Are degrees in the UK value for money?

kabayiri

Jackieboy wrote: »

Seriously?:eek::eek:

I'm using the royal "we" here.

Honestly, do you think the husband will get any say between mother and daughter? I have to choose my battles carefully!

Being quite honest, I feel for all those kids not gifted enough to study Law or Medicine at Cambridge or a notable red brick (or some other high profile subject).

How can a place like Edgehill claim their course has the same value as Durham?

Jackieboy

kabayiri wrote: »

I'm using the royal "we" here.

Honestly, do you think the husband will get any say between mother and daughter? I have to choose my battles carefully!

Being quite honest, I feel for all those kids not gifted enough to study Law or Medicine at Cambridge or a notable red brick (or some other high profile subject).

How can a place like Edgehill claim their course has the same value as Durham?

I'm afraid I believe that the only person to have a say in university choice should be the prospective student and (possibly) his/her professional adviser.

kabayiri

Jackieboy wrote: »

I'm afraid I believe that the only person to have a say in university choice should be the prospective student and (possibly) his/her professional adviser.

Yes, I'd agree. But then you get accused of not being interested.

I still believe it should be the student. So neither of us can say "seriously" to the Keele choice

chucknorris

kabayiri wrote: »

Being quite honest, I feel for all those kids not gifted enough to study Law or Medicine at Cambridge or a notable red brick (or some other high profile subject).

How can a place like Edgehill claim their course has the same value as Durham?

Generally, I'll agree that it isn't, but there are exceptions, and I'll tell you why! Because not everyone starts on an equal footing, and it isn't a case of where you started, it is where you finish! Some people start lower, but finish higher. I have to keep telling my students, their degree isn't the end of something, it is more of the start of something else. So sometimes a 'lesser university' offers a start for someone who can go quite far.

Don't fool yourself that people who study at so called less universities, are always less gifted, they maybe were just late starters in life.

Jackieboy

kabayiri wrote: »

Yes, I'd agree. But then you get accused of not being interested.

I still believe it should be the student. So neither of us can say "seriously" to the Keele choice

My "seriously" was aimed at your "we" - nothing to do with Keele.

silvercar

chucknorris wrote: »

Generally, I'll agree that it isn't, but there are exceptions, and I'll tell you why! Because not everyone starts on an equal footing, and not only is it a case of, it isn't where you started. Some people start lower, but finish higher. I have to keep telling my students, their degree isn't the end of something, it is more of the start of something else. So sometimes a lesser place offer a start for someone who can go quite far.

Don't fool yourself that people who study at so called less universities are always less gifted, they maybe just were late starters in life.

Totally agree. Some just had a better start in life eg more supportive family, richer parents, etc

zagubov wrote:

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.

Problem now is that you need to degree to get the jobs. Without getting the jobs early in your career, you don't get the experience that is necessary to further your career.

Cakeguts

Jackieboy wrote: »

One of the worst things we did was to turn the polys etc into second rate (often) universities!

I went to a Poly (yes I am old) it had a good reputation as a Poly and offered vocational courses that led to real jobs. Now it is a 3rd rate university offering the same kind of courses as all other 3rd rate universities. The biggest problem is that there is now less choice of course and they all cost the same.

The major problems start at school. Many schools have got rid of their careers departments so 6th form students don't get any sort of careers advice or any advice on whether to take A levels or BTEC for what they want to do next. Then there is the problem of school league tables. League tables look better to future parents if they show a lot of students got places at university. So then there is a pressure on teachers to make sure that as many students as possible apply for a university place but there is no careers department for students who don't know anyone who has been to university. Then there is the myth that you will get a good job if you go to university and it is guaranteed because it looked that way when only about 5% of the population attended university. I have no idea how students are expected to find anything out. Where do you start? Who is going to tell you that a degree in ceramics (making pots) from Wolverhampton University is going to lead to a job that you could have done straight from school and not a good job making pots?

It appears to me that pressure is put on students to go to university on any course by schools who have vested interests in making their league tables look good and parents whose information on university education is out of date. I am sure that there are a lot of parents who don't realise that there are university courses that more or less anyone can get onto that are not what would have traditionally been considered a degree level of education. These parents think that their children have done better than they did to get to university not realising that the level of education that their children will get is not as good as they themselves got from a technical college. Then there are the parents who want to tell their friends that their child went to university.

While apprenticeships are seen as second best there are always going to be parents who think that their children will be better off with a degrees in media, film studies, and ceramics (making pots not semi-conductors.) They get jobs but they don't tend to get graduate level jobs because they don't know anything that employers want.

What needs to happen is more and better careers advice and students need to know if they are paying to subsidise other students on better courses. There are a lot of money making type courses run by certain universities and many students don't know that they are being used for money making.

As I said I am old and I can remember when people used to do ceramics (making pots) film studies, media studies, dressmaking, etc as adult education evening classes. The contact time for the teaching was probably the same as it would be at a university or possibly more but it cost a lot less and you could work while you studied. When was it decided that it would be a good idea for universities to be allowed to offer these hobby courses at such an enormous cost in time and money? I think schools should take more responsibility for students applying to study hobby courses at university otherwise where do they get the information from?

How many parents would be happy if they knew that their children would be going to get into debt that would lead to a life time of extra tax to pay for a degree that led to the same level of qualification that people used to be able to get from studying at an evening class?

westernpromise

The reason Keele has always been held in low regard is that the entrance requirements in UCAS points were so low.

One can bang on till one is blue in the face about how great the campus and the courses are, but if everyone there got in with CCC, nobody is going to believe it.

Keele does have one famous alumnus, which is that bloke who designs toys for Apple customers, but one wonders how much of his success he owes to Keele.

sann420

I believe education is a basic human right.

Its an absolute travesty that a rich country like the UK which has money to waste on random wars and Nuke creation/maintenance is not able to offer tuition fee free education to its young.

If you are a student looking to start uni I would strongly suggest you look into a German or a Nordic institution where they don't charge any tuition fee even if it means you would have to learn a foreign language.

GreatApe

sann420 wrote: »

I believe education is a basic human right.

Its an absolute travesty that a rich country like the UK which has money to waste on random wars and Nuke creation/maintenance is not able to offer tuition fee free education to its young.

If you are a student looking to start uni I would strongly suggest you look into a German or a Nordic initution where they don't charge any tuition fee even if it means you would have to learn a foreign language.

You could maybe make an argument that free and unhindered access to information via the web might be a right and that exists today. But no one has a right to be looked after and sat in a classroom for years on end at the expense of others.

Some of the best universities in the world now offer all their material in the web for free