Are degrees in the UK value for money?

getmore4less

marlot wrote: »

The future is the new apprenticeship standards. They now go to level 4 (HND) and degree level.

I'm currently training 18 young people on level 4 apprenticeships - many of whom had multiple university offers, but preferred the apprenticeship route.

The degree level apprenticeships are particularly attractive - but my organisation isn't really big enough/yet ready to offer them.

Degree level and post grad apprenticeships are not new, this was fairly standard way into decent engineering jobs for generations.

Sponsored/paid through UNI with a Job if you did not mess up completely.

Pick the right company an UNI in serious demand.

Still the best way to get a career in those sectors that still do them.

zagubov

Jackieboy wrote: »

And even independent schools don't have the cost of funding a good academic library and all the other resource costs.

That's pretty substantial, plus there needs to be money for conferences, publishing textbooks, industrial links, loads of things schools don't have

Sapphire wrote: »

Depends what degrees, I suppose. I do think too many people have been getting degrees in 'media studies', 'arts' subjects and the like, which don't then lead to jobs.

For some of them perhaps the new 'technical' colleges Teresa May wants to set up in various parts of the country would have been better options. I do feel that a lot of people went to 'uni' expecting to get a highly paid job immediately afterwards, which is not realistic.

Bliar should never have got rid of the technical colleges. For many jobs, apprenticeships or learning on the job are a far better idea. People who took these options in the past now say it stood them in good stead for the rest of their working lives.

I do think some jobs do need degrees, though, e.g. in science, medicine and various academic roles.

Perhaps there should be a degree in common sense, too? :cool:

I agree with pretty much all of this and I'd sign up for the Common Sense degree !:T

I've taught on the OU and at technical colleges, and have been alarmed at the way tertiary education has changed. I can barely think of an "improvement" since the mid 1980s that wasn't a decline.

chucknorris wrote: »

There are a number of couple of decent ways to reduce the cost:

1. Do a less expensive HND/HNC (for appropriate subjects) and start the degree in the second year.
2. Study part time and work for an employer who pays your fees, there will probably be some sort of claw back, but still a cheaper route. Approximately 60% of our students are part time.

1. That does happen a bit in England, when FE colleges link with unis that were former polys. It's a massive part of HE in Scotland, I gather.
2. I did lecturer training when I moved to London and mainly taught day-release courses (ONCs/HNCs) to technicians in hospitals/universities/ from as far away as Rugby. There were about 5 HE Colleges in London providing this level of course (Waltham Forest, Harrow, NESCOT, Paddington, and Bromley). Don't know how many of them are still running day-release. In fact when my college closed I think the work was taken over by what's now London Met, and I don't know how well part-time courses are doing.

I'm pleased it's still a big part of your teaching. It was some of the most satisfying teaching I ever did.

chucknorris

zagubov wrote: »

T
I'm pleased it's still a big part of your teaching. It was some of the most satisfying teaching I ever did.

It isn't actually, we only offer degrees (although I think that we should also offer HNC and HND's), but we do have a fair number of students that use direct entry straight into the second year with an HNC/HND.

I'm sure that when I was a student (many years ago), lecturers only seemed to cover one or two module subjects. One of the reasons that I dropped down to 20% (via giving my notice to retire) was that they gave me 9 (different subject) modules to deliver (some jointly delivered with other lecturers) this academic year! and that was on an 80% fractional appointment, I handed my notice in the next day.

westernpromise

Oddly enough, what one tends to assume rubbish degrees - meeja studies is the most obvious, but frankly anything with "studies" in its name is usually rubbish of content too - are often very successful at getting people jobs. In contrast, the number of people with engineering degrees who are working as engineers is low (who employs engineers any more?).

What is needed is to unleash a bit of creative destruction. If a university's courses are rubbish people will stop applying for them and the university will close. Good.

zagubov

silvercar wrote: »

In today's job market, with half of young people having a degree, I would want my offspring to be starting off their careers with degrees in their pockets.

I have seen people lose out on opportunities to progress their careers just because they didn't have the qualification, even though they had the ability and experience to do the work.

So whether the degree itself offers value for money, I encouraged my children to study. I'm looking not so much at the cost of delivering the degree vs the amount charged, but the potential gain by having the degree.

It's much more the norm now that employers expect you to have an HE qual to do even quite routine jobs, and also much more common for the required qual to be a bachelor's degree rather than a DipHE/HND/HNC. It's becoming the baseline requirement for many jobs. For no very good reason.

westernpromise wrote: »

Oddly enough, what one tends to assume rubbish degrees - meeja studies is the most obvious, but frankly anything with "studies" in its name is usually rubbish of content too - are often very successful at getting people jobs. In contrast, the number of people with engineering degrees who are working as engineers is low (who employs engineers any more?).

What is needed is to unleash a bit of creative destruction. If a university's courses are rubbish people will stop applying for them and the university will close. Good.

It's because a lot of degrees are like the liberal arts degrees offered all over the US to raise school leavers above the low baseline their school-leavers achieve. And we've decided to follow them.

As for STEM degrees, I'd make them all free to study. If people shift from more challenging STEM degrees and the unis offering them close down and the students of England all storm into these newer courses, then God's mercy on us all.:(

chucknorris

westernpromise wrote: »

Oddly enough, what one tends to assume rubbish degrees - meeja studies is the most obvious, but frankly anything with "studies" in its name is usually rubbish of content too - are often very successful at getting people jobs. In contrast, the number of people with engineering degrees who are working as engineers is low (who employs engineers any more?).

What is needed is to unleash a bit of creative destruction. If a university's courses are rubbish people will stop applying for them and the university will close. Good.

At our university the dean suggested that we were marking too harshly and commented that other universities were awarding more firsts than us. I responded by saying 'in that case, our firsts will be more highly regarded'. When that notion was poo poo'd, I switched tactics and said 'well if we want to go down the football route of it's now a business not a sport, we should price our degrees as £16,000 a first, ££12,000 a 2/1, £8,000 a 2/2 and £6,000 for a 3rd. I also added that if we did that, we could also save money by sacking all the lecturers,and hiring a book keeper, and also hiring out our classrooms as we won't be needing them for teaching. Now that I am near retirement, I really don't care what I say (as long as I believe in it).

Jackieboy

Sapphire wrote: »

Depends what degrees, I suppose. I do think too many people have been getting degrees in 'media studies', 'arts' subjects and the like, which don't then lead to jobs.

For some of them perhaps the new 'technical' colleges Teresa May wants to set up in various parts of the country would have been better options. I do feel that a lot of people went to 'uni' expecting to get a highly paid job immediately afterwards, which is not realistic.

Bliar should never have got rid of the technical colleges. For many jobs, apprenticeships or learning on the job are a far better idea. People who took these options in the past now say it stood them in good stead for the rest of their working lives.

I do think some jobs do need degrees, though, e.g. in science, medicine and various academic roles.

Perhaps there should be a degree in common sense, too? :cool:

He didn't - they're still there.

zagubov

Jackieboy wrote: »

He didn't - they're still there.

Well most of them are. Which is more than can be said for the Colleges of Advanced Technology, the Polytechnics and the Colleges and Institutes of Higher Education which were all eventually uplifted into the university sector.

vivatifosi

I agree with zag, the OU is a missed opportunity. It has such great scalability options but I bet that numbers have dropped right off since the prices sky rocketed.

Still, if you don't need the piece of paper at the end, the rise of MOOCs has opened up the opportunity for online study at many of the top universities in the world. There are many blogs of people getting a degree level, or even postgraduate level education off the back of MOOCs.

https://www.coursera.org
https://www.edx.org
https://www.futurelearn.com
https://www.MOOC-list.com

antrobus

michaels wrote: »

..However this got me wondering whether the proposed fees are actually reasonable compared to the cost of providing the course....

It's up to the supplier to decide on the price to charge for the product. It's up to the buyer to decide whether or not the product is worth the price. That's how markets are supposed to work.:)

Sapphire wrote: »

Depends what degrees, I suppose. .....

Oh it does.

According to one piece of research, the best subjects to go for are medicine and economics. The worst, you guessed it, creative arts.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/news/highest-and-lowest-graduate-earners-degree-subject-uk

Although another report says that the best would be a geology degree from ICL, and the bottom ten feature a lot of 'creative' type degrees from Liverpool Hope.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3806952/Take-degree-geology-Course-lucrative-thanks-high-salaries-jobs-oil-nuclear-industries.html

westernpromise wrote: »

..What is needed is to unleash a bit of creative destruction. If a university's courses are rubbish people will stop applying for them and the university will close. Good.

The problem is that university courses don't operate as a proper market. People fund a university course by taking out student loans, which I think you don't start repaying until you earn £21k a year, or something like that. So you can spend three years studying drama, dance, and cinematics, whilst having fun being creative and partying whatever, safe in the knowledge that you probably won't ever earn enough to repay the flippin loans.