Is education in the UK a scam ?

justcamehere5

Davy_Jones_II wrote: »

Keep telling myself what?

I’m in trading, and yes it’s challenging, and enjoyable.

Do you honestly think that you know better having done an internship in tech? Why? Do you not realize how ridiculous that is?

Better how to trade? Of course not!

Surrounded by people with equivalent (?) credentials as you that are willing to place a huge bet that technology is the future of trading? Yes.

Doesn't mute my other points either. Ex- Bulge Bracket managing directors have told me enough about "fairness" and "promotion based on this fair thing compared to many jobs". They are probably not as good critical thinkers as you, couldn't survive in banking.

Pennywise

In the news today that Lancaster University have taken on so many students that some can't fit into the lecture theatres and are having to watch lectures on ipads remotely. That highlights how students have just become money making commodities for the universities. Of course, it won't have occurred to the Uni to either take on fewer students (less dosh) or get their lecturers to give the lecture twice in two sittings. It's the students who suffer despite having to pay eye-watering charges, not just for tuition fees, but also for over-priced accommodation.

fred246

I remember in the 1980s I went to a lecture on forensic science given by a Home Office Pathologist. He explained that there were 2 of them in the country. One covered the North, the other the South. It was interesting but obviously a very difficult career to get into. By about 2010 nearly everyone I spoke to had a child going off to University to study forensic science. I know it has expanded a lot but it really seemed too much. Someone was recently telling me one of the shelf stackers in their supermarket has a forensic science degree.

Davy_Jones_II

justcamehere5 wrote: »

Better how to trade? Of course not!

Surrounded by people with equivalent (?) credentials as you that are willing to place a huge bet that technology is the future of trading? Yes.

Doesn't mute my other points either. Ex- Bulge Bracket managing directors have told me enough about "fairness" and "promotion based on this fair thing compared to many jobs". They are probably not as good critical thinkers as you, couldn't survive in banking.

Do you want to have another run at that?

As others have asked, how on Earth have you managed to make it through a degree without a basic ability in English?

What do you mean by “mute” your points, for example? Why do you have the hyphen in the wrong place, why do you use “probably” when you mean “likely”?

I know that you’ll think that this is nit-picking, but back when I was studying physics, when only 10% of school-leavers attended University, it was inconceivable that you could graduate without having at least picked up a decent understanding of your mother tongue.

Anyway, I am done here. You’ve a superiority complex and a weird chip on your shoulder, so I’ll leave you to it.

Les79

Davy_Jones_II wrote: »

Do you want to have another run at that?

As others have asked, how on Earth have you managed to make it through a degree without a basic ability in English?

What do you mean by “mute” your points, for example? Why do you have the hyphen in the wrong place, why do you use “probably” when you mean “likely”?

I know that you’ll think that this is nit-picking, but back when I was studying physics, when only 10% of school-leavers attended University, it was inconceivable that you could graduate without having at least picked up a decent understanding of your mother tongue.

Anyway, I am done here. You’ve a superiority complex and a weird chip on your shoulder, so I’ll leave you to it.

Bloody hell, you are nit-picking their English ability :rotfl: Talk about being on the ropes! Forums don't call for perfect English all of the time.

justcamehere5

Les79 wrote: »

Bloody hell, you are nit-picking their English ability :rotfl: Talk about being on the ropes! Forums don't call for perfect English all of the time.

TBH, he is right to call out but my sausage fingers really want to get smartphone typing out of the way hastily for the most part.

But he is too confident in the himself and the nature of the business he works for, even though they would lay him off due to superior performance of trading algorithms.

dori2o

justcamehere5 wrote: »

But I pay monthly fees off my salary and I will end up paying more if I am a high-earner, which I will be. They don't do that and will still be as good earner as me. Crazy.

I wonder if you actually understand how Student Loan collection works.

The level of your salary above the earnings threshold has no affect on the collection of the repayments.

The only thing your income level affects is the interest payable, which is currently RPI + 3% for income over £46305.

Your student loan is the same as any other loan, your repayments clear the balance and any interest accrued.


Concerning the Interest I disagree with how it's calculated. In fact I'd go as far to say I don't believe there should be interest on Student loans.

However, if there has to be a charge then it should be the lower of CPI/RPI, and this should be the same across the board.

justcamehere5 wrote: »

Yeah they do it through high taxation, which is the same here LOL.

Which has been demonstrated to be higher in these other countries.

Tax in the UK needs reform. However, it is not significantly high.

What the system does promote is inequality, and puts a significant burden on those who are in the lower and middle income brackets.

Those with significantly higher earnings could, and arguably should pay more than they do. Not just through the closing of every loophole and aggressive tax avoidance scheme, but as an increased tax rate.

For the majority of earners there should be a single rate of tax, and National Insurance should be abolished.

A single rate of tax removes the potential for tax avoidance/evasion in the majority of cases, simply because there is no additional relief to claim.

The tax free allowance is currently sufficient at £12500, but, should increase year on year in line with RPI.

Those over state pension age would receive a further £5000 allowance from the tax year they start to receive their State Pension, making a total of £17500 on current figures.

A standard flat rate of Tax of around 27% would be fair and sufficent.

Keep the £100k limit for the Personal Allowance and reduce by 1 allowance for every £2 over £100k as is currently the case.

Additional rates of tax equal to 35%, 45% and 55% would be charged on incomes in excess of £350,000, £700,000, and £1,000,000 respectively, however there would be no tax relief due on anything where tax is paid at these higher rates, i.e. expenses, pension contributions, charity contributions etc.

For pensions the situation would be as it is now, the contribution is grossed up by the standard(basic) rate of income tax. Charitable givings, the charity can claim gift aid and receive the tax paid on the donation at the standard/basic rate..

This means the standard/basic rate of tax for the majority of people upto earnings of £350,000 would be 27%

Someone earning £50k would pay approx 20% of their income in tax, whilst someone earning £100k would pay around 25% of their income in tax

This is Off Topic, but it would make the system much fairer, cheaper and simpler to administer, give the lowest/middle earners more money in their pocket, charge a fair amount to the highest earners, and massively reduce the costs and tax loss associated with Tax Avoidance/Evasion.

Given the administration savings and the potential to increase the amount of tax taken given the lack of avoidance schemes and tax evasion, then maybe there would be enough money to enable FREE university tuition.

I don't agree with free University education myself, University is a choice and not a necessity, and it does not guarantee a well paid job, or in fact any job at all, no matter the results/grades.

If I want to learn a new skill, or how to use a new piece of equipment/software/new coding language, then I have to pay for the learning or find the information myself. It is not for the general public to fund the educations of those who decide to go to University.



As for the suggestion that the top X% of academic students should get free University Education.... absolutely not.

Again, why should people who have no need, interest, or the financial/academic ability to go to University pay for a lifestyle choice of others?


What we should do however is bring back the Polytechnics, but bring them back to lower ages not only for school leavers.

Change the whole education system. Get rid of wholly academic education. It serves very few and is part of the reason for the low pay, low skill, ZHC, Underemployed, high unemployed youth economy we currently have.

Have the equivalent of 5 year apprenticeships starting from age 13/14 (Year 9).

Years 7 and 8 would be a similar to todays education, but more emphasis on the STEM subjects, especially Technology and Engineering.

At the end of year 8 pupils choose their 'Options' for the remainder of their time (5 years), where they have the option of remaining with Academic classes only, having a more vocational education and learning a trade, or having a mixture of the two.

Give these kids more choice and the ability to expand. The ability to plan their own future and to be ready to start work from the time they leave.

Merge schools and Colleges/6th form Colleges (or simply bring back 6th Forms which are based in the schools) so that the system is one continuous process rather than 3 years of constant study for GCSE, then a complete change to College study.

Give incentives to businesses who 'invest' in a school. Not by investing money, but investing time and experience. Allowing day release to businesses to see how businesses operate, to teach and develop new skills, assist pupils to meet necessary standards of work....

The caveat being that they cannot work on live projects, i.e. they can't be used a free labour, BUT, they can use this opportunity to develop pupils and help them learn the skills they need to start working.

Businesses could even benefit further by helping to develop the next generations of their workforce.

By changing the way we educate children, rather than attempting to force them all to academically excellent (which will never happen), and brainwashing them all into believing that attending University is the only way to get a well paid job, or the only way to be successful, we can provide for a higher percentage of children, including those who do not do well with academic based learning but who could really benefit from vocational learning and build well paid and exciting careers in other area's.

There are far more ways to have a high earning job/successful career, than following the academic route from School to College to University, and it's time we gave our children the option of exploring these alternatives.

Manxman_in_exile

Pennywise wrote: »

In the news today that Lancaster University have taken on so many students that some can't fit into the lecture theatres and are having to watch lectures on ipads remotely. That highlights how students have just become money making commodities for the universities. Of course, it won't have occurred to the Uni to either take on fewer students (less dosh) or get their lecturers to give the lecture twice in two sittings. It's the students who suffer despite having to pay eye-watering charges, not just for tuition fees, but also for over-priced accommodation.

All this is a major problem with the current system. There are too many students going to university and there are too many students graduating with degrees of questionable value.


Apart from the benefits conferred by education itself, the whole point of a qualification system (whether at school or university, and whether based on exam performances or coursework) is to provide a grading or sorting function so you can classify students as to whether or not they possess certain skills, attributes or knowledge. (It is perhaps a moot point whether our systems actually do that, but that's a different question.)


If you've got 50% of adults going off to university and most of them graduate with a 2:1 or even a first, it may keep more students happy, but ultimately it just defeats the whole purpose of the system.


When people defend the unbelievably high proportion of school and university students who achieve high grades and classifications by saying "Well, it's meant to be an objective measure of their knowledge, not some kind of ranking or classification system", then I say "Well in that case it's time to shift the grade and classification boundaries much higher so that the final result actually means something".

bugslett

fred246 wrote: »

I remember in the 1980s I went to a lecture on forensic science given by a Home Office Pathologist. He explained that there were 2 of them in the country. One covered the North, the other the South. It was interesting but obviously a very difficult career to get into. By about 2010 nearly everyone I spoke to had a child going off to University to study forensic science. I know it has expanded a lot but it really seemed too much. Someone was recently telling me one of the shelf stackers in their supermarket has a forensic science degree.

A close friend of mine is a forensic scientist and has been for 35ish years. Bottom line is that universities churn them out, but there are a limited number of jobs. And in her opinion (she is well respected in her field), the quality of the degrees leave much to be desired in many cases.

I d9nt mind paying for some degrees out of taxation, but not when they are over subscribed or poor teaching/structure or pointless as in it would be better being industry led.

Manxman_in_exile

Arrrgh! I was in the middle of a lengthy response to dori2o's post when I was kicked out! Here's a (much) shortened summary.


First, our tax system is ridiculously complex. This is partly because of the way the courts tend to adopt restrictive and literal methods of statutory interpretation, and the way our legislation is drafted so as to try to account for every conceivable situation. This inevitably results in ambiguities and hence loopholes. Furthermore, much tax legislation is drafted with the input and at the suggestion of tax experts and professionals. I suspect there may be a vested interest in creating potential loopholes from the outset(!).


For these two reasons, I don't see a much needed simplification of our tax system on the horizon.


Second, being born, brought up and having worked for a while in a "low tax area", I can't see either tax avoidance (which I have no problem with) or tax evasion ever disappearing.


Third, I understand many people don't agree with "free" university education, but I do. I think a good* university system confers wider benefit to society than just to the individual graduate. For example, I used to be involved in managing the education of non-medical NHS staff. Course fees were paid for by the NHS, and Diploma nursing students were eligible for a non-means tested bursary. This was all expensive, but I think it benefited everybody. My neighbour's son is currently doing a nursing degree and I was disappointed to learn that he's wracking up a student debt like everybody else.


Last, I do draw a distinction between "education" and "training", and I do think education is a good thing in itself. This doesn't mean that I don't value training - just that I think in many cases it's best kept separate from education.


To get back to the OP's original question, yeah - I'm not particularly happy about how our university education system is funded. I don't think it's sensible.


*What's a "good" university system? Well, it's not one where every HEI (irrespective of reputation and value added) charges the same as everybody else, and it's not one where every degree costs the same (irrespective of academic merit and rigour, and irrespective of future value to the student).


I know an earlier poster claimed that cheap courses wouldn't attract students, but I'm not sure about that.


Amazingly this post is only about a quarter as long as the one I was drafting!