Are degrees in the UK value for money?

GreatApe

Windofchange wrote: »

Bettering yourself is always a worthy pursuit.

We are well past that stage, we are at the stage of awarding marginal degrees to people that are just average or even a little below that.

Why did we have to move the average bar from O-Levels all the way to undergrad degrees?

All you achieved is delaying young adults entering the workforce by 5 years so five years lost earnings and added £60k of debt

This is a disaster for marginal grads and a disaster for the country.

GreatApe

Debt Free by Xmas 2017
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100% of Student Loan £3124

Mr Windy

Maybe if the system did not encourage and force marginal kids to get marginal degrees you could have had 5 years more earnings and no student debts and no need to get all those CC debts? What would you say if I offered to buy your marginal degree from you for £150,000 and could magical give you 5 years more work experience too?

And what about the marginal grad at age 25 if I offered them £150,000 (roughly lost income and lectures debts) for the marginal degrees what percentage of them would bite my hands off?

£150,000 is more than enough to buy an average terrace in most the country. It is their housing costs sorted for life. For a couple its a house sorted and a pension sorted.

You want to know why kids feel poor and seem to be buying homes later and starting life later. Do you need to look far to figure it out?

GreatApe

Someone should sell fake degrees online.
£60 instead of £60,000 student debts.
Not like many HR departments are going to check if your 2:1 in film studies from Luton polly is real or not its worth about the same either way.

Cakeguts

Lingua wrote: »

I happen to speak the local language, so doing a degree abroad shouldn't be too much of an issue.

So many people see education as a chore, or a box to be ticked before going onto the 'real work' - I plan on studying for life, in some form or another. While working I can study through Open University or take night classes, etc. It's a shame that the idea of learning has been reduced to an obligation and not a pleasure to be enjoyed.

On the topic of difficulty at A-Level / university: Sixth form is difficult given the step up from GCSE - and then you adjust. The same gap applies to university and further education. Once you get to grips with what is required, you adjust and it seems a lot easier than it did when first starting. At the beginning of sixth form I balked at the depth of knowledge suddenly required, and the same happened when arriving at university. No doubt the same will be true when studying for a Masters and PhD.

Also, university is about more than just the academic degree. Whilst that may sound counter-intuitive (the academic relevance of a degree not being the sole reason to study? Madness!), the experiences had there are of importance too. Be it developing independence or encountering people of different ideologies or backgrounds, it helps to develop more rounded individuals. Certainly it's not worth the 9.25k/yr tuition fee, but that's an issue with government oversight and not the institution itself.

On a lighter note, I don't begrudge anyone going to university for a few years before having to enter the drudgery of the corporate world. With continued increases in life expectancy, we're being worked longer and longer. Rather than working from the age of 18 to [insert perpetually distant age here], a few years of freedom seem a welcome reprieve between the confines of pre-university education and the equally confining realm of work.

Lingua

You are one of the people who has lost out by education being dumbed down. I am old and did O levels and A levels. There wasn't a big jump from O level to A level and there wasn't a big jump from A level to university. O levels were much much harder than GCSEs and A levela then were much harder than they are now so the university courses just carried on from A levels. If you had done A levels when I did them you would only have needed to study at university to get a degree that would be at least the standard of a masters from a top university now. Very few people got 1st class degrees not because they were more stupid but because it was so much harder. These days anyone can get a 1st class degree. The problem is that it devalues the currency. So in the past when having a degree was an achievement because so few people had one a first class grade made you exceptional. Now it is the norm so you are just ordinary with all the other 1000s students who get a 1st without actually knowing anything.

zagubov

Some people can do the autodidact thing. Jimmy Reid comes to mind. In the past people used to attend uni to learn but not necessarily do a degree. They'd often leave when they subjectively considered they'd learned enough.

We, who want to consider people's suitability for employment now need an objective measure of this, so we invented a requirement for paper qualifications at HE level - certificates, diplomas and degrees.

I agree that HE should be available to all who could benefit from it. I think HNCs and HNDs should be available to a lot more people, as should distance learning for people in employment. For social cohesion, I believe that part of a degree should involve communal attendance at some delivery centre.

After having taught O levels and then GCSEs I don't believe that there is a need to rebrand other HE qualifications as "degrees".

I also feel that if employers wish their employees to be qualified, they can jolly well pay for it.

Cakeguts

Lingua wrote: »

It's only 50k of debt because the government decided to bump tuition fees up to 9k+. While I can see the value in some courses costing more (STEM subjects particularly), I don't see the value in an English Literature student paying 9k+ for 3 (three!) contact hours a week. I do see the value in an English Literature degree, but not in the fees.

However, I do agree that the current system is in need of reform. Particularly, most degrees use the first year to get everyone to the same standard and to teach essay-writing skills etc. First year doesn't count for most degrees aside from say Medicine, and works out at £9.25k tuition fees + £8k in maintenance loans, and isn't all that necessary. If a student isn't able to go straight into university-level education, they should take a foundation year. Essay-writing (as required at university) should be taught at sixth form. Just my two cents

Lingua

This is another example of the dumbing down. We had to be able to write essays for A levels so it was taught in 6th form for the A levels I did. People who did A levels when I did mine would now be starting university courses as they are now at the beginning of the 3rd year. The course years were longer they were in terms so more got done there were no semesters or modules. Courses were continous with an exam at the end of each year. The grade was based on the exam that you did at the end of the 3 years.

I went to a Polytechnic for which you needed at least 2 A levels at grade E that would be two As now. I also had to be able to play 3 musical instruments which is why it was only 2 A levels. The course was 3 years. There were exams at the end of the each year where the results did not count towards the final degree. You were awarded the degree if you passed the exams at the end of the 3rd year. Course work and end of year exams did not contribute any marks to the end of 3 year result. You could be examined at the end of the 3 years on anything you had studied during the 3 year course. There were no modules. To pass any degree you had to really know your subject because there weren't any modules. So you didn't get the credits that you get now towards the final exam.

A levels were 2 years. Most people took 3 subjects. The exam at the end of the 2nd year gave you your grade. There was course work and an exam at the end of the first year but the marks from the course work and the end of 1st year exams did not count toward the grade you got in the exam at the end of the 2nd year. You could get questions on anything that you had studied during the two years so you really had to know the subject. There was nothing in the questions to give you an idea of what they wanted you to answer in the question you had to work it out. O level questions were the same. You had to come up with the answers there were no clues as to what you should write just a question which you answered.

I have studied a few years ago at a not very good university and the course was divided up into modules which you could retake to improve the mark and the marks of the module counted towards the final degree result. This was so much easier than what I did at a polytechnic. You could finish the university course knowing hardly anything because you only did little bits of everything and then got marked on it. The year finished in middle May. My polytechnic course went on until July each year.

I feel sorry for people who go to school and university now because they are missing out on so much education by not getting to the standard that they used to at school. In fact I often wonder how they manage to waste the time needed to reach such a low level before they leave. Somewhere there must be a lot of time wasted. I don't know where it is wasted. There is about 3 years of wasted time at school which people used to be educated in. What they do in that time I have no idea but it meant that you degrees were mostly 3 years and harder so when you left university you knew more about the subject and you had had a lot of practice at knowing how to learn.

Cakeguts

Lingua wrote: »

As much as I hate personal anecdotes as a reference:
I was talking to my auntie about a puzzle she'd been stuck on for Professor Layton (welcome to the family). She had to find the area of a shape between four circles. I told her to find the area of one circle and subtract it from the area of the square formed by its diameter^2. She didn't understand because when she was at school some 60-odd years ago, geometry wasn't taught to the masses, nor were most of the complex elements of science, language, etc.*. You learnt your three Rs and went to work, or if you were lucky you went to a grammar school and went into a slightly better job.*

The point I'm trying to make in a roundabout way is that education has changed a lot in since my auntie was at school, and I imagine the same is true between the abolition of O-Levels and now. There could be a multitude of reasons: better teaching quality, better resources, wider social equality resulting in disadvantaged students having more support, etc. You did a degree in physics. Surely you know that correlation =/= causation? Just because more people are getting higher grades does not mean that those grades are any easier to achieve than before. It means that more people are getting higher grades.

Also, an IQ of 100 is not marginal. It's average. Aside from the fact that IQ is a terrible measure of intelligence, your suggestion that an average person shouldn't go to university is ridiculous. Intelligence does not equal common sense, and I'd rather have a doctor who is reasonably bright but who has plenty of common sense than one who is blisteringly bright but hasn't an ounce of common sense. It's the latter who will make the mistakes. They're the kind of person who mixes whites with coloureds and puts them on a wash at 60.

Moreover, a person of average intelligence could very easily score better in tests and exams than someone of a higher intelligence simply by trying harder. If you've been through the education system to tertiary level, then you've seen that the brightest are sometimes blinded by their inflated sense of intelligence and presume that because they can breeze through GCSE they can do the same at degree level. Meanwhile, the student who has always had to try hard will be getting a first because they put in the effort. I know who I'd hire.

Lingua

*according to my auntie, which is why I dislike anecdotes: relying on fallible secondary sources and all that.

When your aunt was at school 60 years ago there was no decimalisation. So arithmatic was done in old measures where nothing added up to 10. There were no calculators if you wanted to work things out you had to use tables. So to work out weights you had ounces, pounds and stones. 16 ounces in a pound 14 pounds in a stone. Feet and inches. 12 inches in a foot. 3 feet in a yard. You can try working out compound interest in pennies, shillings, and pounds. Once you realise that you are not working in 10s and 100s and people could do it you also realise how much easier it is to do it now and yet people can't. They arrive at work unable to do simple arithmatic.

Please remember that when you aunt did geometry the cirlces could have been in inches and the square in feet.

What I know is that the rot set in with the introduction of course work counting towards the final exam result because there was no need to get the course work right first time you could always have another go to improve the mark. You also didn't need to remember anything because once you had done one bit of course work you had finished that an moved on. This is why people make so many mistakes in any form of paper work in offices. No one ever has to get anything right first time anymore. The introduction of modules into all university courses dumbed them down so that anyone could pass a degree. The old style education was not spoon fed like this. The lectures gave you a guideline on what to study on the course. The degree was awarded on the final exam only which meant that people had to know what they had studied for the whole of the 3 years. If you want to work out what this was like think of your course without any modules so it would be just continous study on all of the subjects that you have done plus more because there was no exams at the end of modules then you get exams at the end of the first year, and second year that you have to pass to carry on and at the end of the 3rd year you get an exam that has questions on it about anything that you studied at any time in the 3 years. The people who got 1st class degrees got them based on the quality of the answers they gave on that final exam.

Any course that has modules has been dumbed down to make it easier to pass.

SingleSue

Mine were taught essay writing for GCSE although with youngest there was more emphasis put on essay writing than with the other two (especially in English and History), so maybe changes are already underway in that respect...not that eldest ever had any problems with essay writing (GCSE, A level or at university)

SingleSue

Cakeguts wrote: »

What I know is that the rot set in with the introduction of course work counting towards the final exam result because there was no need to get the course work right first time you could always have another go to improve the mark. You also didn't need to remember anything because once you had done one bit of course work you had finished that an moved on. This is why people make so many mistakes in any form of paper work in offices. No one ever has to get anything right first time anymore.

At youngest's college, they had a one submission rule. You messed it up first time, it was the student's fault for not taking care to read the requirements and doing the correct amount of research and study. It didn't take long for people to learn to get it right the first time around, some of them the hard way.

Different story at the 6th form the other two went to.

Cakeguts

Lingua wrote: »

Yes, that would be why I pointed out the subjectivity of the argument.



It means that more people have degrees. The reasons would have to be explored, but could be numerous and overlapping.

First, the UK has been a part of the Bologna Process since 1999 (Ref: ehea.info). Combined with freedom of movement, this makes the UK an attractive destination for EU students who are now able to more clearly navigate the UK higher education system. They are also able to more easily apply due to the harmonisation of EU education systems, arguably making intra-EU student mobility far easier than in previous decades. In 2015-2016 for example, there were 127'440 EU students in UK higher education institutions (Ref: universitiesuk.ac.uk), a percentage of 5.6%. As an attractive international destination, the UK also received over 300'000 non-EU students in 2015-2016 (Ref: universitiesuk.ac.uk), equalling 13.6% of all students in higher education (both undergraduate and postgraduate). That means that non-UK students accounted for 19.2% of all students, nearly 1/5 of the total. This can help explain why student numbers are higher, but not the increase in the number of UK students.

For this, an exploration of the UK’s educational system is required along with its changing social and cultural attitudes.

School leaving age was raised to 15 in 1947 (Ref: parliament.uk), 16 in 1972 (Ref: parliament.uk), and now it is 18 (Ref: gov.uk). Students are therefore encouraged to progress further in education to a level where, should they wish, they can go on to study at university. In earlier decades they would have been able to drop out earlier and before they had gained the qualifications necessary to progress to higher education, i.e., they could voluntarily leave with only GCSE-equivalent qualifications or less. Leaving school before 18 could have been encouraged by family wanting their child to start working and earning a wage. This is just one theory, and doesn’t explain why those individuals attaining required grades for university actually chose (and continue to choose) to go.

Perhaps the availability of funding to all students wishing to study at university, regardless of background, has encouraged studies at higher education by those who would not otherwise be able to attend for socio-economic reasons. In 1961, UCAS was created to help make university admissions meritocratic, with merit mattering more than financial acumen or family connections (Ref: historyandpolicy), thus opening up university study to a greater percentage of the populace. Evidence of greater educational attainment by disadvantaged students includes that "n 2016, 19.5% of 18-year-old English-domiciled young people from low participation neighbourhoods (POLAR3 quintile 1) entered higher education, compared to 11.2% in 2006." (Ref: universities.ac.uk). That increase may go some way to explaining why student numbers are increasing, as areas of the populace previously unlikely to go to university become more mobile and have greater agency. Where in the past only the children of the wealthy would have had the regular opportunity to attend university, now university is open to all if they have achieved sufficient results.

Given previous postulating by some on this thread, a prediction about any counterargument can also be made: that even if social mobility is partly to be thanked for increased numbers, it is grade inflation that is to be blamed for making everyone qualified to attend university. Where once a B might have been sufficient, now an A or A* is required. While a valid argument, it is important to note that the way examinations (both GCSE and A-Level) are marked has changed. As noted by Paul Bolton in his work for the House of Commons:

“Before the mid-1980s there were more or less fixed percentages of students who were awarded each grade and these proportions changed very little year to year. This ‘norm-referencing’ method meant that most improvements in national performance had to come from increases in entry rates. This method was replaced with ‘criteria referencing’ which attempts to set each grade boundary at a constant standard over time and hence if the performance of candidates improves then a higher proportion of candidates can gain top grades. Actual grade boundaries can vary year-to-year (as each years’ papers are different), but the standard required to gain each grade should remain the same.” (Ref: Education: Historical Statistics, pg.11).

As a result of replacing norm-referencing with criteria-referencing, a more equal exam system was produced. Rather than the top 10% receiving the equivalent of an A*, the next 10% an A, and so on, students were (and are now) marked on fixed criteria. This can lead to the perception that exams are becoming ‘easier’ as attainment increases. However, the reason behind the increase is that more students are understanding the criteria. Whether this is a result of better teaching quality, greater resources, or another contributing factor is beyond the scope of this rebuttal of your argument. Incidentally, this also counters your statement below:



While general intelligence might not have increased, the number of students achieving the higher grades has. If a university needs a student to know facts a, b, and c to study a course, then why should all students who show understanding of all three facts not be offered a place? With examinations graded by norm-referencing, the inevitable result is that only the top percentiles of examinees will receive the highest grades. Whilst this might sound good in theory, in practice it means that the difference between percentiles (and therefore grades) can become very small. If all students understand facts a, b, and c as illustrated earlier, then the exam board might decide to add in fact d to increase stratification. However, the university does not need this fact to be learnt, either due to insignificance to the course or because it will be taught at university. This then means that exams become unnecessarily difficult as they broach irrelevant topics, or topics which will be covered in their degree.

Here as well one could make the counter-argument that if something can be learnt at A-Levels, it should not be taught at university, or that the point of university is hereby invalidated. Whilst this argument is understandable, there has to be a limit to how much material can be included in a period of two-year, and crucially multi-disciplined, study. It is the same reason that GCSEs do not tend to cover a great deal of A-Level material: students studying 10+ subjects do not need the detail of an A-Level intended to be studied as just one of four others.

As a final rebuttal:


Yes. How many employers ask for more than 5 A*-C GCSEs?



This is a misunderstanding of the original point borne from incorrect inference. The point was not that any 1st is better than any 2:2, but that a graduate with poor GCSEs but a 1st in, say, Maths, is a better candidate than a graduate with excellent GCSEs but a 2:2 in Maths. One had to average above 70%, while the other averaged between 50% and 59.9%. Would you therefore argue that the lower second-class graduate has “the most intellectual potential” because they managed to get a few better grades in examinations designed for 15-16 year-olds? I would hope not. Moreover, GCSEs are in many different disciplines. If I were hiring a statistician then I would look for the graduate with the best degree, not the best GCSEs in Religious Studies or Graphics.

Finally, I do not believe that university is the right route for everybody. Those looking to enter into industries such as aerospace, oil & gas, construction etc., would do just as well taking apprenticeships and learning on the job. On this I am sure we agree.

Ignoring the ad hominem: I agree that not all degrees are necessary or relevant, but removing funding for some degrees would inevitably be a slippery slope to removing funding for other more pertinent degrees. Imagine a situation where Media Studies is not funded, and so an MP pushes to make English Literature unfunded too – for example, they argue that both have similar graduate unemployment rates. I don’t know if they do, but then again MPs don’t always stick to the facts either. From there, you might get the ruling party trying to defund certain Politics degrees at only certain universities because they contain content considered inflammatory against the party’s ideologies. It’s not a likely scenario, but it shows how difficult a regimented system can be to fairly regulate. Making specific career routes more apprenticeship-based, exclusively or in a hybridised system, is something I can agree on too. However, that already exists in many cases. To my knowledge, nurses and junior doctors have to spend time in hospitals to gain hands-on experience. This is the same as would be expected on a vocational course.

Instead of removing funding for degrees or giving students £60'000 up-front, I would suggest providing sixth-formers with the relevant information to make an informed choice. Make sure that apprenticeships are available and of appropriate quality and there will be students filling the places.

Unrelated to the actual debate, the cavalier attitude of some on this thread (not only those against the widening of university education) through the use of fallacy (ad hominem, false cause, evasion) and brusque tone indicates a general disregard for the opinions of others. If you would like to challenge somebody’s argument, do so with a polite tone and with evidence to support what you say. Otherwise, you succeed not in changing opinion but in alienating others to your views.
For example:

Both sides seem to be attacking the individual rather than the validity of their argument.

Again, I look forward to your reasoned and structured responses.

Lingua

Grade inflation has occured because A levels have become easier to pass. The reason why they stopped marking A levels in percentages is because it is easier to inflate the grades if you do this.

You start from the point that the a Labour politician had an idea. That idea was that more people should go to university. So they had to make the A levels easier to pass or not enough people would pass them to go to university. So the A levels have been dumbed down. This has caused its own problems because now if you don't get an A at A level you are looked on as a failure because most people get As. When they were marked in percentages most people didn't get As so it made all the other grades acceptable as well.

At the time of O levels and A levels and A level grade of an E the lowest pass is the equivalent now of an A. Some people then got 3 As at A level. So if an E then is an A now what would you think of a 3 As. The answer is that they were roughly the same as the end of the second year at university now.

There are now O level questions on A level papers now. So questions that people used to be able to answer at 16 are now asked on papers at 18. Not only that but people took 8 O levels. So if 8 O levels has become 3 A levels you can see how so many people go to university and you can see how low the standard is of the education at some universities. You can also see why people now have to do masters degrees to try to catch up.

The result of this dumbing down is an introduction of private education for everyone by the back door. It particularly disadvantages students from poor families. All students regardless of background used to get the chance to get to what is now the end of the 2nd year at university at school and it was free.