Are degrees in the UK value for money?

Cakeguts

Carl31 wrote: »

Uni is probably the biggest gamble anyone can take in their life

You saddle yourself up with £30k-£40k of debt potentially, in the hope it brings you a lucrative career

But how many actually end up in their chosen field? for many reasons, the majority dont, and that education is wasted, they end up in a totally unrelated career that their degree attributed nothing to, they may as well have gone straight into work

I think University needs to be revised in this country, into career specific subjects. Im a qualified accountant, by qualification pretty much exactly matches what i do in work day to day, why not tailor degree courses in a similar way?

This is what Polytechnics did. They offered courses that led directly to a job. Then they all changed their names to universities and offered watered down university courses. Getting rid of the Polytechnics was a backward step.

Cakeguts

kabayiri wrote: »

Well, DD starts Uni in a few weeks time, and I can definitely say it is not value for money.

Why so definite?

Because, until the experience has delivered back £60K ish work benefits (mostly salary + factor in interest), it is purely speculative.

I understand Martin Lewis and his 'cheap loan money' argument.

But now students are not students ... they are consumers, and they are entitled to judge the education product like any other product.

In a true product marketplace, the rubbish Uni's would fail, and their bosses would be fired. Can't see that happening alas. It's too much of a gravy train right now.

It isn't just the money aspect. Someone going to university could quite easily if they pick one of the 75 or so universities that offer a degree of about the same level of an old A level or a few CSEs waste 3 years of time that could have been spent on a modern apprenticeship.

A lot of schools seem to tell all of their A level students to go to university and any university will do. So many of these students end up with degrees that will help them to compete for work with people who haven't been to university not people who have apprenticeships and better qualifications. You then have to ask why an employer would want someone at age 21 or 22 after a degreee when they can get an 18 year old to do the same job?

For the top universities degrees are good value because they offer a range of opportunities. For the bottom 75 or so they are not good value because the degrees don't offer these opportunities. It is basically just 3 years of very expensive time filling for the students and for the government a big reduction in unemployment figures. However nothing will change until students wise up. Unfortunately it is the less able and less academic who will believe that a degree from any university will do and they are not helped by schools who perpetuate the myth.

There needs to be much more discussion about the alternatives and a lot less fudging of employment figures which don't include how many students get graduate level jobs after a particular degree.

SingleSue

My eldest son is one of the lucky ones to get a graduate level job within a few months of leaving...it was a few months (actually slightly more) as the application and selection process was very complicated and very long!

We're in celebration mode tonight, he finally got the call late this afternoon offering him the position.

I suppose he is extra lucky as his university languishes down near the bottom of the rankings, a fact he was regretting initially but then he has always been a hard worker, whether that be in study, in his personal development or in employment. He was never actually out of work, not even for a day as he returned home from university and within a couple of hours (literally) was straight back to his old summer job working full time hours for the entire summer and currently.

kinger101

westernpromise wrote: »

The study shows that media studies is second only to a dentistry qualification in getting a job. If those jobs aren't all in the media, then it clearly has very wide applicability across a broad range of possible graduate career paths. That makes it a smart choice.

The same clearly cannot be said for numpty subjects like maths and engineering, whose graduates lag behind, in their ability to get jobs, those who read subjects such as agricultural sciences and architecture.

The idea, however, that a media studies degree is not useful is simply silly prejudice based on ignorance.

It doesn't show it's a good choice for a graduate career path, as the survey does not indicate the proportion of students in graduate jobs. You're making incorrect inferences from the data. Having the lowest average salary IMO shows it's a very bad option. It would have been nicer if they'd collected better data on this, but it's likely that many people are ending up in non-graduate jobs (almost half of students do now at the six-month point).

NB - page 12 on the D of E document you posted would seem to indicate nursing is the best in terms of sustained employment.

BTW - my original post was somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

westernpromise

kinger101 wrote: »

It doesn't show it's a good choice for a graduate career path, as the survey does not indicate the proportion of students in graduate jobs.

It does show that it reliably leads to some sort of job. If you want to argue that it leads to fewer graduate jobs than do other degrees, feel free to produce the evidence.

The ONS produces some general evidence on the proportion of graduates in non-graduate jobs:
Recent graduates (%) / Non-recent graduates (%)
2015 45.8 / 35.5
2014 46.7 / 34.2
2013 47.2 / 33.7
2012 48.8 / 33.3
2011 47.4 / 32.6

https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/adhocs/005742percentageofgraduatesworkinginnongraduaterolesinlondonandtheuk2011to2015/graduatesinnongraduateroles201115.xls

What that shows is that in 2015 45.8% of recent graduates were in non-grad jobs, whereas 35.5% of older graduates were. So newer graduates have more more trouble finding graduate jobs than older graduates did, when there were fewer graduates around.

We can see this in other data. Table 8 here shows that there were 243,246 graduates in 2000 but 350,800 by 2011.
http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/22771/1/SN04252.pdf

So by 2011 the number of graduates minted annually had increased by 44% over 2000. Interestingly, in 2011 there were 45% more recent graduates in non grad-jobs than older graduates (47.4 / 32.6 from table above). It's almost as though some pi11ock decided to hand out loads more university degrees starting just before 2000, but gave no thought to whether there were graduate jobs for any of them.

For a degree to be value for money it has to get you a job that pays more than you'd have earned otherwise. The evidence is that some unlikely subjects get you a job and some quite reliably do not. Logically, the types of degree that should be falling by the wayside are in humanities, which has the worst record of all; so no more history or English degrees.

Cakeguts

westernpromise wrote: »

It does show that it reliably leads to some sort of job. If you want to argue that it leads to fewer graduate jobs than do other degrees, feel free to produce the evidence.

The ONS produces some general evidence on the proportion of graduates in non-graduate jobs:
Recent graduates (%) / Non-recent graduates (%)
2015 45.8 / 35.5
2014 46.7 / 34.2
2013 47.2 / 33.7
2012 48.8 / 33.3
2011 47.4 / 32.6

https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/adhocs/005742percentageofgraduatesworkinginnongraduaterolesinlondonandtheuk2011to2015/graduatesinnongraduateroles201115.xls

What that shows is that in 2015 45.8% of recent graduates were in non-grad jobs, whereas 35.5% of older graduates were. So newer graduates have more more trouble finding graduate jobs than older graduates did, when there were fewer graduates around.

We can see this in other data. Table 8 here shows that there were 243,246 graduates in 2000 but 350,800 by 2011.
http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/22771/1/SN04252.pdf

So by 2011 the number of graduates minted annually had increased by 44% over 2000. Interestingly, in 2011 there were 45% more recent graduates in non grad-jobs than older graduates (47.4 / 32.6 from table above). It's almost as though some pi11ock decided to hand out loads more university degrees starting just before 2000, but gave no thought to whether there were graduate jobs for any of them.

For a degree to be value for money it has to get you a job that pays more than you'd have earned otherwise. The evidence is that some unlikely subjects get you a job and some quite reliably do not. Logically, the types of degree that should be falling by the wayside are in humanities, which has the worst record of all; so no more history or English degrees.

This is why these fudged figures for graduates in work after 6 months are so difficult to untangle. A non graduate job 6 months after leaving university is difficult to compare in terms of pay with a non graduate job gained at 18 with 3 years of work experience. If it was after an apprenticeship the chances are that the pay would be better than the job after a degree.

reeac

Conrad wrote: »

A typical client profile of mine;


+ Aged 45, low educational achievement
+ Real disposable income £10 - £15 k pm
+ Tax return income ('net profit' / 'salary and dividends') £70k pa


Don't take too much notice of official income statistics when musing about whether graduates earn more over a lifetime

Does the taxman know about this?

Planet_Switzerland

HampshireH wrote: »

When I was at uni 10 years ago I paid £3k fees per year.

Year 1 - In halls and had 16-20 hours a week lectures allowed me to work a job
Year 2 - In shared house and had 12-16 hours a week lectures allowed me to work a job
Year 3 - Went home and commuted as had 4 hours a week lectures so I worked 2 jobs as well!

Our lecturers would fail to turn up or cancel lectures at least once a fortnight in all 3 years. The lectures they delivered by reading directly from a powerpoint (which was put online when they remembered)

I firmly believe I could have studied for my degree distance learning and passed in at least half the time. The most time needed was for the dissertation which was completed with no support from the assigned tutor.

For my I got my degree, went on to do a masters 3 years ago distance learning and neither are used in my day to day role. However 10 years ago just having the qualification got me my job. Now neither are relevant but I have remained employed over the years - so for me that degree was important.

However it was not worth the money for the time the uni put into us. I certainly wouldn't pay today's rates for the same level of service

When I did my degree we were told the total hours of lecture time plus total hours of independent study should be 40 hours a week. Had around 20 hours of lectures a week in first and second years, so and hour of independent study for each lecture king of made sense.


My final year the hours of lectures went down to 12 I think, so it was nearly 3 hours of study for each lecture, but it seemed one hour was useful and the other two were a waste of time.


Also thought some of the lectures with powerpoints were pointless, in my final year there was one unit someone on my course didn't turn up to a single lecture for and she got her second highest mark for that unit.

adindas

It is definitely value for money if you are taking about the degree which are statically proven easy to get graduate job after graduation, because they provide you with skills needed by the industry.

Think about doctors, dentists, engineers, pharmacist, scientist etc How much do they earn compared to the tuition fee they paid.

Choose the subject just because it is easy to get, you fancy there is high chance you might end up doing the job which does not need degree at all.

You just need to go to major supermarkets chain, there is very good chance you will find some people stacking items on the shelves have university degrees some even with master's degrees.

Worse few might end up like this UK well known !!!!!!-star
'I've got a degree but now I have sex on film with strangers'"

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/10-hour-!!!!!!-star-ive-8513222

She studied fashion. She might be thinking, study fashion I will become the next Donatella Versace, Coco Chanel, Miuccia Prada, Dona Karan, Viviene west wood, Stella Mc Cartney, etc.

Nobody told her, her parent do not remind her that unless you were born with talent which can not be studied at college, very lucky; the chance to become the top fashion designer solely by studying at fashion college is next to none. It is a cut throat industry and on only for extreme people who are very lucky, talented could make it to the top.

GreatApe

University education is poor value and inefficient
I think 90%+ of my university graduate friends say the same

If you want to learn a particular subject there is nothing faster or more efficent than reading a book or at least that waa the case in my day. Actually nowadays there are fantastic online lectures and tutorials many times better than a lecture from a bored 3rd rate teacher.

Universities are primarily just day care for kidults. Really expensive and even poor at doing day care as very few kids actually go to the lectures. I recall my first day still it was packed not a free seat this is a hall for 300 or so people. Towards the end of the first year the lecturers were lucky to get 10% occupancy on the seats and even then maybe one third were literally asleep. This was at a top university were most people get a first.

It's too entrenched a system but what needs to happen is limit university numbers greatly to maybe only 5% of the population perhaps that is even too high a figure.

The vast majority of jobs even technical jobs don't require a degree. Someone with a decent IQ and a few hours research can do most things. No need to make them jump through 3-4 years and £50k of debt.

I'd say give the kids £30k each when they hit 18. Able to use it to buy a house or buy a university education or keep of in a pension. With choice I think less than 20% of kids would go to university. The other 80% would probably think of better value buying a house worj the money or putting it into a pension.

A real return of 6% annually would see an 18 year old have a pension ppt of over £550k at age 68. That's the real cost of a university degree. I think that's roughly what I'd offer my kids. Pay their tuition or put the sum into an pension for them or give the same sum to them to be used as a deposit on a house. That option should be available to all the kids.