Are degrees in the UK value for money?

Arklight

SingleSue wrote: »

I'm with you on investing in your education.

I'm no baby boomer (for once I am too young!) and those days had gone by the time I left school but there are also jobs being advertised in the local area which require a degree where one was not required years ago. At the same time, there are apprenticeships which are also not required for the roles either!

However, there is the element of young people being forced to have a degree to achieve the same access my non baby boomer age group 'enjoyed' and that is a huge problem for our young adults.

Maybe, but I am very reluctant to advocate anything that looks like reducing opportunities for young people to access higher level education.


As is evidenced on this forum, the Right thrives on ignorance and the inevitable prejudice that arises from having learned nothing and thinking you know everything.


Every surge in ugly nationalistic bigotry the human race has ever known has started with an assault on intellectuals, foreigners and places of learning.


If the cost of that not happening is a comparatively small number of people spending a few years on softer degrees and being disappointed that they aren't walking into fast track graduate careers with blue chip corporations, I am fine with that.


I am much more concerned about idiocy like people here thinking Africans all have learning disabilities because a white supremacists falsified some studies and they watched a youtube video he gave.


Education has a much wider benefit to society than financial ROI. The Right actively doesn't want that benefit because it relies on stupidity to spread its creed.

GreatApe

Offer universities £15k to give one year fast track degrees
9am to 6pm 6 days a week 50 weeks a year.

Total cost to student would be £25k (£15k tuition £10k living costs) compared to £60k now. £35k savings and also 2 additional years of earnings which must be another ~£50k gross

But of course no university is going to of its own free will shrink its income

Arklight

GreatApe wrote: »

Offer universities £15k to give one year fast track degrees
9am to 6pm 6 days a week 50 weeks a year.

Total cost to student would be £25k (£15k tuition £10k living costs) compared to £60k now. £35k savings and also 2 additional years of earnings which must be another ~£50k gross

But of course no university is going to of its own free will shrink its income

Some universities do offer 2 year fastrack degrees.

economic

if i were to chose between two candidates for my business:
1) person A: good degree related to my business from a good uni but little to no experience
2) person B: no degree, started a small business on his own since leaving school, has 2-3 years solid trading experience in his business

I would EASILY chose person B to work for me. problem is i am left with chosing person A as i have NO CHOICE since person B would prefer to run his business.

This is what i am saying about apprenticeships. there should be a hell of a lot more of them.

Cakeguts

Lingua wrote: »

I intend to finish an undergraduate degree in the UK, plus a Master's, and then do a second undergraduate degree abroad for a fraction of the cost. In fact, I could do four undergraduate degrees abroad for the same price as one year of university here. For me, the bigger question isn't why so many go to university (why shouldn't they? Education should be open to all), but rather why we allow such extortionately high tuition fees. Community colleges in America, the equivalent of our ex-polytechnics, are now cheaper. Let that sink in for a moment: university in the UK is now often more expensive than in America.

Lingua

No community colleges in the US are the equivalent of our old technical colleges or the new A level colleges not Polytechnics. Here in the UK that level of education used to be free and still is so the US is more expensive. Polytechnics asked for A levels for entrance. Some of the courses had the same A level entrance requirements as university courses. The difference between a Polytechnic and a university was the type of course not the level. Polytechnic courses were vocational courses so courses that led to a job. University courses were mostly academic courses that were not vocational. The university vocational courses were courses like medicine and veterinary science.

In the UK you can do a medicine course after your A levels. In the US you have got to get a degree from a community college first to bring your education up to the level to start a medicine course.

The high school diploma in the US awarded at age 18 or so is not the same level as A levels in the UK it is more like the level of GCSEs. A community college degree is like A levels but two years later.

Eric_the_half_a_bee

Arklight wrote: »

As is evidenced on this forum, the Right thrives on ignorance and the inevitable prejudice that arises from having learned nothing and thinking you know everything.

Every surge in ugly nationalistic bigotry the human race has ever known has started with an assault on intellectuals, foreigners and places of learning.

Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao were all highly educated intellectuals whose ugly bigotry killed more people than all the nationalists put together.

economic

Arklight wrote: »

Maybe, but I am very reluctant to advocate anything that looks like reducing opportunities for young people to access higher level education.


As is evidenced on this forum, the Right thrives on ignorance and the inevitable prejudice that arises from having learned nothing and thinking you know everything.


Every surge in ugly nationalistic bigotry the human race has ever known has started with an assault on intellectuals, foreigners and places of learning.


If the cost of that not happening is a comparatively small number of people spending a few years on softer degrees and being disappointed that they aren't walking into fast track graduate careers with blue chip corporations, I am fine with that.


I am much more concerned about idiocy like people here thinking Africans all have learning disabilities because a white supremacists falsified some studies and they watched a youtube video he gave.


Education has a much wider benefit to society than financial ROI. The Right actively doesn't want that benefit because it relies on stupidity to spread its creed.

you are just chatting nonsense.

GreatApe

Arklight wrote: »

That's rather putting your career at the mercy of your employer though, isn't it?

This might have been fine for baby boomers who could expect to walk into a company at 16, and out again 50 years later with a pension, but it's not really the same for young people now.

What will hopefully happen is that a government enters power that actually values the transformative effect of education and is willing to fund it again. I don't really care how they do this. Graduates earn more, make better decisions and have happier more stable lives.

Investing in Education is a no brainer.

Why stop at 3 year courses?
If education is a universal good why not have everyone do a masters and then a PhD and then a second PhD? Why even stop at all why not educate our people from age 18 to age 40 with multiple degrees? There is never any diminishing returns?

Let's try and agree on one point.
People should walk before they run
In which case why are universities allowed to recruit students that have failed or barely passed their A-Levels? It is absurd. I am happy to pay for the students to redo one year of college to actually learn their a-levels and pass it with a grade B or above and then go to university.
Likewise people should not be admitted to A-levels before they properly pass the relevant GCSEs and again I am wwillong to pay for the kids to redo one year if GCSEs
That kind of education can be transformative I have known people go from grade D/Es to grade As once they try a second tim whereas going to do university education while you already failed your a levels is just wrong.

So I am with you let us have an unlimited place for students that get a 2 x B grade and one A- grade. For everyone else they either start working or try again next year to improve their grades.

Arklight

Cakeguts wrote: »

No community colleges in the US are the equivalent of our old technical colleges or the new A level colleges not Polytechnics. Here in the UK that level of education used to be free and still is so the US is more expensive. Polytechnics asked for A levels for entrance. Some of the courses had the same A level entrance requirements as university courses. The difference between a Polytechnic and a university was the type of course not the level. Polytechnic courses were vocational courses so courses that led to a job. University courses were mostly academic courses that were not vocational. The university vocational courses were courses like medicine and veterinary science.


In the UK you can do a medicine course after your A levels. In the US you have got to get a degree from a community college first to bring your education up to the level to start a medicine course.

The high school diploma in the US awarded at age 18 or so is not the same level as A levels in the UK it is more like the level of GCSEs. A community college degree is like A levels but two years later.

None of this is right. I don't understand where you are getting your information from.


American students finish high school with high school certificate and a recorded GPA out of 4.0. The winter prior to that they may take college entrance exams. Commonly SATs or ACTs.


They may also take Advanced Placement courses which give them college level credit while at high school.


An Associate Degree at a community college articulates onto the Junior year (3rd out of 4) at a 4 year college. The UK equivalent would be the first year of a degree course.


You can attend community college for $1000 or so per year, followed by 2 years paying in state tuition fees of $5000 per annum if you are in the right location.


The tuition fees in the US can be potentially unlimited but they can also be very cheap. On average the UK is now charging more than the US.

Arklight

Eric_the_half_a_bee wrote: »

Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao were all highly educated intellectuals whose ugly bigotry killed more people than all the nationalists put together.

Dictators don't take power in a vacuum. An educated populous is vastly less likely to take on extreme ideologies than an uneducated one.


The first victims in all extreme revolutions were intellectuals, because they posed the greatest threat.


But whatever Eric, we can stop everyone going to university because you once met someone working in Costa who had a media studies degree. Before long we'll be believing the world is flat again.


Apparently Mao thought it was round which is another reason to stop educating people.