Are degrees in the UK value for money?

Cakeguts

GreatApe wrote: »

its not rocket science, your asking a 17 year old to make a £50k decision a 17 year old who probably has not more than £50 to his name has no idea about real wages or taxes or budgeting for a household.

80% of those that go probably should not but they do as they have no choice but to go, they have peer pressure and parental pressure and the vast majority of the time its uninformed pressure.

Its simply selling hope of a better future just sign here..................

Its somewhat ironic that we 'protect' fully grown adults from being missold pensions or mortgages but we turn a blind eye to kids being missold an expensive often useful degree.

You missed school pressure. Pressure from teachers so that the school league tables look good to future parents. There are so many vested interests.

GreatApe

Cakeguts wrote: »

You missed school pressure. Pressure from teachers so that the school league tables look good to future parents. There are so many vested interests.

The whole system is broken.

Its actually a much bigger problem than anyone even on this thread realises. At its most fundamental analysis we are dedicating approximately 8.5% of the working age population to higher education of which the vast majority (over 90% imo) are just wasting time in a totally unproductive venture.

These 2.7 million people could be producing goods and services people actually need or want which would result in significant increases in wealth and thus wellbeing.

silvercar

GreatApe wrote: »

The whole system is broken.

Its actually a much bigger problem than anyone even on this thread realises. At its most fundamental analysis we are dedicating approximately 8.5% of the working age population to higher education of which the vast majority (over 90% imo) are just wasting time in a totally unproductive venture.

These 2.7 million people could be producing goods and services people actually need or want which would result in significant increases in wealth and thus wellbeing.

Whilst there is unemployment, it is no bad thing to be re-directing some of the population. For the individuals, they are going to spend a life time working, so no harm in experiencing time doing something totally different first. I still maintain that these 18 year olds do a lot of growing up in their 3 years at uni and there is no harm in that; neither is there any harm in learning to survive on low income for 3 years. For some it will be their only time of doing so and that is a useful exercise in itself.

CLAPTON

silvercar wrote: »

Whilst there is unemployment, it is no bad thing to be re-directing some of the population. For the individuals, they are going to spend a life time working, so no harm in experiencing time doing something totally different first. I still maintain that these 18 year olds do a lot of growing up in their 3 years at uni and there is no harm in that; neither is there any harm in learning to survive on low income for 3 years. For some it will be their only time of doing so and that is a useful exercise in itself.

seems to me that most people grow up a lot between 18 and 21 and that most people that age live on a low income

and it seems to me that young people learn more from a gap year working in a shop than travlling the world on their parent's money

kinger101

CLAPTON wrote: »

seems to me that most people grow up a lot between 18 and 21 and that most people that age live on a low income

and it seems to me that young people learn more from a gap year working in a shop than travlling the world on their parent's money

It's imperative that Tarquin should go on his gap year. How else is he going to bore the hell out of everyone he speaks to at freshers' week, if he's unable to recount a story about how he spent half an hour haggling over the price of a t-shirt in Marrakech.

zagubov

In the US I gather the standard way to get a degree is via four years full-time study (if your parents are rich), or failing that, spend eight years studying part-time while funding it by working in shops, restaurants, etc. So lots of people will be in HE until their late 20s.

theoretica

I was reminded of this thread as I overheard a student on the bus saying he needed a good mark in a major essay - due the day after tomorrow, which he hadn't started.

I don't know what he was studying, but it didn't sound like he was making much effort to make it worthwhile for himself. On the other hand, what would he be like as an employee? Would he take steps to learn anything or develop himself in a period of unemployment?

BobQ

I am not an expert in how universities work so am happy to be corrected. However, I get the impression that universities operate like independent businesses safe in the knowledge that whatever they provide in types and numbers of courses, is up to them and what they see as their strategy for the institution.

My view is that they should be made more responsive to the businesses that employ their graduates be they private or public sector. In the case of medicine it should not be the BMA or RCN that drives the numbers of courses. It should be the NHS and private hospitals. But in turn they should plan to provide post graduate training that matches that demand. This means selection based on high standards and guarantees of jobs to those that graduate that last a few years. The same should apply to those that employ other professionals.

Of course the universities should be able to provide additional places which have no guarantees of work but we need to have a national strategy that ensures the universities meet the demand we know exists. We also ought to subsidise those who study what the nation needs with lower fees.

I frankly do not care how much universities charge people in fees to study things they want to do as a whim, that is a matter for market forces. Similarly some courses w will never be able to predict the demand for (like media studies) but for those we need and can reasonably predict we need a plan not a group of universities pursuing their own agenda.

jamesmorgan

BobQ wrote: »

My view is that they should be made more responsive to the businesses that employ their graduates be they private or public sector. In the case of medicine it should not be the BMA or RCN that drives the numbers of courses. It should be the NHS and private hospitals. But in turn they should plan to provide post graduate training that matches that demand. This means selection based on high standards and guarantees of jobs to those that graduate that last a few years. The same should apply to those that employ other professionals.

Whilst this seems eminently sensible, the problem with implementing it is that in a monopoly industry, unions have great power. The doctor's union (BMA) have routinely obstructed trying to increase the number of doctor's the UK train as they recognize that increasing this would put downward pressure on wages and increase the possibility of unemployment in the sector. As a union, their primary purpose is to protect the terms and conditions of their current members.

Until recently all governments have shied away from from a battle with the unions. This changed recently with the battle over junior doctors rotas, but what was less publicized was that the BMA were also angered over government plans to increase the number of doctors we train (from 6000 pa to 7500).

Clearly the sensible plan is to train more doctors, not least so that we are not dependent on recruiting 25% of doctors from abroad, however, don't underestimate the battle with the unions that this will involve.

chucknorris

BobQ wrote: »

My view is that they should be made more responsive to the businesses that employ their graduates be they private or public sector.

I can't speak for every degree course, only the ones that our department (property and construction) delivers. We need accreditation from the RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) and the CIOB (Chartered Institute of Building), so we need their approval of our degree courses, otherwise they could withdraw their accreditation. This has happened in the past to some of our competitors delivering the same or similar degrees, when that happened, a number of their students left those universities, and transferred to us to finish their degree, and also their new intake of students was reduced in the following year.

We regularly meet up with the RICS and the CIOB (and also employers who sponsor part time students) and they give us feedback on our degrees. Usually we are all singing from the same hymn sheet, because usually we all want the same result.