Is post-school education good value for money?

Former_MSE_Will · 31 August 2017 at 6:19PM

The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee is investigating the funding of post-school education, which includes universities, further education colleges and apprenticeships.

They really want to hear what you think about the current system, and how it could be improved.

1. Did your post-school education give you the skills you need?
2. Do you think it was good value for money?
3. What changes would improve the current system?

Please tell us your thoughts below and we’ll send them on to the Committee.

*****UPDATE: Chance to meet the Committee and tell them your views in person*****

Thanks so much for the comments you've posted already. The Committee is still reading them, as it starts to hold meetings on this topic, including a meeting with Martin Lewis on Tuesday 17 October.

In addition to your comments here, the Committee has asked us to post this message on its behalf:

You’re invited: The funding of higher education

Come to our event about the funding of higher education and help inform the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee inquiry into the economics of higher, further and technical education.

The big issue

“The cost of going to university is increasing, but many graduates do not end up in jobs requiring a degree and will not be able to pay back their loans. This year the total amount of student loans outstanding was £89 billion. This is projected to increase to £500 billion in the mid-2030s and £1 trillion in the late 2040s.” Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, Chairman of the committee

At the event we will be asking you about:

• Your experience and view of tuitions fees
• If higher education provides value for money
• If higher education prepares you for employment

How can you help?

Are you an undergraduate student with experiences and views on tuition fees? If so, come to our event and help shape the inquiry.

Participants will:

• Get a tour of Parliament
• Meet members of the committee to discuss student loans, the way university courses work, and employment for graduates
• Get the chance to speak to staff about careers in Parliament.

When and where?

London
Date: Tuesday 21 November
Time: 3-6pm
Venue: Westminster, London

The event is free to attend, but we want to ensure a diverse range of experiences and views are represented.

To register your interest in attending please complete our survey and we will let you know if you have been selected to attend by the end of October.

Please complete this survey by midnight on Tuesday 24 October 2017.

If you know anyone else who would be interested, please pass on this information.

Expenses
You may claim back the cost of your travel expenses. We’ll give you more information when we confirm your place.

System · 31 August 2017 at 7:01PM

I would like to see day-release courses, where students spend 4 days out of 5 studying and 1 day in the workplace. One thing I was lacking when I left university was relevant work experience.

Wizard_of_Id · 31 August 2017 at 8:56PM

I did 1 day a week at college during my apprenticeship and I don't recall learning anything there that I had not already learned during my workplace training.
For me it was a complete waste of time and only good for those that wanted the certificate to help them move away from the actual job we were training for and into management, something that I had no desire to do.

ruperts · 31 August 2017 at 10:29PM

I did a part time vocational degree so my answers are based on that.

1. In short, no. I couldn't have left the course and gone straight into my job and been ok without significant further on the job training, but to be fair I doubt it's ever the case in any profession that a fresh graduate is immediately capable of doing the whole job. Some of the things I learned on the course remain useful as background knowledge to my profession. Some of what I learned was irrelevant. A lot of it was out of date, in some cases by many years. Most of the skills required to do the job have been learned on the job.

2. Yes in the sense that employers require you to have the degree, so without it you don't have a job. But in terms of educational experience, I think spending a few hundred pounds on good, up to date books and reading them at home would have delivered just as much, if not more relevant learning.

3. Vocational courses don't need to be full length traditional taught degrees in my opinion. I think the government could help by making online courses more credible in the eyes of employers. An online course could be done at the student's own pace (which for anyone motivated would be a lot faster than a normal three year degree, it took me five years to complete my part time degree but half of that was waiting for the academic staff to come back from their holidays... sorry, I mean to finish their research. Going at my own pace, I could have got through the entire course content while continuing to work full time in 18 months, no problem. If I wasn't working and so could study full time I reckon I could have got myself to 2:1 standard in six months at a push, and easily within a year. Ultimately all the degree does is prove you're capable of a certain standard of work - it shouldn't need to take a minimum of three years to achieve this), it would be cheaper to run since there would be no bricks and mortar and fewer staff to fund, the content could be more responsive to industry, and by being quicker and cheaper it would be more appealing to older people looking to upskill or retrain themselves around existing commitments.

Im_just_careful · 6 September 2017 at 7:21AM

While some modest and likely to be repaid tuition fees for degree education can be justified (of the order of £3k a year) the current system, which will give most current students a "graduate tax" for 25 years and still not be repaid fails the student (reducing incomes during the 20s and 40s when they will need to pay for accommodation and probably supporting a family), the tax payer (as these unpaid tuition fees plus finance costs will end up being paid by the tax payer) and society generally by not focusing degree education where it has value (essentially where that knowledge base in the population adds value).

Furthermore, extending this regime to the health care sector (where unless the present government get's it's way it is essentially a single employer industry) is a way of "off balance sheeting" training costs and depressing medical staff wages.

Personally I think the whole arrangement is evil.

I accept education needs paying for, I'm well paid as a result of an engineering degree I took in the early 1980s. Tax me more rather than burdening my son.

akf1006 · 6 September 2017 at 8:19AM

I think the enrolment for apprenticeships should be looked into. My son applied for numerous apprenticeships, took around 40 mins completing application forms for which he was down selected for psychometric tests. He achieved a high enough score for each of these to progress to the next stage, which was usually the interview stage, but each time received a letter stating they had down selected people and he basically wasn't getting an interview.

The more this goes on, the confidence drains and he was thinking, I've passed everything possible yet got nowhere so what do I need to do. I realise it's hard and there are lots of applicants, but after passing everything there should be some progression or they should be sorted before being informed they have achieve high enough test scores to progress. This must dent a lot of kids confidence, especially at a time when they are studying their GCSEs

MaisieMouSE · 6 September 2017 at 9:42AM

My eldest son started at uni when the fees had been introduced at £3000 a year. He had very little tuition time, about 5 hours a week, with the rest being 'self-guided study'. Five years later, my youngest son started at uni, with a £9,250 ball of chain, and less than 8 hours tuition a week. This excuse of 'self-guided study' is an absolute cop-out and no value for money. I remember being amazed at the difference in five years all the universities having brand new facilities, or in the process of new buildings being built. All paid for by students, but no value in return. Incidentally, my youngest son has now dropped out of uni after one year as he felt he had not learnt anything!

My middle son did a full-time apprenticeship at college, but has been unable to get a job as he has no practical experience. How do you get the practical experience without a job? I would like to see an affiliation between education providers and employers where the apprentices are employed for, say, six months in order to gain the experience necessary to get a job elsewhere. Otherwise, doing apprenticeship courses would seem to be a waste of everyone's time and money.

angel549 · 6 September 2017 at 10:00AM

I never went to university, nor did I stay on at my grammar school sixth form to do A levels. I went to college and did a BTEC National in graphic design instead with a part time job at a cinema.

My sister on the other hand did go to university and came out with a degree.

Now in our 30's, I am money savvy stoozer with a mortgage and a few grand savings with a great job just 15mins from home in Essex. My sister rents in Sheffield, struggles for every penny, and cannot open a bank account due to becoming near bankrupt about 5 years ago.

Neither of us knew what we wanted to do with our lives or had a career plan. But we're both very different, so we never imagined that we'd both end up doing the same thing... and now we both work in marketing! She does more events and fundraising while i do digital and e-commerce. But both are marketing, and we're both management level.

Here's how i believe it worked out so differently - my parents are amazing and saved up £12,000 for each of us. They called it a wedding fund. My sister used her £12,000 on her wedding in her early 20s. She's now on her second marriage.

I on the other hand, at the age of 18, asked my parents if I could have the money as a deposit to buy my own flat. I was so lucky to get on the property ladder early, and get into work and build my career - and i could never have done it if i'd gone to university.

I think everyone's different, and a huge difference between my sister and I is how we are with money. But still. Im GLAD i didnt go to uni. My reasons at the time were wrong, but it all worked out so well and unlike so many uni students, my only 'debt' is my mortgage.

Fluffybunny · 6 September 2017 at 10:15AM

The most obvious issue is the fees in England and the lack of a maintenance grant. I still find it astonishing England based students are at a distinct disadvantage over their fellow UKers when it comes to going to University and nobody seems to be making a major noise about it. How can it be fair that a student from England can go on the same course in Scotland as a fellow Brit, but end up in huge debt - whereas the Scottish based student does not? They both may go for the same jobs (which could be in England). Why is the difference in tuition fees so huge between England and Wales? There is no distinction made between wealthy students and poorer students - yes they can all take out a loan, but the savvy rich would not, and the poor have to. Then there is interest on top of that. The maintenance loan is also an issue for first year students because they have to live somewhere. The quality of halls is not always great, but the charges are. I've seen so many Universities spending huge amounts on smart buildings that win awards and look snazzy, but I would rather money was invested so that students wouldn't have to pay so much just to attend. It's the quality of teaching that matters and I don't think that, given the number of teaching hours, students should be paying so much in England. Don't bring up the fees for Wales and Scotland, bring down the fees in England so that all UKers have an equal chance in life.

essjae · 6 September 2017 at 10:16AM

A few thoughts:

I completed my first degree a few years ago now, when tuition fees were around £1250 pa, so my total student loan (incl living costs loan) was about £10k. My degree was science-based and fairly rigorous, around 20-25 contact hours per week, and though I decided not to work in the subject area afterwards, I would still regard it as a good choice financially, as there were transferable skills, plus moving away to uni allowed me to learn how to live independently in a slightly more supported way.

Out of the 5 girls who I started out with in halls of residence, only one has gone on to work that directly or indirectly requires her degree. If I was to start uni now, expecting to end up with a debt of £30-40k, I don't think I could regard it as good value for money, particularly for some arts subjects which may only have 8-10 contact hours per week.

A few years after I finished my first degree, I gained a place on a vocational training scheme equivalent to a Higher Apprenticeship, which included part-time study of a foundation degree tailored specifically to the industry, along with technical training courses and on-the-job learning. All the training was paid for by the company, and I was paid a decent wage. This led to my current job for the same company, which directly uses the skills and knowledge learnt on the training scheme. Obviously I regard this type of study as far better value than a traditional degree!

Overall I think there is far too much emphasis on trying to get young people to go to uni, regardless of whether they are actually going to use their degrees afterwards. While for many it is a valuable step into independence, at the current level of tuition fees I think it is a very expensive way of doing that, unless you are certain that you are going into a career that directly uses your degree course.

I think that the provision of vocational courses and apprenticeships should be greatly expanded, and that schools should encourage students into finding work or work-based learning in preference to traditional academic degrees, unless their preferred career choice requires it.
I also think that the state should fully fund tuition fees for courses in subjects/skills which are in shortage - eg medicine, nursing.

Anyway, that's my 2 pence worth!

onomatopoeia99 · 6 September 2017 at 10:20AM

I'm old and went to university when less than 20% of the population did, so there were no fees. Because my engineering degree also had a significant input from one of the science departments I had approximately 28 timetabled hours each week (tutorials, lectures, lab sessions, examples classes) rather than the five hours a poster above is suggesting - I'm aware this is high, even for an engineering degree, but even the people doing things like Ancient mediteranean studies had about 14 hours/week.

I couldn't have got a graduate position in my field without a degree, and the alternatives were very limited, so it was entirely necessary. I still had to learn on the job, the teaching gives you a grounding but skills necessarily develop in the workplace.

What changes would I make - Abolish tuition fees for students from England and Wales (Scots and overseas students to be charged full price, mirroring the policies in Scotland), restore the grant, based on student income / wealth, not parental income as students are adults and should be treated as such rather than as dependents. This will cost a lot, so reduce the number of places to about 20% of school leavers, which will make the entry requirements higher. Encourage through the tax system expansion of workplace apprenticeships as my feeling is that we don't place enough value on skilled rather than professional roles, and some people are simply more suited to workplace learning vs the university lectures + tutorials + self directed study method and funneling everyone into that is not allowing some to flourish.

Is post-school education good value for money?

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