International students are abandoning the UK

Malthusian

itwasntme001 wrote: »

Interesting how the University's insurer paid out to settle. I would have thought the University would gone through the court process if they disagree with the claim.

They already went through the court process and won. The settlement was to avoid going through it again if she appealed. The university said they would quite happily have fought an appeal but the insurers weren't.

The insurers don't want to go through the court process again if it costs them more money to do so than to settle. There was probably zero possibility of recovering their costs from the plaintiff even if costs were awarded against her. (Which they were, twice.) She probably has no money and even if she does she would almost certainly tell them to whistle for it from Hong Kong.

The_Grauniad wrote:

A graduate who sued her university over her “Mickey Mouse degree” and received a £61,000 out-of-court settlement has said she is not celebrating, and that the amount barely covers her costs, tuition fees and the time spent fighting the protracted battle.

Essentially this was a no-score draw.

Obviously her degree was indeed worthless, but that doesn't mean she has a case. It's not illegal to sell people worthless tat. The university is only liable if it can be proven it was sold under false pretenses. She couldn't.

She added: “I want to encourage other people to follow suit.

What, by wasting their time on a hopeless case, risking financial ruin through cost orders, and eventually obtaining an out-of-court agreement not to appeal that puts them back in the position they were before? Not the sharpest tool in the shed, which is why she ended up at East Anglia Poly.

Not everyone is in the happy position that they can treat such a case as part of their legal training, get their parents to fund the case, and rely on the fact that if they lose they can tell the people they've cost thousands of pounds through a frivolous legal claim to whistle for their costs in the general direction of China.

Cakeguts

It is actually completely simple. If the UK closes around 100 universities and converts the Polytechnics back to Polytechnics that only offer vocational courses and then turns the rest of them into technical colleges that anyone can go to we would could get everyone who wanted it into more education and training.



These mickey mouse degrees don't do anything for anyone and there is no reason why this kind of course has to be studied at university it could just as easily be done at a technical college.



The reason why we can't get everyone into training and courses at the moment is because all the institutions are called universities and all of them have entry requirements based on traditional school subjects and those that don't are the ones running mickey mouse degrees.


You could run courses at a technical college type institutions in car maintenance, trade skills, textiles, fashion, journalism, performing arts, film studies, art, administration, hospitality etc which would be open to anyone with no A levels or BTECs needed and keep the academic courses for the people who want to study academic courses and subjects like medicine the subjects that need a degree. You don't need a degree in fashion design to design fashion so it is a waste of tax payers money to offer it as a degree course along with all the other mickey mouse type degrees that ought to be technical college courses.



The point also about running these courses as technical college courses is that you could get a better mix on each course and you can attract people who don't have the normal school qualifications. There are a lot of very talented people in the UK who didn't have the normal school qualifications when they started work but have been very successful. It is these people that the country needs to help not the people who want to do a degree in performing arts for example that doesn't help them or anyone else.

Cakeguts

The person who had the "bright idea" about everyone going to university got it upside down. If you want everyone to have a chance at more education after school you have to make it available to the people at the bottom of the academic pyramid not the top.

zagubov

GreatApe wrote: »

Give the students the £60k loans to do with as they wish

Pay for a higher education and living costs. ok
Use it as a deposit on a house. ok
Put it into a tracker fund. ok
Use it as funds to start a business. ok

With choice much fewer kids would opt for the university education, seeing rightly as the others of equal or higher value

If they put it into a tracker and it returned just 5% above inflation over the long term. By retirement their £60k would be worth £540k in todays money. If they earned just min wage and lived at home and saved half of that too for the 3 years not studying. Their lump sum at retirement would be worth £750,000. Is a degree in photography really going to net someone £750,000 more over their working life especially post tax income? hell no

Options!!
The kids need options
Right now its take this £60k for university or we give you nothing

Give advance warning that these loans will be offered to the top performing, say, 20% of students in each and every school no matter whether it's performing well or poorly.

A lot of things we're getting worked up about will get sorted pretty smartly by that.