Are degrees in the UK value for money?

chucknorris

economic wrote: »

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.

This should definitely be taught at school.

NineDeuce

A-Levels do not cost so much per pupil.

An adult can do an A-Level for around £200-300 per year in the evening. It cant be a jump of over £4,500k for a school leaver.

Is £9,500 per year good value?

Well when you consider that non-graduate extra curicular courses can be £400-500 per day, how can one complain about £9.5k for a whole year?

economic

NineDeuce wrote: »

A-Levels do not cost so much per pupil.

An adult can do an A-Level for around £200-300 per year in the evening. It cant be a jump of over £4,500k for a school leaver.

Is £9,500 per year good value?

Well when you consider that non-graduate extra curicular courses can be £400-500 per day, how can one complain about £9.5k for a whole year?

what do you get from the £500 a day extracurricular courses? maybe they are a rip off as well?

NineDeuce

economic wrote: »

what do you get from the £500 a day extracurricular courses? maybe they are a rip off as well?

Well it really depends on the course what you get out of it. People do these for specific purposes while not having the time nor requirement to shell out on a degree.

I have done a week course that my employer paid close to £2k for. It was definitely worth it and saved the company lots of money in the long run from having to hire contractors to do the work I can now do.

economic

NineDeuce wrote: »

Well it really depends on the course what you get out of it. People do these for specific purposes while not having the time nor requirement to shell out on a degree.

I have done a week course that my employer paid close to £2k for. It was definitely worth it and saved the company lots of money in the long run from having to hire contractors to do the work I can now do.

you cant compare that to a degree.

adindas

Stop blaming higher education institutions if finishing degree you or one member of your beloved family are ending up working in the areas which do not need degrees at all.

Do not blame universities for selling education with sophisticated marketing techniques. Like any other product, they have the right to sell their own product with marketing technique they believe will work.

But by the end of the day you are the person, an adult who make the final decision. No one is forcing you.

You should blame yourself, blame your parents your close family members, why did not they remind you when choosing the subject to read at the university.

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

The question about whether university degrees are value for money should be asked to the graduates who successfully earn graduate salaries such as doctors, dentists, engineers, pharmacist, scientists, accountants etc. How much do they earn compared to the tuition fee they paid?

This question should not be asked to people who learn it in a hard way or one of their beloved family member learning it in that way. They got university degrees but still working the areas which do not need university degrees at all as you will get a negative answer.

Some mature adults even never learn getting hard lesson, getting undergraduate degree working in the areas which do not need university degrees, they think they could improve this by taking further degrees, master’s degree such as an MBA degree. They think finishing an MBA degree they could become a CEO, director of a company. They never want to learn the hard reality that those who become a CEO not because of the MBA degree but because they have a gifted talent enhanced by years of work experience managing companies, climbing up from the bottom to the top.

You will notice there are a lot of flyers, advertisement on the walls on the public space, public transports offering an MBA degrees from a university you never heard of, they even accept the people who never hold a managerial position. Finishing an MBA degree they would notice that they were still working in the level to where they were, stacking items on the shelves. The financing system here in the UK which allow a people to study MBA degree using student loan paid by taxpayer’s money does not help.

A student loan paid by the taxpayers should not be given to study at master’s level. Those who want to study at master’s level should pay the tuition come from their own pocket. They should make use of the undergraduate degree they have got paid by the taxpayers to generate income enough to pay for their master’s course. Otherwise it is just another waste of taxpayers’ money.

Bright youngsters proven from A- Level result and want to test the water, a smarter move is go to apprenticeship route where they could enjoy earning, getting work experience, and could go to university on part time study get a degree paid by their employers. Even if you fail you have very little to lose.

adindas

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)

I think the problem here is that many people who study at the university studying Mickey Mouse subjects paying £9000 / £9250 a year are not using their own money but they are using the taxpayer’s money funded through student loan system. Finishing degree, if they still earn minimum wage (probably plus a small increment) what you have got to loose you never pay that money back anyway not even a penny.

If you analyse it further people in this category even win as during the years of studies, many of them got free money payed by the taxpayers of up to £11,002 pa paid through maintenance (living allowance).

Finishing degree, this taxpayers money of (£9,250 + £11,002) x 5 = £101,260 will never be paid back, not even a penny if graduates are still working in the areas paying minimum wages. It is called a loan, but it is utterly misleading as the majority of people do not pay the money back. The payment rate is very slow and the amount is small. So many graduates earning decent salary only pay the fractional of the money what they have taken from the taxpayers.

MSE has long been campaigning that this should not be called a loan but rather it should be called tax on graduate.

The system is broken, it is such a waste of taxpayer’s money. The student loan should only be given to the subjects which are already statistically proven to provide value for money for taxpayers, the skills needed and valued by the society.

Those who wanted to study for a fancy Micky mouse degrees such as study to become a failed celebrities, failed artists, football managers, fashion designers should use the the money come from their own pocket or from bank of mum and dad.

michaels

adindas wrote: »

I think the problem here is that many people who study at the university studying Mickey Mouse subjects paying £9000 / £9250 a year are not using their own money but they are using the taxpayer’s money funded through student loan system. Finishing degree, if they still earn minimum wage (probably plus a small increment) what you have got to loose you never pay that money back anyway not even a penny.

If you analyse it further people in this category even win as during the years of studies, many of them got free money payed by the taxpayers of up to £11,002 pa paid through maintenance (living allowance).

Finishing degree, this taxpayers money of (£9,250 + £11,002) x 5 = £101,260 will never be paid back, not even a penny if graduates are still working in the areas paying minimum wages. It is called a loan, but it is utterly misleading as the majority of people do not pay the money back. The payment rate is very slow and the amount is small. So many graduates earning decent salary only pay the fractional of the money what they have taken from the taxpayers.

MSE has long been campaigning that this should not be called a loan but rather it should be called tax on graduate.

The system is broken, it is such a waste of taxpayer’s money. The student loan should only be given to the subjects which are already statistically proven to provide value for money for taxpayers, the skills needed and valued by the society.

Those who wanted to study for a fancy Micky mouse degrees such as study to become a failed celebrities, failed artists, football managers, fashion designers should use the the money come from their own pocket or from bank of mum and dad.

I think this is a good point. Perhaps universities and courses that can be shown over 5 years to lead to negligible payback of courses should lose their ability to get funding? Indeed perhaps the way to go is for the universities to get the 'loan payments' of their graduates then that puts the onus on them to make sure their courses are of value. There could be a block subsidy from the govt for each degree depending on its perceived social value and then the remainder of the unis income would need to come from the loan repayments of the graduates.

I will do a few examples later but the net effect is that the govt picks up the tab for the benefit to society of for example a nursing or social work qualification but the uni takes on the risk that its graduates do not earn a premium over those without a degree and thus has every incentive to give courses that are either socially useful or give good individual returns.

GreatApe

adindas wrote: »

Stop blaming higher education institutions if finishing degree you or one member of your beloved family are ending up working in the areas which do not need degrees at all.

Do not blame universities for selling education with sophisticated marketing techniques. Like any other product, they have the right to sell their own product with marketing technique they believe will work.

But by the end of the day you are the person, an adult who make the final decision. No one is forcing you.

You should blame yourself, blame your parents your close family members, why did not they remind you when choosing the subject to read at the university.

The problem is that you are not asking an adult to make the decision you are asking a 17 year old child to make the decision a child who has no real concept of £30-50k as they probably haven't ever had more than £100 in their hands. Likewise a lot of the parents dont know any better especially if the parent themselves didn't go to university. However this is slowly changing as parents are seeing the children of others who go through the process and are not much better off for it. Even then the parents and kids feel they have no choice. Higher education in this country is no longer education its a type of insurance which is overpriced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLJIpBexKhQ

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

Its not so clear cut as that. If you take a 17 year old with an IQ of 160 and a good temperament who got 100% in their 5 A-Level subjects and you put them through oxford studying mathematics. Can you attribute all their future success to oxford? I would say no this kid was already in the top 1% while oxford might be good for him and help him out somewhat the foundation was there from birth and his formative years.

The question about whether university degrees are value for money should be asked to the graduates who successfully earn graduate salaries such as doctors, dentists, engineers, pharmacist, scientists, accountants etc. How much do they earn compared to the tuition fee they paid?

If you take a 4 year course at say £40,000 in tuition plus 4 years lost post tax income of £15,000 a year that equates to a lost £100,000

Put that £100,000 into stocks or a house returning a real 5% annually over a 48 year period (assuming the retirement age of 70) and you have in todays money £1.04 million.
That is the cost of an education £1.04 million

In the majority of cases peoples lifetime earnings from a higher education wont surpass this £1.04 million

GreatApe

adindas wrote: »

I think the problem here is that many people who study at the university studying Mickey Mouse subjects paying £9000 / £9250 a year are not using their own money but they are using the taxpayer’s money funded through student loan system. Finishing degree, if they still earn minimum wage (probably plus a small increment) what you have got to loose you never pay that money back anyway not even a penny.

If you analyse it further people in this category even win as during the years of studies, many of them got free money payed by the taxpayers of up to £11,002 pa paid through maintenance (living allowance).

Finishing degree, this taxpayers money of (£9,250 + £11,002) x 5 = £101,260 will never be paid back, not even a penny if graduates are still working in the areas paying minimum wages. It is called a loan, but it is utterly misleading as the majority of people do not pay the money back. The payment rate is very slow and the amount is small. So many graduates earning decent salary only pay the fractional of the money what they have taken from the taxpayers.

MSE has long been campaigning that this should not be called a loan but rather it should be called tax on graduate.

The system is broken, it is such a waste of taxpayer’s money. The student loan should only be given to the subjects which are already statistically proven to provide value for money for taxpayers, the skills needed and valued by the society.

Those who wanted to study for a fancy Micky mouse degrees such as study to become a failed celebrities, failed artists, football managers, fashion designers should use the the money come from their own pocket or from bank of mum and dad.

The loan should be deducted from their estates on death

That way a lot more of it would be paid back perhaps 50% of the kids who wouldn't pay it back normally would do in full if it was taken from their estates.