Are degrees in the UK value for money?

westernpromise

Cakeguts wrote: »

Perpetual student?

Well you do wonder, don't you?

I knew someone like that once. She was perpetually training to do things. When she finished the training she chucked it in, made no attempt to get a job and signed up to be trained as something else.

Beautician; hairdresser; dental nurse; cabin crew; etc.

getmore4less

This may have been covered but I have dipped in/out and we are close to 1k posts.

We seem to have lost the primary purpose of teaching and education at all levels.

It is to compress the learning of those that went before us into a shorter time frame.

innovation is very time consuming so it is important to share what has been learned so the next person can do the next step.

the foundations make you productive and potentially creative and if really good innovative.

Higher degrees should be exploring boundaries of knowledge not just another phase in education so don't really count in the value for money.

a degree should be taking you from a basic education to a level where you have the core knowledge of those that went before and can apply it in productive and potentially innovative ways.

I have to say as a recruiter into entry level jobs in part of the IT sector the standard of grads was not good enough from a lot of the new "uni" some very simple tests weeded out the less capable.

in every sector the training/education program is to learn from those that went before.

one thing that disturbs me on the lower education levels is people leaving school, they can't do basic arithmetic, we have not yet evolved to a level where basic counting is not needed.


Some education is value some clearly not even if free.

westernpromise

My favourite graduate selection tool is to give them a page of George Orwell with the punctuation removed, and invite them to put it back in. This weeds out about 80% of them, who are simply quite unable to do this.

I'd settle for grads whose standard of attainment is about equal to a 1970s O Level. Functionally I have observed that they are comparable.

SingleSue

That would send my youngest (and me) into OCD overdrive...he was the one who corrected his English teacher on the correct word to use (their/there/they're) as she was using the wrong one.

The more frightening thing was that she was head of English!

Malthusian

A couple of years ago I was in a primary school which was being used as the HQ for a 10k race, and I had to delay my warm up while I found a pen to correct the teacher's mistakes on the wall posters.

It was around that time I came to the conlusion that the primary purpose of teaching and education is childcare, and that if the kids learn to read, write and add up while their parents are at work then that's a bonus.

Arklight

Cakeguts wrote: »

Thats nice......

I will just make sure I remember to tell my relative who lives in the US that he has got the education system that he sent his children through all wrong.......

It might also be a good idea for someone to tell the community colleges in the US that they need to run the courses that are done at trade schools so that they can stop muddling up people who live in the UK...

http://student-tutor.com/blog/what-are-the-differences-between-ap-and-honors-classes/ This explain the different levels of courses at high school and where they lead.

The link you provided is about AP and Honors classes which are taught at some high schools (usually prestigious ones), often alongside standard curricula, and are optional.


They provide a university entrance qualification and college level credit which can be offset against General Ed requirements in the freshman or sophomore year of a 4 year degree. If you have APs you don't normally need to take SATs or ACTs, although some students do.


Community colleges teach everyone from elderly illegal immigrants wanting to learn English in the evenings to people straight from high school taking 2 year Associate Degrees with a Physics major.


The US education system is different to ours but it's not that hard to understand if you don't start from the baseline of complete misconception.


It has some advantages in that the modular and portable credit based system allows a lot of portability and flexibility of study that our degrees do not. The main disadvantage is that the standard degree is longer, and impacted majors see some students unable to graduate for 5 or even 6 years.

Arklight

Cakeguts wrote: »

They have been able to do that for a long time. What your link is about is offering degrees in specific circumstances at community colleges. What you have to know is that the degrees offered by community colleges are not as difficult as the ones offered at 4 year universities. It is the same as the UK in that all the qualifications are called degrees but they are all different standards of education.

This is complete baloney. Where are you getting your information from?? An Associate Degree is not equivalent to a Bachelors degree.


:wall:


Read this and come back when you have. Or not.


https://www.collegexpress.com/interests/public-colleges-and-universities/ask-experts/whats-difference-between-community-college-and-state-university/

Cakeguts

Arklight wrote: »

This is complete baloney. Where are you getting your information from?? An Associate Degree is not equivalent to a Bachelors degree.


:wall:


Read this and come back when you have. Or not.


https://www.collegexpress.com/interests/public-colleges-and-universities/ask-experts/whats-difference-between-community-college-and-state-university/

I read it and it says that you transfer to a 4 year university course after an associated degree which is basically what I said in the first place that a community college degree is like A levels.

All you have to do is google the standard of a high school diploma and you get all the results that I did that it is the same level as GCSEs in the UK.

The US has dumbed down its education the UK is following it. All that happens is that students finish up paying for their A level education as well as university education. I don't think this is fair I think students should get A level education for free as part of their high school education. In fact if we raised the levels of school education we could get back to where it used to be so that people could get free education at technical college after their much harder GCSEs at go at 16 rather then having to attend something called a university and pay for it at 18.

Dropping education standards in many state schools means that we now have young people paying for the education that they used to get for free.

Gymbob

westernpromise wrote: »

The obvious solution is to charge the 9% to all graduates regardless of what they earn. This would put the question of whether it's worthwhile into serious focus.

At present, if university doesn't improve your earning capacity, so that you get only a decently-paid job that you'd have got anyway, you're worse off because you pay extra tax on earnings you'd have made anyway. If your degree is useless and you're poorly paid, you'll pay nothing.

So for those suited only to badly-paid jobs, university is a riskless proposition. Either they earn more as a result of having a degree or, if not, the degree is free. So of course they go for useless easy courses.

What should happen is that people should question whether the degree is actually worth what it will cost them. If it will probably add no value but add to their tax bill they should logically not do it. Instead they are incentivised to do it anyway, because if worthless, they are not charged for it, the rest of us are. So they may as well do it.

The ideal result would be that degrees in useless subjects at crummy institutions would fail to fill their places, and the university would have to replace those courses, or fold, or merge. What we now have is a subsidy to dɐɹɔ universities in that the worse their degrees are, the cheaper they become to their graduates. We're encouraging via subsidy the provision of abject mediocrity.

That's what I'm saying though..

The whole they're increasing the payback amount to £25,000 isn't exactly anything to be significantly happy about, technically if you have a good income the government are actually claiming more off you by stalling the loan term and acquiring more interest. It's a joke, I'd rather the fees were put back to the plan 1 amount, the interest was back at like 1% (around what it was with plan 1) and then everyone should pay who earns over the tax threshold at the same amount as the tax rate. Therefore the turnover is quicker for the government who are still making a decent amount of interest, less funding is required, near to everyone is paying back (meaning the government recover more money) and students are debt free in a much quicker term. I don't get what idiots are in charge and can't see this.

To me in the current plan 2 it just allows people to float through life who do pointless degrees and never pay anything back. Yet if you work hard, are stressed all the time and vice versa with a high paying job, you end up being taken for a mug subsidising the whole system. So much for encouraging aspiration and paying your debts.

There has also been no mention about how England subsidises the Scottish and Welsh yet they get reduced to no fees. I know with Scotland it's to do with the EU, but they are still part of the UK so why should it be any different.. frustrating.

Don't get me wrong if you want to do a photography degree etc go for it, but why should the people on a higher income subsidise the whole system. The interest rate also works on a slider as well which is another joke. If you earn more you pay more interest, how the fun k is that fair? To put in into perspective, in just over 4 weeks ive got 4 exams over 5 days.. which account for 60% of each module. photography students have no exams and the environmental ones have a class test.. this is what I mean about stress and working hard and then the continuation of that to then be taxed more, pay more student loan etc..

westernpromise

Gymbob wrote: »

If you earn more you pay more interest, how the fun k is that fair?

It's fair because you're the "rich", you bast@rd. Your money is to be taken off you and given to vermin.