Are degrees in the UK value for money?

Cakeguts

Tabbytabbitha wrote: »

Which is one of the truly shocking thing about pretty well abolishing an independent careers service. All the kids from educated families will have parents who appreciate the different status of various universities and will advise their kids accordingly. Those who are new to the sector are left to flounder with either no advice or at the often biased, over egalitarian mindset of their school, who may inform them that there's absolutely no difference in value between a degree from Southampton and one from Southampton Solent.

It is much worse than that. Since it was decreed that all teachers should have degrees but not degrees from particular universities you could have a school where all the teachers went to Southampton Solent and don't know that there is a difference between Southampton and Southampton Solent. If the degrees from Southampton Solent are the same level as an A level from 40 years ago then those teachers will be unlikely to teach to the old A level standard because they will think that this is degree level. So that tells you what has happened to the A levels as well.

Tabbytabbitha

beecher2 wrote: »

Is there no equivalent to Career Scotland (Skills Development Scotland) down south? How on earth do young people work out how to apply for apprenticeships, jobs or further education without them? We have workshops helping pupils through college applications, I don't know how they would manage without the help of a Careers Adviser.

The Careers Service was privatised under Thatcher and then morphed into the ill fated Connexions Service under Labour. There now exists https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/ which is better than nothing but is a faint echo of the earlier service.

Some schools will employ the services of a careers adviser who may be very good if coming from the earlier service but may be far less qualified if they are younger. In either case, they aren't truly objective as one of their remits is to get (or keep) bums on seats at that particular school.

Tabbytabbitha

Cakeguts wrote: »

It is much worse than that. Since it was decreed that all teachers should have degrees but not degrees from particular universities you could have a school where all the teachers went to Southampton Solent and don't know that there is a difference between Southampton and Southampton Solent. If the degrees from Southampton Solent are the same level as an A level from 40 years ago then those teachers will be unlikely to teach to the old A level standard because they will think that this is degree level. So that tells you what has happened to the A levels as well.

A few years ago I showed colleagues an A level English Language paper that I'd invigilated and the unanimous reaction was that it was identical to the O level Eng Lang paper we'd all sat 30 years earlier.:(

SingleSue

Cakeguts wrote: »

You do have to have a way though of weeding out the unsuitable ones. If they all charge the same for a degree it is difficult to work out which ones give the best value for money in terms of the complexity of the course. Some of the really unsuitable ones might look really nice especially if they have spent a lot of money since renaming themselves as a university. Basically if someone starts with the ones that have always been universities and that ask for high minimum entrance requirements they are going to be able to weed out the ones that are just there to make money to pay the staff salaries. There are more of the ones that are their to pay staff salaries than there are to teach complex degree courses to students so it takes quite a lot of research to find a university that will offer the kind of degree that a discerning employer is looking for.

Believe you me, lots of research went into it including what his potential future employers are looking for in the degree he has chosen. He has complex autism and one of his traits as part of that is to break everything down to the smallest thing and then research the hell out of it.

Actually, that is one of my bugbears. You can have the same name degree at each university but the actual content differs so much from place to place that you have to really sort through and read the spec for each place to make sure it covers what you want/need. It was for this reason that his RG uni was finally discarded, it didn't go deep enough into the subject and would have been hopeless for his future career. To us, it just felt like they were offering it to get people in but they were not actually taking it seriously enough.

With middle son the difference between the universities was even wider and he went for the one that would give him better prospects at the end.

With eldest I was one of the clueless parents (and he a clueless student) when it came to uni. Mistakes were made, marketing worked but he is making it work for him.

beecher2

All Scottish schools have a Skills Development Scotland careers adviser assigned to them. They need to have the PG diploma in Career Guidance. We're very lucky still to have such a good service, particularly in signposting young people to suitable opportunities.

I would hate to have to rely on teachers for careers advice as they tend to be stuck in what was good advice when they were 17 - not usually applicable to the situation now.

Cakeguts

SingleSue wrote: »

Believe you me, lots of research went into it including what his potential future employers are looking for in the degree he has chosen. He has complex autism and one of his traits as part of that is to break everything down to the smallest thing and then research the hell out of it.

Actually, that is one of my bugbears. You can have the same name degree at each university but the actual content differs so much from place to place that you have to really sort through and read the spec for each place to make sure it covers what you want/need. It was for this reason that his RG uni offer was finally discarded, it didn't go deep enough into the subject and would have been hopeless for his future career. To us, it just felt like they were offering it to get people in but they were not actually taking it seriously enough.

With middle son the difference between the universities was even wider and he went for the one that would give him better prospects at the end.

With eldest I was one of the clueless parents (and he a clueless student) when it came to uni. Mistakes were made, marketing worked but he is making it work for him.

The difference in content is one of the problems which makes it difficult for students to sort out which university to apply for. Some universities teach more of the course so you get content in lectures others expect students to do a lot of research for themselves. The fact that a university doesn't list something as part of the course doesn't mean that it isn't covered. Highly intelligent fast learning students can cover a lot more than just the advertised course. This is another problem for students whose parents didn't go to university.

Tabbytabbitha

beecher2 wrote: »

All Scottish schools have a Skills Development Scotland careers adviser assigned to them. They need to have the PG diploma in Career Guidance. We're very lucky still to have such a good service, particularly in signposting young people to suitable opportunities.

I would hate to have to rely on teachers for careers advice as they tend to be stuck in what was good advice when they were 17 - not usually applicable to the situation now.

That's exactly what the Careers Service in England used to be like - sadly no more.:(

Tabbytabbitha

SingleSue wrote: »

Believe you me, lots of research went into it including what his potential future employers are looking for in the degree he has chosen. He has complex autism and one of his traits as part of that is to break everything down to the smallest thing and then research the hell out of it.

Actually, that is one of my bugbears. You can have the same name degree at each university but the actual content differs so much from place to place that you have to really sort through and read the spec for each place to make sure it covers what you want/need. It was for this reason that his RG uni was finally discarded, it didn't go deep enough into the subject and would have been hopeless for his future career. To us, it just felt like they were offering it to get people in but they were not actually taking it seriously enough.

With middle son the difference between the universities was even wider and he went for the one that would give him better prospects at the end.

With eldest I was one of the clueless parents (and he a clueless student) when it came to uni. Mistakes were made, marketing worked but he is making it work for him.

I'm assuming that this was only a small part of the course because I can't imagine that the study of a major part of the course could be more shallow at a RG than in an ex poly.

Does your son appreciate the role of sales and marketing in university literature or does he take what he reads very literally?

Cakeguts

Tabbytabbitha wrote: »

I'm assuming that this was only a small part of the course because I can't imagine that the study of a major part of the course could be more shallow at a RG than in an ex poly.

Does your son appreciate the role of sales and marketing in university literature or does he take what he reads very literally?

What I think happened is that ex technical college (if this is Lincoln it never got to be as high as a poly) listed the whole of the course that would be covered in lectures. RGs don't cover lectures on parts of courses that they expect their students to do on their own. It is back to the contact time again. For someone who has never been to university it is really difficult to understand the difference between real university courses and the ex poly, ex technical college type courses. A real university expects the student to do a lot of the course on their own. An ex poly or technical college will teach a lot of the course.

I would expect that if someone looked at the course content of an Oxford course they would think that it didn't go into as much complexity as a Lincoln course? You have to be so careful of the marketing and remember that the marketing is aimed at the students that they want to attract. A university that used to be a technical college knows that it isn't going to attract students whose parents went to a real university so it has to make its marketing look good to someone who doesn't understand the difference between courses.

kabayiri

SingleSue wrote: »

...
The process for youngest was well over a year, probably closer to two years and included hours and hours of research online and in person to get the right fit for him as he has disabilities...the marketing didn't come into it (he actually held what was in effect an unconditional at another university with a higher scholarship/bursary amount but it wasn't quite the right fit for him).

I do think the pastoral care side has come on leaps and bounds since my Uni days.

They recognize that it's an important part of student acceptance. Your son will most likely receive a good level of support.