Are degrees in the UK value for money?

GreatApe

economic wrote: »

but do you honestly think all that will happen in the first term? dont they need various signoffs much like in the US where you need the house and senate to vote on these things? i dont think it can happen as easily as you say.

I dont know the full details of how the UK political system works.
From my understanding the lords are not meant to block stuff in manifestos so if its in there it will probably go through. Of course the real challenge to the corbyn crew might be their own MPs the ones that are not committed communists. But I think a lot of MPs are fickle if corbyn takes a hard left victory in a GE then a lot of moderate labor MPs will be happy to jump onto that ship

The budget afaik just needs majority support in the HOC so taxes could be varied quite a lot quite easily. I am trying to imagine what they might want to do asap.

Corp tax up
Higher rate Income tax up
Capital gains scrapped and capital gains counted as income (or the CG tax levels put to the same levels as income)
Inheritance tax free band reduced quite a lot perhaps towards £200,000 per person
The bands where each rate kicks in can be moved
Dividend taxes up
Second home stamp duty up
Perhaps increase the upper earnings NI contribution
Lower ISA annual allowances from £20k to £5k

I dont see why those could not all be done quickly, almost all governments play with those but most government do not move them dramatically (by that I mean move them so they collect a lot more or a lot less) . All of those for instance have been changed by this government and all were changed by Brown when he was in power.

It is conceivable they could increase taxes by as much as £100 billion
So whatever can be changed via the budget could be done quickly.
They could very rapidly increase the size of the state

Things like building millions of council homes or getting rid of trident would not be quick.

Cakeguts

https://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/114262/half-of-graduates-in-the-northwest-acknowledge-they-are-no-better-off-having-studied

I just found this. The students listed the most useless degrees.

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver2

Self ed
Teach yourself things. Read books. Read what books you like. I always read books that help me to know what is really going on,half the problem,and put life in context.
No use trying for uni unless you know how to teach yourself and love books.
NB Dad and stepmum academics and my mum wanted to be an academic but who ended up a nurse.

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver2

Government and Uni's putting all the risk on the poor student who ends up in debt.
Is it worth it?
In a world of free slave internships where does your degree take you?

badmemory

GreatApe wrote: »

I dont think they have planned that far ahead the tortskys are probably most concerned about taking full control of labor which they look like they are managing to do. Its actually the smart thing to do the way democracy works power shifts hands frequently all they need to do is destroy the center-ground of labor and turn it into a communist party. At some stage in the future power will shift to them and they can have their turn. Some of them are so happy they are outright overjoyed by the propect (Fact in their minds) that they are going to change the whole bloody world! Fat chance but it shows how cocksure they now are

As worrisome as that is we accept democracy not because it gives us the little people a vote but it gives those who covet power a means to take it without bloodshed. So I dont know what to make of it all be happy that democracy is working or be sad to the fact that we will get poorer for 10-20 years until they get kicked out again


What do they want to do? My guess is their primary aim is to destroy the rich rather than help the poor so

Introduce Rent caps perhaps absurdly low ones like below social rents (and thus exempting social landlords from the caps)
Scrap RTB
Buy out a lot of the private sector eg the utility companies national grid etc
Set an upper limit for ISA wrappers to perhaps £50,000
Get rid of the pension savings gross income
Definitely reduce the IHT free band that was in their last manifesto
Move the 7 year gifting period to 20 years or more
Add many more bands of council tax perhaps top rate towards £10k a year
Increase corp tax
Increase top rate of tax to 50% or even 55%
Get rid of capital gains and just count it as income (so we go from 18% CGT on things like shares to 50-55% income tax on the gains and a much smaller ISA/Pension wrapper)
Get rid of the dividend allowance and perhaps even treat dividends as income so again taxed at 50-55% which will be a double tax (If they put corp tax to say 33% and have a 55% income tax including on dividends then for each £100 of profit a company makes it only gets to give £30 to the shareholders. Effectively a 70% tax rate!)
Maybe additional levies on the banks and oil companies

Expand the NHS
Expand universities
Build council homes (that will cost more than they imagine) and rent then for sub cost thus needing subsidy
Potentially expand education below university (eg more teachers per child) bigger buildings etc
Increase benefits



I think this will actually be popular for their first term. During the second term the consequences will be felt more. they will also find that homelessness and despair are more or less the same because those things are not caused by lack of enough government spending but by addictions and dysfunctional people/families

It depends on how bitter they are they might even set up the system to drive away whole industries like the city of London. Brown didn't do that he saw the benefit of letting them do business and taxing them. The communists might not care, helping the poor (by taxing the city) is less important than getting rid of the rich.


(The media are so stupid, just watched a clip of comrade mcdonnell. Twice he said 'parliament will set the price' when talking about how costly nationalizing the industries will be. Journalist too dim to say.....so you are going to set the price you buy the business for? How will that work comrade?)

Sorry but do you really think the turkeys are going to vote for Christmas? Have you seen the incomes of some of the labour MPs, the value of their houses? The size of their pensions & expenses? Reality will hit long before then, but at least generally they are not in the business of scr****g us all into the ground to increase their profits.

As for communism, it didn't work ever in Russia & isn't going to work anywhere else either. The nearest it ever came was in the Kibbutz in Israel. Far too many greedy people in the world, where do you think the Russian "oligarchs" came from , the Russian "m a f i a ". Those who rose/fought/bribed their way to the top under communism which by its very nature should have no top.

gfplux

Cakeguts wrote: »

You have to be able to complete the degree in the language of the country. So in France you have to know French well enough to be able to study a degree in it. In Germany you have to pass a test in German in order to get a place. Basically you need to be fluent in the language of the country in which you want to study.

Sorry Cakeguts that is not the case. There are hundreds of undergraduate and masters courses in Europe taught in English.

Cakeguts

gfplux wrote: »

Sorry Cakeguts that is not the case. There are hundreds of undergraduate and masters courses in Europe taught in English.

Where in Europe? I would expect Finland. I wouldn't expect France. I don't think you can pick any counrty and expect to be taught in English?

Also although the fees are free you have to be able to afford to live in the country. So if you find a course in Germany that is taught in English you have to also find somewhere to live. If you want to get a job to fund your living costs you need to speak German. In the end only people who are well off can study abroad.

GreatApe

badmemory wrote: »

Sorry but do you really think the turkeys are going to vote for Christmas? Have you seen the incomes of some of the labour MPs, the value of their houses? The size of their pensions & expenses? Reality will hit long before then, but at least generally they are not in the business of scr****g us all into the ground to increase their profits.

As for communism, it didn't work ever in Russia & isn't going to work anywhere else either. The nearest it ever came was in the Kibbutz in Israel. Far too many greedy people in the world, where do you think the Russian "oligarchs" came from , the Russian "m a f i a ". Those who rose/fought/bribed their way to the top under communism which by its very nature should have no top.

I agree Communism doesn't work but here we are with an opposition cabinet made up of Communists.

And yes I do believe they will pass through budgets that tax themselves more.
They will be happy to tax the labour MPs a few tens of thousands more to being in tens of billions more in taxes to then spend on expanding the state

Cakeguts

westernpromise wrote: »

For what career do you need two undergraduate degrees and a master's?

There are some music students who do this kind of thing. The problem with studying music especially at music college is that there is only likely to be one professional job available each year for that year's intake of students. The reason is that the professional classical musicbusiness is contracting not expanding so there are fewer and fewer jobs worldwide and more and more people chasing them.

For the music colleges to run courses at all they have to take people who they know will never ever be good enough to get a job in the profession but they have to fill their places.

There are also levels of music colleges as well. Realistically if you want to become a professional music player there are only about 3 colleges in the country that you can go to where the standard is high enough.

So what happens is that you have a year's intake of students and the college knows that of that year there is only one person who has got enough talent to become a professional player. The rest of the year are there to pay for the college to stay open.

The person who they have decided is worth training gets the appropriate experience that they need. The rest of the course get a music college education. The problems for the rest of the course starts when they don't realise that they are not going to become players. There are some people who just don't get this message. They do post graduate course after post graduate course they go and study abroad and then they come back to the UK and eventually have to get a job in something else. This can go on for years and years though. I have met people over 30 who are still waiting for the "lucky break" that is never going to come. The thing about studying music at music college though is that you have to be well off to start with or your parents would not be able to afford the instrument or the lessons. That has not changed.

happyandcontented

Cakeguts wrote: »

Where in Europe? I would expect Finland. I wouldn't expect France. I don't think you can pick any counrty and expect to be taught in English?

Also although the fees are free you have to be able to afford to live in the country. So if you find a course in Germany that is taught in English you have to also find somewhere to live. If you want to get a job to fund your living costs you need to speak German. In the end only people who are well off can study abroad.

https://www.topuniversities.com/student-info/studying-abroad/where-can-you-study-abroad-english

More than you might think, but still probably relatively difficult to find specialised/specific courses taught in English. Many people move abroad to live/work without speaking the local language, they generally pick it up through immersion.