was changing and she said it appeared that they were just cutting about a third of it out.

Professional examinations employ moderation all the time. Failing about half each time. I don't have an A-level in further mathematics, but creating a cohort of the 10 best students is cherry picking an absurd subset. The fact is 16,000 people took further maths, not 10. And I doubt the best student would have ranked #5 in the world even. Yet the current grading system at best tells me the top 30-percentile. Unless they all got 100%, it is possible to construct a grading system that's more informative to employers.

SingleSue

economic wrote: »

so you want your son to go into about 20k more in debt just so he can get some independence and a better student life?

I just had to come back to this point and ask how you work out the 20k (not including interest in future years). The difference between what you receive as a loan as a staying at home student and one staying away is not as great as 20k over 3 years.

Or are you suggesting they don't have the loan in the first place?

If so, how do you suppose they pay for the food they eat, their board, their transport to university, their books, clothes etc especially if you are talking about them saving any money from their summer job to afford to go back packing for 6 months post uni.

economic

SingleSue wrote: »

I just had to come back to this point and ask how you work out the 20k (not including interest in future years). The difference between what you receive as a loan as a staying at home student and one staying away is not as great as 20k over 3 years.

Or are you suggesting they don't have the loan in the first place?

If so, how do you suppose they pay for the food they eat, their board, their transport to university, their books, clothes etc especially if you are talking about them saving any money from their summer job to afford to go back packing for 6 months post uni.

A year of uni tuition costs £9k, multiply by 3, thats £27k.

The average debt of a graduate is around £50k. So taking one from the other leaves £23k.

Living with you, your son will not have to pay for rent, food, bills. The only expenses would be travel which shouldn't be too much as its in the same town and going out.

I am assuming in both cases your son takes on student debt, its just if he was living with you whilst studying at a uni in the same town then the total debt on graduation would be 30k.

SingleSue

Living at home and going to university does not mean no food, board or bill payments (it might for well off families but not normal ones).

Transport from here to the nearest uni (next town over as we don't have one), is around £6 per day for a return travel.

economic

SingleSue wrote: »

Living at home and going to university does not mean no food, board or bill payments (it might for well off families but not normal ones).

Transport from here to the nearest uni (next town over as we don't have one), is around £6 per day for a return travel.

Your son would be living with you for free so theres no rent for him to pay. He would be eating the dinner and breakfast you make, again no food bill to pay. He will not get a daily pass but a monthly or annual travel card which would save him money.

GreatApe

kinger101 wrote: »

Professional examinations employ moderation all the time. Failing about half each time. I don't have an A-level in further mathematics, but creating a cohort of the 10 best students is cherry picking an absurd subset. The fact is 16,000 people took further maths, not 10. And I doubt the best student would have ranked #5 in the world even. Yet the current grading system at best tells me the top 30-percentile. Unless they all got 100%, it is possible to construct a grading system that's more informative to employers.

You don't understand (if you had an A-Level in maths you would )
Only people who know they can get good grades take further maths.

Think of it this way,
If at GCSE you awarded A* for the top 10% and A for the next 10% and B for the next 10%..etc
That works as GCSE maths is mandatory

Let's say we changed GCSE so it was optional
Let's say the bottom two thirds now that it is optional decide GCSE maths is not for them
So you remain with the top 1/3rd of students doing maths GCSE

What sort of grades do you award them now? Do the bottom 10% get failed even though they probably have a good grasp of GCSE maths? While they are the bottom 10% of the kids that choose to take GCSE maths they are at the top 30% of all kids their age at maths.

Do you get it?

With Further Mathematics A-Levels it is self selecting
Only the top 1% of students choose it and it makes sense they get very High grades because they are intelligent kids and are self selecting. Your method would be terrible at informing anyone of the kids ability.

So one more your method would work for subjects and levels of education that are mandatory but it would not work for A-Levels where people segregate according to ability

SingleSue

economic wrote: »

Your son would be living with you for free so theres no rent for him to pay. He would be eating the dinner and breakfast you make, again no food bill to pay. He will not get a daily pass but a monthly or annual travel card which would save him money.

Ok, so where does the parent get the money from to buy that food? Remember we are talking about normal families here and not well off ones where they don't have to count the pounds.

There would be a food bill, there would be the increased electricity, gas and water usage to pay for. Who would pay for their mobile bill? Their clothes? Any social activity they may want to do? The travel card?