Are degrees in the UK value for money?

Cakeguts

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver2 wrote: »

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?

You forgot schools. They use university places of their students to attract the attention of uneducated parents who think that any university is a good place to study so that the parents will send their child that school. So it is the vested interests of a Labour politician, universities and some bad school teachers who are putting all the risk onto a generation of young people.

PixelPound

The question is in a post "education, education, education" world where having any degree irrelevant of subject, why do many still feel it's the only route?

Sapphire

nic_c wrote: »

The question is in a post "education, education, education" world where having any degree irrelevant of subject, why do many still feel it's the only route?

Snob value. :cool:

1. Vested interests – there's money to be made by 'universities' and those who run these businesses.

2. Those who don't have a degree can be looked down on, an attitude that no one in category one above, or indeed politicians and other powerful people, tries to counter, for obvious reasons.

3. I suspect many who go to 'university' think it's a trendy and 'fun' thing to do – opportunity to meet loads of people, get drunk, party and so on.

4. Brainwashing.

5. Nothing better to do with their lives (presumably career advice is not provided in schools?).

The country needs technical colleges to train people to do jobs currently being done by migrants. People can do very well out of such careers if they apply themselves and work hard. I've seen it happen – perhaps degrees containing substantial instruction in work ethics wouldn't be amiss?

zagubov

The truth is that for twenty years we have pushed education (and especially HE) as a good instead of a right.That’s the American viewpoint. This shift in attitude was a deliberate policy during the Major government.

People therefore need to sacrifice to buy this and accumulate degrees. It requires all universities, polytechnics and HE colleges to reinvent and re-brand themselves as the most prestigious institutions, the university.

Also all the courses many of which were previously HNCs HNDs and DipHEs have to be rebranded as the most prestigious qualifications -degrees even that means we have to propose low-level degrees like Foundation degrees (obviously based on the American AScs or AAs and replacing our own HE certificates and diplomas).

I see no future in either of these re-brandings.

And yes, technical colleges need to be restored. and should offer shorter more relevant courses like HNCs/HNDs like they’re doing north of the Tweed.

gfplux

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.

Hello cakeguts,
If you are convinced of your opinion no amount of posting by me or others will change your opinion.
However think on this.
What is the difference between leaving home in Manchester to study in Bristol, Strasbourg or Amsterdam.
Working in a Macdonalds in those three City's
Student accomadation provided by the University is not guaranteed in any City.
Accomadation for students can be cheaper in some City's.
Get a degree AND learn a language.

However your original point was that there are NO degree courses taught in the EU27. Hopefully you acknowledge that is not correct.

Eric_the_half_a_bee

zagubov wrote: »

The truth is that for twenty years we have pushed education (and especially HE) as a good instead of a right.That’s the American viewpoint. This shift in attitude was a deliberate policy during the Major government.

HE has never been a right in the UK. Back in the days before tuition fees, it was available only to a small minority - one that was overwhelmingly middle class.

Malthusian

Cakeguts wrote: »

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.

Sounds like the same setup as professional football academies. Every under-21s side will have at most two or three boys who might be good enough to make the senior team. However, you can't train just the three boys who are good enough because they couldn't even have a practice game. The under-21s need a squad of ~25 boys to compete with other under-21 sides in the league, just as the seniors do. So every under-21 side will have at least 20 boys who are there purely to make up the numbers.

I suppose music is similar. Every music college will get two or three per intake who are good enough to make it professionally but you need enough to make a full orchestra and compete in inter-college competitions.

As long as the musicians and the young footballers know this and have a back-up plan I don't see a problem, music and football are meant to be fun after all. It is however very cruel on those who are led to believe that the music / football academy is their only chance of success.

Of course the main difference (other than class) is that if you spend a few years learning football and don't make the grade, you don't have a huge student loan to pay off.

westernpromise

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

Loads of courses taught in English, mostly free or cheap.

westernpromise

zagubov wrote: »

The truth is that for twenty years we have pushed education (and especially HE) as a good instead of a right.That’s the American viewpoint. This shift in attitude was a deliberate policy during the Major government.

Which was not in power 20 years ago.

The rot started when some fool decided people who previously couldn't pass an O Level should have a degree and so should 50% of the population. This was without identifying 1/ how many graduates we need, 2/ how many graduate jobs there actually are, 3/ what subjects would be useful, or 4/ how it was to be paid for.

The answers are, roughly

1/ the number we had in 1997
2/ the number we had in 1997
3/ those studied in 1997
4/ by the billy bunters themselves, obviously.

Effectively, inflating the HE population to 50% of the yoof was a way of hiding a lot of unemployment and also of hiding a huge tax increase by dumping it onto the same yoof.

GreatApe

westernpromise wrote: »

Which was not in power 20 years ago.

The rot started when some fool decided people who previously couldn't pass an O Level should have a degree and so should 50% of the population. This was without identifying 1/ how many graduates we need, 2/ how many graduate jobs there actually are, 3/ what subjects would be useful, or 4/ how it was to be paid for.

The answers are, roughly

1/ the number we had in 1997
2/ the number we had in 1997
3/ those studied in 1997
4/ by the billy bunters themselves, obviously.

Effectively, inflating the HE population to 50% of the yoof was a way of hiding a lot of unemployment and also of hiding a huge tax increase by dumping it onto the same yoof.

We do not have a lot of unemployment we never really have so I do not think it makes sense to suggest student numbers were increased to push unemployment statistics down

Headline unemployment is currently 4.3% or some 1.43 million people but most of that is churn of people between jobs. Only ~0.6 million of our unemployed are 6+ month unemployed the majority 0.82 million of the 1.43 million unemployed find a job in 6 or fewer months

If anything the student boom has made our headline unemployment stats look worse.
Full time students looking for part time work drag up the unemployment figure. Since they can only work very specific hours and specific days around their full time courses they have a higher unemployment figure. 177,000 of our unemployed are full time students looking for part time work personally I am not sure they should even be included in the unemployment stats without these unemployed full time students the uk headline unemployment figure would be 3.8%