Is education in the UK a scam ?

Illbedamned

I don't think its a scam per say..

..i think too many young people (myself included) were pushed into university as the only option. I was the last year that fees were £1500 (or thereabouts per year, 2005?) and i was told in no uncertain terms go now or don;t go at all. As a naive and angsty teenager from a small town it seemed like my only chance to have my own life, so i went with the subject that i did best in at a level and studied that for 3 years.

Needless to say, by the end of the 3 years i had lost interest and there was no going back so graduated and took the first job i could get, with the intention of maybe going back into my degree subject (needless to say that didn't happen). The rest of what happened after that was just bad luck, but i do wish i hadn;t wasted my one chance and that i'd chosen something with a more direct career path.


Out of me and my siblings, only one of us with a degree is actually doing a job related to their degree. Two of us are in retail and the other is still unemployed (though to be fair not to lack of trying, moved back to the small town and struggling to get a job now)

adindas

Keep in mind the universities in the countries you mention are very selective in admitting students due to limited space. The competition is very high, even for the native citizen in those countries. There is no or very limited loan available for maintenance. For the cost of living, accommodation the student will need to get it from their parents or from part time work.

On the contrary in the UK everyone could literally go to university and get a useless degree using a student loan funded by the taxpayers. Some of the programs run at the UK universities have never be run in any part of the world. For instance, such kind of David Beckham degree, Harry potter degree such as Sport management, Golf management, sociological importance of football, golf management, surf science, creative writing, etc. Also on the top of the loan for tuition fee, the students in the UK still get the maintenance, subsistence loan to fund their student lifestyle. In the countries you mention the tuition fee is free but there is very limited or no loan for maintenance.

Many people study useless courses think they could become a leading sport managers, writers just by studying at the universities without realising their own talents.

When prospective students take loan to study at the UK university s/he decides which degree they are going to take. Whether s/he wants to enrol to the program which is very easy to get but almost zero chance to gain employment or a degree which is hard to get without a strong determination and hard working but relatively easy to gain employment.

In the UK, calling the student loan a loan is misleading. It is called a student loan but what is the percentage of students taking that loan paying their loan back??

Only less than 50% paying back their loan. Many of students took that loan do not even pay a single penny. The loan which is funded by the taxpayers also include the loan to fund the student lifestyle in form of student maintenance loan.

I think the student loan in the UK will need to be revolutionised, and there should not be any loan for maintenance to prevent people abusing the student loan. Who do not want to go university if you know could get up to £11,672 tax free to fund your student life style for four years. It is the same or probably better than working in low skill job than people might get anyway. You might not need to pay a single penny if you are studying an easy to get useless degree and yu earn kess than £25k.

justcamehere5 wrote: »

UK tuition fee alone is 9,250 GBP a year. A Bachelor is 3 years long.

So that is almost 30 000 GBP in loans.

I finished university last year with a loan for tuition and parents paid for maintenance. Got a very well-paid internship and paid them back. The internship resulted in a competitive (corporate gig for a big global brand) graduate offer and I have been working ever since.

Don't get me wrong, I do not dislike people from other countries. I got married to my Singaporean girlfriend (yes, crazy early but we just eloped) But what bothers me is that on the same graduate programme I have people from Germany, Denmark, Netherlands and brits who did uni there and came back. Nothing wrong, just the fact that I have 30 000 GBP in debt with interest and they don't. Doesn't even matter at the end if you did a top UK school or one in Germany/Denmark where you just pay 300 EUR per semester. You end up in the same programme, make the same money and have the same everything.

Given that taxation in the UK is similarly high as the aforementioned countries, did I simply get duped? I am mad as heck how those countries can have just as good universities as ours but they are free. I am so !!!!ed off I am might just get a Singaporean passport, move there and default on this loan. As long as my mum sends me Yorkshire for a nice cuppa, I am still a true brit. Amirite ?!

Rant over.

zagubov

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.

That's right. Strathclyde in Glasgow and Kings College in London.

Forensic Science later became a way of remarketing and saving closing-down Chemistry departments up and down the land. There are plenty of science-related jobs these graduates could do, but there's not enough murders to justify employing more than a handful of new forensic graduates in forensic labs.

adindas

zagubov wrote: »

That's right. Strathclyde in Glasgow and Kings College in London.

Forensic Science later became a way of remarketing and saving closing-down Chemistry departments up and down the land. There are plenty of science-related jobs these graduates could do, but there's not enough murders to justify employing more than a handful of new forensic graduates in forensic labs.

Also, some of the universities running those subjects nowadays make it a soft touch to let the student finish it easily. Literally any student even without good foundation in science such as Chemistry, Biology, Physics (e.g Thermodynamics) could finish the degree.

Most of the units/modules are assessed by a soft touch such as writing an essay, case study, etc rather than written examination. You will never know who wrote that essay, they might hire a professional to write the essays, case studies and get a good mark.

zagubov

In some ways it's a pastiche of the US system. New universities are proliferating massively around the country, and the education needed to be an adequate employee are now funded by students acquiring debt instead of employers investing in their employees future.

This happened despite knowledge that charging fees starts a financial arms race pushing the price high, like in America. We've now got the third highest fees in the world.

And here's the hypocrisy of it: we expect graduates to come to this country so we can use the skills acquired by their home country's expense, while we prevent our own students moving abroad to make money without compensating us for the cost of their education here.

Instead we could have expanded the OU and left the polys to provide useful vocational degrees.

The rest of the UK (and in fact the world) didn't fall for this wasteful setup.

Samsonite1

It is not a scam at all, but other countries have a much more palatable system (at first glance at least - maybe there are other issues).

The student loans are not the huge burden that are made out - you do not pay a dime if you are under a certain salary and even then it is only a relatively small percentage of your salary over that threshold.

I graduated and started on £16k which was really disappointing, but I paid my loan off in under 10 years. I think others can do better than that. The amount I paid per month did not really affect me greatly as it is so means tested it will never be a huge amount relative to your salary.

You can scoff at how good other countries have it, but it is not a massive disaster and perfectly manageable.

Manxman_in_exile

I think it is a scam in the sense that not all degrees (or subjects) have the same value to the graduate, yet they all charge the same fees. That is a sign of a dysfunctional market (insofar as there is a "market" in education.)


In that sense it is both a scam and a sham.

adindas

The problem here is that you and many youngsters realise it when it is already too late. Finishing useless degree You are getting old with the burden of debt.

It is the role of the parent to explain to this to youngsters. There are a lot of information available online highlighting this issue. It is just that some people do not want to learn.

The choice here is that:
Do you want to study a useless degree and finishing your degree the chance is that you will be working in a job which does not need degree at all. But many people don't pay a single penny if they are earning less than £25k.

Or

You study for a degree wich need a lot of determination and hard work but your chance is you will get a job which need your degree. Thus to uplift your salary.

Illbedamned wrote: »

I don't think its a scam per say..

..i think too many young people (myself included) were pushed into university as the only option. I was the last year that fees were £1500 (or thereabouts per year, 2005?) and i was told in no uncertain terms go now or don;t go at all. As a naive and angsty teenager from a small town it seemed like my only chance to have my own life, so i went with the subject that i did best in at a level and studied that for 3 years.

Needless to say, by the end of the 3 years i had lost interest and there was no going back so graduated and took the first job i could get, with the intention of maybe going back into my degree subject (needless to say that didn't happen). The rest of what happened after that was just bad luck, but i do wish i hadn;t wasted my one chance and that i'd chosen something with a more direct career path.


Out of me and my siblings, only one of us with a degree is actually doing a job related to their degree. Two of us are in retail and the other is still unemployed (though to be fair not to lack of trying, moved back to the small town and struggling to get a job now)

adindas

Planet_Switzerland wrote: »

Your taught that studying hard and getting the results is the key to success, but doing things they frown upon such as socialising down the pub are actually just as important, if not more important.

Of course, this is true but is socialising something to do with higher education? Both are two different things. You could always socialize irrespectively whether you are studying at the university or not. And it is the general truth “it is not what you know but who you know”. Many of the super-rich people do not have degrees at all. Bill Gates did not finish his degrees at Havard. These people are super talented people. Talent cannot be learnt by studying at the university as it is something to do with the gene you born with.

Referring to study at particular subject at the universities. How many dentists, doctors, nurses, cannot find the job in their field? Every year home UK gov produce shortage occupation list where there are in demand in the UK but not enough people with that skills available in the UK. They try to attact the immigrants to fill that gap.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-k-shortage-occupation-list

You do not need to have a super talent to study these subjects at the university.

Compare it to those who study creative writing (Harry Potter degree), Football Management (David Becham degree), Golf management (Caddy degree), etc. You just need to go to major super marker chain. You might find that some people with degrees are stacking items on the shelves. As the student loan are funded by the taxpayers it is such a waste of taxpayer's money.

Pennywise

Planet_Switzerland wrote: »

That's probably where the big problem lies with education. Your taught that studying hard and getting the results is the key to success, but doing things they frown upon such as socialising down the pub are actually just as important, if not more important.

If you want a professional career, then qualification is far more important. You're not going to become a qualified lawyer or accountant or actuary or doctor or architect by spending you time down the pub instead of the university lecture hall.

Qualifications improve your chances of a good job. Of course, some people succeed with or without qualifications. But how many David Beckhams, or JR Rowlings or Bill Gates or Alan Sugars or Richard Bransons are there compared with the number of accountants, doctors, solicitors, architects, blue chip MDs, chief executives, or even teachers, nurses, plumbers, electricians?