Are degrees in the UK value for money?

Jackieboy

Cakeguts wrote: »

What sort of careers advice did they get at school?

You mentioned careers advice before but thay should really come from an independent outside person with appropriate qualifications rather than a school teacher with mixed motives and few skills. Unfortunately our excellent Careers Service was privatised under Thatcher and wrecked under Blair and is only just starting to be revived in a very weakened state.

School careers services should be mainly about information.

Voyager2002

AFF8879 wrote: »

Uni courses vary substantially depending on the discipline studied and calibre of institution. I.e studying medicine at University College London is truly a full time (9-5, Monday to Friday) course, with this time spent in lectures/seminars/labs - I.e personal study time is on top of this.

Then you go to the other end of the spectrum, e.g. (and I have no intention of offending anyone here) Film Studies at Keele University, where you may have four 1 hr lectures per week in a 12-week term.

Clearly a huge difference in both contact hours and quality, but it seems many universities are too scared to charge below the maximum as they fear it will make them appear inferior (which of course they are)

I personally attended a modern university and studied business, I now work for an investment bank in London - a job I could never have achieved without a degree - and whilst I'm very happy with my career I do still think, in hindsight, that I wasn't made aware of the implications of different study options. I.e we were never taught about the differences in reputation between traditional / red brick universities and modern ones.

So it's difficult to give an answer that applies universally, but in short I would say the top tier pricing should only apply to top tier institutions / courses, not Star Wars Studies at Falmouth / etc etc

Some bizarre examples: Falmouth was for long one of the very best Art colleges in the UK, so courses related to its traditional strengths are likely to be of very high quality (although I have no opinion about the subjects added when it was reorganised fairly recently); Keele is a long established post-war university with a solid reputation across most subjects. This demonstrates the main point of the post, that most people (and certainly most school-leavers) have no idea how to identify the good and poor universities

CLAPTON

GreatApe wrote: »

Physics at Imperial college. Seriously what a total waste of time. How will knowing how to prove Schrödinger equation help me in life?

One doesn't 'prove' schrodinger's equation.
Its applications, like the entire semiconductor, electronic, computing industry seems to have some real life implications.
Truely Physics at Imperial was wasted on you

silvercar

Cakeguts wrote: »

The problem isn't the people who are top in the school the problems start for people who are in the bottom third of the class and couldn't manage anything more difficult than a "creative" degree at a really low ranked university. They are paying a lot of money for something that they could do for free.

Arguably the people at the bottom may gain more from having a piece of paper marked "degree". That may open doors that were previously firmly shut. Having a degree will show the ability to consistently study and manage your life for 3 years as opposed to dossing on the sofa of mum&dad with a bit of shelf stacking.

Jackieboy

silvercar wrote: »

Arguably the people at the bottom may gain more from having a piece of paper marked "degree". That may open doors that were previously firmly shut. Having a degree will show the ability to consistently study and manage your life for 3 years as opposed to dossing on the sofa of mum&dad with a bit of shelf stacking.

Hopefully the UK HE system hasn't yet sunk so low that the bottom third of the class has any change of achieving a degrtee in any subject whatsoever!

Conrad

A typical client profile of mine;


+ Aged 45, low educational achievement
+ Business owner - roofing contractor or lighting contractor for example
+ Owns a £1.5m detached house with small mortgage
+ Owns 2 or more further properties
+ Investing is part of their DNA - they never stop exploring new investment ideas
+ 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

Loanranger

Because almost fifty per cent of the school leaving cohort now go to university the currency has been devalued in the eyes of many employers and so now they need a master's degree as well.
I witnessed this ten years or more ago when I worked at a Russell Group institution.
Universities spend huge amounts on their online libraries and annual subscriptions to online databases and academic journals. Similarly huge amounts on counselling, chaplaincy, careers services as well as student unions.

westernpromise

Jackieboy wrote: »

Since when has Imperial been a "middle of the road college" or Physics a "useless course"?

It's certainly useless in most jobs. It evidences numeracy but few jobs that require numeracy require physics-degree numeracy. Engineering's another useless degree and computer science yet another unless you're going to be a coding / IT peon.

westernpromise

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Keele is a long established post-war university with a solid reputation across most subjects.

Unfortunately that reputation is for being rubbish, and for thickoes.

westernpromise

Jackieboy wrote: »

Hopefully the UK HE system hasn't yet sunk so low that the bottom third of the class has any change of achieving a degrtee in any subject whatsoever!

It pretty much has actually.

When we had O Levels and CSEs, the former were sat by fewer than 50% of candidates. We now send 50% of da yoof to university from which it follows that some kids who would have been thought of in the past as CSE material - in the bottom half of the class - are now considered university material. Special universities of stupid have been set up to accommodate them.

http://www.justcourses.com/Courses/University_of_Northampton/F8WM-Wastes_Management_and_Dance/348206-1-0.html

No, that course is not a joke.