Are degrees in the UK value for money?

economic

what i would do is scrap all useless degrees and have some sort of apprentice scheme at most employers to hire those who dont need/want to go uni. university should only be for those who require a degree in a skilled area such as medicine or in science subjects where students are either interested in becoming a specialist in the area or enter into a career that entails analytic rigor. yes that means scrap subjects like racism studies and even economics and history (brain washing subjects) - these subjects are very subjective and a lot of times theres no right or wrong answer, it all depends on how the exam marker feels!

The other problem is you have for eg a maths degree done at so many universities. clearly a maths degree at cambridge is far superior to a maths degree at reading. employers HR department should scrap the 2.1 requirement for grad schemes. that way a 2.2 maths degree from cambridge can apply just like a first reading maths degree can also. hopefully those who can only get into reading to do a maths degree will see his fellow students apply for apprentices and start earning money and soon realise a reading degree is not that valuable and that unless he went to cambridge or another good university theres no point going to reading. that way tuition fees from lesser universities like reading should come down over time.

Arklight

GreatApe wrote: »

Absolute nonsense.
We ask 17 year old children to make these decsions maybe 10% know they really want to be x and can go study the relavent subject and hopefully become x down the road. For the other 90% of kids its just a promise it is hope. We compensate adults for being 'mis sold' PPI insurance but we think its ok to con 17 year old kids into a £50,000 decision

Kids dont expect those things, the universities highlight those things to try and herd the dumb their way



No. They are unhappy with the contract they signed up for. They thought they were signing up for a middle class (or at least upper working class) life if they took on the £50k debt and give 3-4 years of their life and they passed. What the parents and kids have found out that even though they did what was expected of them and they went and passed their lives are not notable better.

The real important question then becomes, can we actually send more kids to university and have a higher paid higher status workforce as a result? And if not what the hell are we doing?

I would suggest that there is no need for mass higher education. If there was a magic method of making everyone a PHD student all 100% of the population guess what? We would still need refuse collectors and shelf stackers only instead of leaving school at 16 and doing those jobs they would leave school at 25 and do those jobs.



Remove all forced funding of universities. Give the kids a choice. Say to 18 year olds here you go a £30k cheque spend it on an education or use it as a deposit to buy a home or put it into a pension. With choice I suspect less than 10% of the kids would go for the university education the other 90% would opt for a house or a pension

But we do not give them choice we say, ok go to university spend 3 years and £50k and cross your fingers you come out of it and someone will give you a decent job. Or dont go and go get a job at McDonalds frying chickens. With just those two options its no surprise even the kids who totally fail their college (16-18) education are also herded into universities. I had a Friend that failed two of his A-levels and one with just a D. Sure he went to university the university dont care about him his grades or his future if they did they would have said to the kid look just do another year of college its free and come back if you have an A or a B but right now this is not for you



It is not the universities the general population has variation and some people are smart and some people are dim and there isnt much you can do to change that.

The advantage the USA has over say India is that in the USA very few children are malnourished while in india a much larger number are. Another advantage is that in india or other poor countries economic conditions might mean even if you are smart your only options are to work the family farm in which case even if you have an IQ of 160 you wont do much with your life. This means in india if you are born with the genetics for high IQ there is a chance that can be destroyed by diet or economic circumstances.

You'd perhaps get more out of these debates, and possibly life in general, were you not convinced everyone else was, 'dumb' and should be bus drivers, while you are some kind of lonely self made genius.

I don't know where to start with your India analogy. It seems to be based on a Cathe Pacific newsreel from 1930. Do you really think a country of 1.3 billion people can't muster one third of its population to be non starving and match the United States?

I actually agree with your opinions about HE and the way it is sold to the youth (some of whom you'll be stunned to learn aren't stupid for wanting to go to a university) and would encourage you to stop voting for Tory governments that want to turn education into a PFI meal ticket for their corporate friends.

gfplux

LHW99 wrote: »

Whilst potentially recognition by one country of qualifications obtained in another country is beneficial, in practise there are still instances where issues arise, even across EU countries.
For example: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10848645/German-doctor-will-not-be-extradited-to-UK-over-patient-death.html
IMO, competance is more important that degree recognition, and if this requires additional testing or provision of evidence, such as is currently applicable to non-EEA doctors, this is worth it to protect those who use the services offered.
https://www.rcog.org.uk/en/careers-training/about-specialty-training-in-og/certification-of-training-specialist-registration/cesr/

LHW99 you are correct. Lots of qualifications are still waiting to be sorted out, but hopefully you got my point.

westernpromise

Arklight wrote: »

You'd perhaps get more out of these debates, and possibly life in general, were you not convinced everyone else was, 'dumb' and should be bus drivers, while you are some kind of lonely self made genius.

I don't know where to start with your India analogy. It seems to be based on a Cathe Pacific newsreel from 1930. Do you really think a country of 1.3 billion people can't muster one third of its population to be non starving and match the United States?

I actually agree with your opinions about HE and the way it is sold to the youth (some of whom you'll be stunned to learn aren't stupid for wanting to go to a university) and would encourage you to stop voting for Tory governments that want to turn education into a PFI meal ticket for their corporate friends.

Cathay Pacific is an airline. I didn't realise they made news programmes.

chucknorris

westernpromise wrote: »

Cathay Pacific is an airline. I didn't realise they made news programmes.

I think he means Pathe News (which you probably realised).

GreatApe

Arklight wrote: »

You'd perhaps get more out of these debates, and possibly life in general, were you not convinced everyone else was, 'dumb' and should be bus drivers, while you are some kind of lonely self made genius.

I don't know where to start with your India analogy. It seems to be based on a Cathe Pacific newsreel from 1930. Do you really think a country of 1.3 billion people can't muster one third of its population to be non starving and match the United States?

I actually agree with your opinions about HE and the way it is sold to the youth (some of whom you'll be stunned to learn aren't stupid for wanting to go to a university) and would encourage you to stop voting for Tory governments that want to turn education into a PFI meal ticket for their corporate friends.

While I am smart I also accept that it was down to luck more than anything else.
I don't think everyone else is dumb I think most people are decent and smart. I think the system is dumb and needs to change. A 17 year old kid has no real concept of money jobs taxes life yet we sell them a £50k decision. And yes the system as it stands is so broken you can get to university with just a poor pass on a single A level subject. That is surely crazy it makes nonsense trying to teach someone Shakespeare when they haven't even mastered the alphabet.

My India analogy is simply stating that malnutrition and economic opportunity is important in both intelligence and where you end up. If you were born in 1960 India there is a good chance you wouldn't be able to make much of your life irrespective of how hard you worked and how smart you were especially if you were born to one of the lower casts. Likewise you can be born with super Human genetics but that won't do you a lot of good if you were malnourished in your first 5 years.

economic

Ones path in life is pretty much all down to nature AND nurture (and a bit of luck).

economic

one of the other things that makes online/virtual learning possible now then say a decade ago is the advancement of technology that enables us to do so. We have fast internet connections, HD screens, fast computers, multiple ways of communication and interaction, cloud storage, collaborative environments and other things. you did not have much of this even 10-15 years ago (at least the majority didn't). there is so much potential now for online learning being mainstream that i really do think we are not moving fast enough. most degrees should be scrapped and if people want to learn a specific topic or subject then they should be able to do it at a fraction of the cost. of course highly specialized things like medicine are exceptions to this.

Look at youtube, you can find almost any topic on it to learn about it on youtube. so its already here in a small way. you just need to have the majority of degrees being scrapped and being taught the same thing online at a fraction of the cost. you could earn the degree (after taking exams) that way (to show accreditation of the subject).

the only reason why most people go to do degrees is for the degree itself, not for the learning. its such a waste of resources and capital.

Also virtual reality in the near future would make virtual learning even more of a possibility!!!

Andy_L

economic wrote: »

what i would do is scrap all useless degrees

now that they're paying £9k/year how many students are doing "useless degrees" (whatever your definition of that happens to be)

economic

Andy_L wrote: »

now that they're paying £9k/year how many students are doing "useless degrees" (whatever your definition of that happens to be)

first of all nothing is ever certain in life and that should be hammered into students whilst they are young. hopefully helps prevents extreme socialists being formed.

you do a degree only to expect to gain financially and/or career wise in the future. so the 9k a year should be seen as purely an investment. nothing more then that and nothing less. so to some it is of course worth it (although since nothing is certain it cant be guaranteed but like any investment there is always a risk).

to others they may think it is worth it but the odds are stacked against their favour and spending time and money racking up debt on a degree that gets them somewhere where you didnt need a degree in the first place. of course if they are rich and can afford to take the seemingly huge risk then they can do whatever they want. but otherwise 18 years olds will be 18 years olds plus the parent pressure and peer pressure. So it needs to be taught in school about what i said - degrees should only be an investment.

in fact why stop there? teach kids at an early age about finances, debt, mortgages, student loans, interest. all this stuff we at MSE probably know too well vs the average. that way they are more informed about the decisions they make. we need to see demand for the useless degrees fall off a cliff, so they can lower tuition fees and therefore it becomes less of a debt burden and cost for useless degrees (ideally they should cost almost nothing, in fact its easier to have government to just scrap them forcefully as we get there quicker, but a lot less is better then how much they cost now).