Are degrees in the UK value for money?

Cakeguts

economic wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-42138669

be careful to all future students. you may end up like her. the funny thing is she says she needs more support. i think she just needs to realise how stupid she has been because of the following:
- having a baby at a young age
- doing a pointless degree
- going to a poor uni
- going to uni fullstop
- complaining how its everyone elses fault and not hers.

She is a bad example for the news. No one is going to get a graduate job from the university that she went to whether they want full time or part time working. She needs to stop looking for a graduate job and concentrate on the part time working. This is nothing to do with being a single mother and everything to do with the university she went to.

Someone needs to tell her that the problems she has in getting a job are down to the university she went to not the fact that she is a single parent and needs flexible working. Another victim of the no one will tell them the truth about the university they are about to attend.

Arklight

Cakeguts wrote: »

She is a bad example for the news. No one is going to get a graduate job from the university that she went to whether they want full time or part time working. She needs to stop looking for a graduate job and concentrate on the part time working. This is nothing to do with being a single mother and everything to do with the university she went to.

Someone needs to tell her that the problems she has in getting a job are down to the university she went to not the fact that she is a single parent and needs flexible working. Another victim of the no one will tell them the truth about the university they are about to attend.

Oh look. More complete cobblers from Cakeguts. Sounding off once more on a subject about which he knows absolutely nothing.

http://netcommunity.shu.ac.uk/Page.aspx?pid=309

SingleSue

economic wrote: »

what university and course/degrees do they do?

I have no idea how that is relevant to what we had just been discussing.

Youngest is doing a STEM based subject on an integrated Masters, middle an arts one (not media)

SingleSue

Cakeguts wrote: »

She is a bad example for the news. No one is going to get a graduate job from the university that she went to whether they want full time or part time working. She needs to stop looking for a graduate job and concentrate on the part time working. This is nothing to do with being a single mother and everything to do with the university she went to.

Someone needs to tell her that the problems she has in getting a job are down to the university she went to not the fact that she is a single parent and needs flexible working. Another victim of the no one will tell them the truth about the university they are about to attend.

No one?

Eldest son went to a much worse university (so bad it is 6th from bottom in the 2018 league tables) but was successful in securing a graduate position in a highly competitive scheme. As is the emerging trend in graduate schemes, his employers operated a blind process when it came to the university the applicants attended...so he was never asked and never had to say to those interviewing. All they were interested in was the classification of his degree and how he performed in the very lengthy and complex recruitment process.

To top it all off, he took a so called pointless degree.....he would certainly not agree, especially when he looks at the amount on his pay slip. I'm not going to say his actual amount but suffice to say, he will not be one of those not paying towards their student loan.

Cakeguts

SingleSue wrote: »

No one?

Eldest son went to a much worse university (so bad it is 6th from bottom in the 2018 league tables) but was successful in securing a graduate position in a highly competitive scheme. As is the emerging trend in graduate schemes, his employers operated a blind process when it came to the university the applicants attended...so he was never asked and never had to say to those interviewing. All they were interested in was the classification of his degree and how he performed in the very lengthy and complex recruitment process.

To top it all off, he took a so called pointless degree.....he would certainly not agree, especially when he looks at the amount on his pay slip. I'm not going to say his actual amount but suffice to say, he will not be one of those not paying towards their student loan.

That is great for your son but "one swallow doesn't make a summer." For all the small number of people like your son there are hundreds who are paying for the cost of running the bad universities who go there to become nothing. I am not even worried about the cost to the taxpayer I am worried about the cost to the individuals in terms of time wasted and the lack of help that they get from schools in choosing a university to go to that meets their individual circumstances.

There are so many vested interests. The lady in the news is blaming the wrong people. She is blaming the lack of graduate schemes for part time workers and the fact that she can't get a graduate level job. The people she should be blaming are the teachers in her school who didn't do their job properly. It was their job to educate her. She gets sex education, education about the dangers of the internet, education about keeping herself safe but no education about going to the wrong university that could affect her job prospects. The university she went to was the wrong university for what she wanted to do. She wants to get a graduate level job so she needed to go to a university where the chances of being able to do that was the highest not a university where the chances of doing that are extremely low.

You can tell that she does not have the qualifications that employers are looking for by the fact that she has done two internships. She is looking for something that doesn't exist for people from her university but no one seems to have told her that she went to the wrong university for what she wanted to do.

When I was doing a part time course at one of the bottom universities in the country there were a stream of students who had gone there to do a music degree because they wanted to become professional classical music players. No one had told them that you couldn't do that from that university because the standard of playing was all too low and they would never pass an audition. One student completed an Mmus without ever being able to tune the instrument they played or play it in tune. Most of them couldn't read music well enough to play the standard chamber music repertoire that lots of adults who haven't studied music have no difficulty playing. On finishing 4 years of study there they would not have reached the standard of playing to pass an audition to get a place at a music conservatoire to start a course. Yet if you asked many of them they wanted to play professionally. I managed eventually to ask one of the lecturers in the music departmemt who was going to tell these students that they were never going to get playing jobs. The reply I got was the surely they knew this before they went there. So he expected the schools to tell them. The schools didn't and neither did the university so where should this information be coming from?

Those people who think that going to any university is alright please think about this. What value does a music degree have where a significant proportion of the mark is for performance where you can't tune the instrument you play or play it in tune and you can't play music that amateur musicians who have never studied music play for a hobby? What kind of job does this lead to? If you are thinking purely in terms of education what level of education is it where the students with the degrees know less about music than the average amateur musician who hasn't studied music?

SingleSue

During middle son's application process, he had to not only pass an audition but also the interview and knowledge process. Some places had higher requirements than others (some only wanted an audition and interview) but the more surprising thing was the content each university offered for the same named degree and of course, their facilities.

We were quite shocked at some of the places, some only did the very basic stuff with a quick over view of other areas, some had basic equipment which wouldn't get a student very far in industry, some did barely any theoretical work. In one case, it was all of the above. For us, a few of the choices appeared to have a stack 'em high policy with not a lot of quality.

The one he chose (he got offers from all of them), was very selective in who they offered to with a very small intake per year of less than 20 students so that they could maintain quality.

Re eldest, he didn't have a clue when choosing where to go and he openly admits he chose the wrong one. I was pushing him to his insurance choice as it was (and still is) a much better performing one with better prospects but he wouldn't listen. His issue was his confidence, he didn't believe he could reach the offer requirements of his other choices, so chose one which gave him a low offer instead of his dream uni which gave him what he thought was an impossible offer.

On results day he discovered he had not only reached the impossible offer but had far exceeded it and unfortunately thought it was too late to change his choice.

Cakeguts

SingleSue wrote: »

During middle son's application process, he had to not only pass an audition but also the interview and knowledge process. Some places had higher requirements than others (some only wanted an audition and interview) but the more surprising thing was the content each university offered for the same named degree and of course, their facilities.

We were quite shocked at some of the places, some only did the very basic stuff with a quick over view of other areas, some had basic equipment which wouldn't get a student very far in industry, some did barely any theoretical work. In one case, it was all of the above. For us, a few of the choices appeared to have a stack 'em high policy with not a lot of quality.

The one he chose (he got offers from all of them), was very selective in who they offered to with a very small intake per year of less than 20 students so that they could maintain quality.

Re eldest, he didn't have a clue when choosing where to go and he openly admits he chose the wrong one. I was pushing him to his insurance choice as it was (and still is) a much better performing one with better prospects but he wouldn't listen. His issue was his confidence, he didn't believe he could reach the offer requirements of his other choices, so chose one which gave him a low offer instead of his dream uni which gave him what he thought was an impossible offer.

On results day he discovered he had not only reached the impossible offer but had far exceeded it and unfortunately thought it was too late to change his choice.

What I worry about is the stress that is caused when someone realises that they have not been told that not all universities courses are equal. How can a student find that out? They would have to go through all of the information of each course at each university and visit each university and talk to current students all while studying for the A levels to get a place.

When you get to the end of your course and discover that you have been to the wrong university for what you wanted to do like get a graduate level job it is too late.

Information about the different levels of university courses should be provided at school if university is mentioned to any of the students.

I would still be interested to know if schools get money from universities to promote their courses?

GreatApe

Less than 5% of all jobs require higher education past A-Levels

When you train more than 5% of your workforce in higher education all you get is education inflation

I managed to get 3 x As at a-levels that was sufficient for all the work I have ever done. My university degree was surplus to requirements. What's more I worked for a time at an R&D labs something most people would imagine definitely needs degree level education. Well it doesn't.

If we trained only 5% at university you would find companies are happy to hire at 18 based on a-levels for a lot of the jobs people consider graduate jobs.

The system is a big waste of resources for all involved.
The logical thing to do is limit university places to 10% of the population max
The university industrial complex is now too big to fight without taking a tremendous political beating.

Its quite sad really its billions that could be better spent on healthcare or housing or defense or lowering the deficit or all of the above. But instead of those we think giving £80k to do four year photography studies degrees that lead to no value added is more important.

economic

Cakeguts wrote: »

There are so many vested interests. The lady in the news is blaming the wrong people. She is blaming the lack of graduate schemes for part time workers and the fact that she can't get a graduate level job. The people she should be blaming are the teachers in her school who didn't do their job properly. It was their job to educate her. She gets sex education, education about the dangers of the internet, education about keeping herself safe but no education about going to the wrong university that could affect her job prospects. The university she went to was the wrong university for what she wanted to do. She wants to get a graduate level job so she needed to go to a university where the chances of being able to do that was the highest not a university where the chances of doing that are extremely low.

you could argue she didnt learn from sex ed class as she is a single mother. i think something more needs to be done then just teaching kids about useless degrees. perhaps stop the source of the bubble and turn off the student loan tap for the useless degrees.

GreatApe

Its easy to say but close to impossible to do.
Its why I say the only way the bubble can be deflated is to give the kids more choice on how they spend the £60-£80k rather than just university give them the option to spend the same sum on housing or pension or even perhaps starting/buying a business.