Are you worried about funding your degree?

Plain and simple we have too many people going to university, the previous government saw it as a way of fiddling the jobless figures, so anything that reduces the number of graduates who are semi-literate is a good thing.

Only the very brightest should go to university and if they themselves are unable to fund it, the state should fund it for them. We need the brightest and best to be properly educated in subjects that will be of benefit to the country - we dont need degrees in surfing or watching neighbours!

As a parent I suspect that i could no longer afford to provide the financial help to fund my son's wish to go to university...

However having seen first hand the 'lack of real study' and the 'party' atmosphere that many students seem to think is the norm, is there any wonder people are reluctant to fund it?

Maybe a change so that we help fund those who work hardest? Waiving fees for certain "useful" subjects (not 'media' studies) where the highest marks are achieved at the end. Thus leaving the drop-outs and those who pick easy subjects just to get any degree they can to pick up the bills.

The previous government had an obsession with turning every profession into something that you had to go to university and get a degree for. For some, this is a good thing - for example social work requires a three year course that covers multitudes of different aspects so that you get good quality social workers that actually know what they're doing at the end. Other professions should also require a three year course, one that comes to mind is Policing, where many police officers don't appear to have a working knowledge of the law! (e.g., abuse of terrorist legislation against photographers).

However when you send people to university and make them pay for it, you need to pay these professions more as a result (because people will not do the courses if they will end up with a £30k debt and a low wage, especially a job like a social worker where if one thing goes wrong in an otherwise exemplary career, you will be hung up to dry, blamed in the media, and worse), and as many of these professions are public sector it results in higher public sector wages.

If the higher fees put students off doing low-value degrees (history of art, classics, etc) then that's great. These degrees rarely lead to a job, maybe lead to academia, but they don't earn the country a lot of money in future tax revenue, so why fund them? "Ooh, it's the arts!", whatever!

80% of young people applying to go to university is too many. I was there as a mature student in 2004 and was amazed how many couldn't spell or do simple maths.

Anybody with the ability should be able to go to university and the country should pay for it. But the courses should be in proper subjects and it should not be easy.

Education has moved on, unfortunately many have not kept pace with changes and still hark back to the so called good old days. Youngsters now need further education if we are to compete with other nations, a large number of workers with little education is a thing of the past. We need skilled workers, emerging nations can provide millions of willing low paid people.
Of course wealthy parents who want their children to have all the advantages of a university education will be delighted if the fees increase, it will mean their children will have much less competion for places and they will easily afford the extra cost. Rich less intelligent youngsters will have more chance of getting higher education. High fees only deter the low and average income families the rich are not affected. I can't see multi millionaires such as Cameron and Osborne losing much sleep over funding their children

My wife studied at home to gain her degree whilst working full time through the Open University. The Open University offers a way of gaining recognised qualifications at a fraction of the cost of "Going" to university. If students are truly interested in gaining further education and not just wanting to get away from their parents for the "Social Life" then there are other options available. Perhaps it is time in this age of instant communication and internet availability that more thought and investment was put into home learning and we moved away from staid uneconomic historical education systems.

Increase the Fees disproportionatley on non essential degrees ie media studies,theology,american studies the arts and keep the fees unchanged for the degrees that will help this country.

If parents plan for their children's future when they are born, even at a modest 2% return, £80 a month will grow into over £20,000 by the time a child is 18.
While £80 is still a lot to the poorest in society, to the great majority it is not an amount that couldn't be saved, and would be invaluable to offset university fees, or as a mortgage deposit at a later date.

As a post graduate, I would say most degrees are not worth the paper and unfortunately those students that qualify dont have the basic skills employers expect.

Univerisites need to work with employers to develop degree courses which meet the needs of business. That way we might actually get students who can read and write !

Students should pay for thier own degree, its the best incentive to get them working both during and after the course, otherwise we are fundign another generation of lay-abouts.

University funding needs to be sorted out with a stable, long term system in place so that students and parents know where they are.

We have saved for our two children over many years, but have found that every few years or so, the government change the financial goal posts and what money we have put aside now looks hopelessy inadequate.

Tuition fee levels should be kept at the level they are. The state should certainly be subsidising further and higher education as you can't put a price - in the long term at least - on having a world class education system that produces the best economists, doctors, scientists, lawyers, politicians etc.
The world that we lived in in the 19th century has gone, we're no longer a manufacturing or heavy industry country, we therefore need to adapt and realise that the market we're heading towards is more specialist service based that requires degree level knowledge, and to become 'Great' Britain again we need to start pumping as much money as possible into universities

We are a knowledge economy and must invest in our universities and young people. The subject matter of a degree isn't always important. University develops the ability to research, to understand issues from several points of view and critical thinking, which in turn aids problem solving. These are the people we need in the future. Cutting investment in universities is extremely short sighted, who else will invest in this county's future?

Universities should not be businesses. In the 3rd year of my degree (I graduated in 2007 and was luckily a year before top up fees) I was actually in lessons for about 5 hours a week if that. Books were not provided for, they had to be bought or loaned. Fair enough, they provided Macs and a radio suite for us to share with 3 + other courses to do a specific unit. Most of our teacher's were good. WHAT WAS I AND MY OTHER 60 COURSEMATES PAYING FOR EXACTLY?!?!?! My friend studied biology and did a lot of lab work using expensive apparatus. Her fees were the same price.

I was then a year out of work, have been working for a year now and still do not earn enough to start paying off my loan yet (luckily). Three years of my working life, and a LOT of debt... for what?

Maybe if we had competant government for a change which was more able to provide that which our nation actually needs and not just what people want, which includes relevent/non-relevent degree education.

How many people actually need to do media studys.

The previous 3 decades of Tory and Labour governments were totally diabolical in their education policys, they basically created MASS shortage of nurses/teachers/plumbers/IT specialists etc resulting in MASSIVE need for immigrants to do what planning authoritys in UK are just so incompetant at providing.

If UK education provided MORE of the skills that our economy needs and so easilly and negligently/incompetantly fails to provide then the resultant investment in education would TOTALLY justify itself and have NO NEED for raising student fees.

At the moment, we basically have an education system which is undermined/wasted by government/establishment via APPALLING lack of competant long term national/economic planning.

I personally would substantially cut the numbers of some courses and increase other areas.

I would basically use 50% of proposed banks levy to support education and provide courses and incentives in those areas of national need. education and the young are our nations MOST IMPORTANT asset, if we are to progress as a nation then it is THEY that should be PROTECTED the MOST from cuts. It is socially and economically suicidal to do anything less.

I would ALSO bring forward plans to extend school leaving age so that the young have more time to learn and improve skills, instead of so many of them just being dumped into a non-skilled jobless environment.

Those who reach age of 16 with very very minimal or no qualifactions should automatically be made to take part in a 2 year training programme for a range of skills, if necessary, the worst, including the worst behaved, should remain in education/training until they are 21 and have a base of competance. Its their choice, either behave like inteligent adults or remain in the education/training system for upto 3 years longer until 21.

This nation cannot afford to just let go of so many young people and let them do as they please resulting in deprivation/social expense and increased victims of criminal and drug induced activity.

#5 Lucy Clark articulated this argument so well.

Some degree courses could and should be offered from local colleges. There is no need for such a high percentage of young men and women to live away from hom in order to obtain a degree.
I suspect this would be unpopular because much of what students enjoy most is experienced outside the classroom.
When I hear my granddaughter claim that all she has to attend is two or three lectures per week I wonder how then they need to get into such debt. The same could be achieved faster and cheaper elsewhere.
Truly gifted pupils are the ones who benefit most from University - they have usually left their college tutors floundering in their wake and need to be given what only a University has to offer.
When degrees proliferate they lose their impact on the employer. Time I think to reconsider degree subjects on offer and concentrate more on quality rather than quantity.

#2 '...Waiving fees for certain "useful" subjects (not 'media' studies)...'

Totally agree. Also, make anyone 'dropping out' pay the full cost of the course, unless thay have a genuine reason, such as death of a close family member, medical condition, mental breakdown etc. Not because they've decided it's too hard a subject to complete.

Put university courses into tiers for funding seems to be the way forward, with each subject funded according to the value of the research and graduates it produces. Mathematics, engineering, the sciences, economics, all produce graduates employers want and so should have minimal, if any, fees. Art and purely academic subjects will be charged accordingly. Of course its easy for me to say, I'm a biochemical engineer, but I selected my vocation on the chances of finding work.

Of course this sectioning up of courses will be a political minefield, but it needs to be done. We need scientists and engineers, we do not "need" artists or historians.

If fees reached £7,000 per year, a survey has found … that many people would be deterred from pursuing trivial and socially pointless play degrees.

Great! That’s why fees were introduced. If you are bright enough do a difficult, numerate, degree that will get you a better job. Otherwise get out and learn some trade that will benefit society.

Then latter in life, with lowered taxes, you can fund your own 3 year party while “studying” “The History of Children’s Television through Raffia Work.”

I would prefer that my taxes went to educating the next generation than to servicing loans...

... but as no government is prepared to put its obligations to the citizen before putting money in bankers' pockets, we need to get smart on how education is delivered, and what a 'degree' actually provides.

The concept of 'open content' has already pervaded higher education: I can get the 'information' part of a degree anywhere in books or online. But the true value of a university education is in the learning how to find things out, in the change to talk your subject over with fellow-students and with teachers who are often world leaders in your field. Fortunately, you can do that online with well-structured e-learning.

I know of what I speak: BSc in botany the conventional 3 years in a university, postgraduate courses in computing from the Open University in the days of books arriving in the mail and submitting assignments by post and now engaged in a full-blown e-learning MA in educational management.

"Of course this sectioning up of courses will be a political minefield, but it needs to be done. We need scientists and engineers, we do not "need" artists or historians."

I can think of several multi-million pound industries that most definitely need artists, just off the top of my head.

Advertising, web design, the computer games industry, just to name a few.

It simply isn't true students that students only go to University to have a good social life. During my time at University I worked as part of the technical crew and we were seeing much reduced numbers at the club nights. With students so worried about finance their social lives took a massive hit. If you look at most Universities you'll see that the Unions and societies are really struggling due to a lack of student spending.

On the subject of “useless” courses (not me I’m an Electrical Engineer MEng): they are NOT useless! It’s simply a case of supply and demand, currently there is a massive shortage of Electrical Engineers but a massive wealth of Media graduates that can’t find jobs. The availability of course places should be linked to an industry forecast of skills requirements. History of Art and such courses shouldn’t be scrapped; however the number of places available should reflect the demand for graduates.

#1 pzero has got it spot on. The only way in which I would disagree with him would be that there should be no fees at all. The country needs good, highly educated people, but only the brightest and the best should be put through university, and then at taxpayers expense. Employers need to look at the standards which they are looking for before employment is offered. A degree is now required for some jobs, where, in the past, it would be 3 or 4 O levels.
Will the new government do anything about it though? Somehow I don't think so.

How often do we need to have this debate.

Make Uni free but only let the top 5%, 10% or 15% be accepted. There is no need to push 50% of all students through a degree course.

Have entrance exams for people not coming straight out of college or further education (mature students or those who took a break of a year or more) to make sure they are up to standard.

Reduce the open university fees so that people who want to take the time can.

Just stop pushing everyone through Uni all at once.

And no I don't have a degree.

The current repayment terms for student loans are pretty relaxed - the interest rate is just inflation so effectively zero - and you pay only 9% of any earnings over £15,000 per year. It doesn't matter how big the loan is - the repayments stay the same and the loan is written off it's not been repaid after 25 years I think. So for someone earning £30,000 that's just about £100 a month taken off their salary through PAYE. I think that's a pretty painless way of paying for your education. It remains to be seen what the coalition will do.

The English - Scottish & Welsh University fees should be equal

Get the real basics right first - than ask other questions

Is is very sad, that when a person put's forward a genuine & honest comment - but it don't fit with the moderators own opinion

It just get's deleted & is never shown

Highly disappointed to read the sickeningly extrinsic and mercenary attitude of №3:

"If the higher fees put students off doing low-value degrees (history of art, classics, etc) then that's great. These degrees rarely lead to a job, maybe lead to academia, but they don't earn the country a lot of money in future tax revenue, so why fund them? "Ooh, it's the arts!", whatever!"

Why the above is NONSENSE:
*If the only purpose to society were to earn a lot of money, life would be very dull, monotonous and ungratifying. Besides, the distribution of funding by the state is not based solely on the principle of "future tax revenue" — if that were the case, there would be no state pension and no NHS (for both are based on the noble concept of the welfare state).
*Measuring the value of an activity by short-term monetary return is rarely accurate anyway: many of the greatest discoveries and advances in society have arisen by accident (e.g. Stravinsky's Rite of Spring would never have got Arts Council funding and yet is one of the greatest works of the 20th century, Newton's spontaneous comprehension of gravity by the falling of an apple).
*Ultimately, the purpose of a university degree is to ameliorate one's academic understanding of a discipline, and as such by its very nature leads to academia first and foremost, and rightly so. Besides, academia is a perfectly legitimate "job", and occupies a very important role both intrinsically and extrinsically (unless you want to go back to the Stone Age).

Personally, with regard to the topic of discussion, my funding concerns pertain not to the undergraduate degree (for which student loans are available, repayable only if and when one is earning more than £15k p.a.), rather to postgraduate study, for which fees are higher and must be paid up-front. I have heard of many very intelligent people precluded from pursuing postgraduate study by consequence of that, and nobody seems to care.
Raising undergraduate fees, however, and charging commercial rates on student loans, would be both reckless and damaging for a generation: it is unrealistic to rely upon all parents to judiciously save up for university, and living costs for students (rent, utilities, food, &c.) are bad enough.
However, the worst possible change could be to encourage variation of fees between institutions (theoretically already possible, but in reality virtually every institution charges £3290 p.a.), since that would result in intelligent students from poorer backgrounds being deterred from Oxbridge (and indeed the Russell Group as a whole).
University should be a right (to those of sufficient academic capacity) not a privilege (for those who can afford it).

If you say some honest & just - but the moderators don't like it

It's just deleted with no explanation

1. At 11:16am on 21 Jun 2010, pzero wrote:
Plain and simple we have too many people going to university, ...............

Only the very brightest should go to university and if they themselves are unable to fund it, the state should fund it for them.

Well said.

I agree that (in my experience) a university education does lead to better job prospects, having banged my head against a brick wall for three years without a degree my career only took off once I had graduated. Therefore I should be liable for a significant proportion of the costs.

What I do not understand is how we can go from a funding model where the student paid virtually nothing in the late 90s, to an average of £15k debt per student when I was studying (2001-2004), then to an average of £21k per student post top up fees, now to the figures (£7k a year fees only) that are being quoted today. Where will it ever end? If this proposal goes ahead, at the current rate we would be contemplating even higher fees in just a couple of years time.

NotQuiteWithit (response no.3) is exactly that. As it happens my degree in ooh-its-the-arts English Literature led to a career in publishing which has brought in literally millions in overseas advertising revenue, but that's not really the point either. The idea that some degrees lead to worthwhile careers while others don't is in fact a relatively new one; when I graduated years ago you were eminently employable whatever your degree subject because the fact that you were able to successfully complete a degree course meant that you were able to tackle intellectually demanding work and were able to organise it and present it successfully on time and under pressure. Who wouldn't want to employ such a person? I'll leave the relative values of today's degrees to those who are qualified to comment on them, whoever they are.

Other than that, though, the public - dare I say the non-graduate public? - has been allowed to lose sight of exactly the position university graduates occupy in society. The universities themselves are partly to blame for this; did you know, for example, that yesterday saw the end of 2010 Universities Week, which was meant to draw public attention to the wider benefits to the public of the university system? Thought not.

Ultimately, though, everyone needs to understand that our whole society is founded on the work of university graduates. The bed you sleep in, the clothes you put on, the kettle you boil, the car you drive, the newspaper you read and the software and hardware that enable you to read this have all been designed and their manufacturing processes created by university graduates. So who should pay for their courses? The people who benefit from their work, of course - and that's YOU! Feel free to disagree, but imagine if people like your pharmacist, your childrens' teachers, your bank manager, the producer of your favourite TV show, the architect who designed your home and the designer who designed your car were at liberty to withold their goods and services from you if they knew you begrudged having funded, via taxation (which is as it should be), their education. Fairer all round, wouldn't you say?

Reality is this.

It costs around £50,000 to keep an individual in prison for a year yet we do not make them pay back even part cost.

If we turned prisons into workhouses, say sorting out filthy rubbish for recycling, then as well as environmental benefits the money saved and made, would enable FREE university education for ANYONE who wanted it, criminals could also compensate victims.

If criminals want a tv in their cells, then put a big hamster wheel in their cells so they can power it instead of using money which could provide decent people with a more affordable education.

Yes we need better planning of education and reduce some degree subjects in preference for other much more needed ones, but to spend so much money so easily upon criminals and drug addicts in preference for investing in decent young peoples lives/futures and our nations future is just nonsensical and just a PC attrocity.

It is nonsensical to add to youths problems and issues via taking away/reducing that which provides so much positivity and basically dump yet more thousands into an economic situation of doom which any half a functioning braincell could work out will just increase numbers of of the deprived and criminal.

Torys will take our nation back to Victorian times, which is their ultimate ideology, just tarted up in modern spin/speak.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

I'm Scottish and very lucky that I get my fee's paid for. However, I also worry that funding in Scotland will get pulled and how much debt that will leave me and my fellow students in.

I think that there is a very good argument in the fact that University should not just be seen as a rite of passage, to take a few years just to party, but at the same time I know that - even though it is unfashionable right now to admit it - there are many students (myself included) to go for the learning experience and to better themselves. I just don't understand why the experience to learn should be capped. Surely a more educated population can only be beneficial in the long run?

Why is it when countries like China and France are committing to spending more on educating their people, we are now cutting spending and raising tuition fees? Why is it we spend millions upon millions on weapons and warfare when a so-called developed country cannot even look after the interests of their own people? And why, when the younger population is going to have to bear the brunt of paying for an ageing population, are we not investing in education and jobs that can help us afford the mounting bills that seem to be stacked against us before we even have a job? This is madness!

I agree very much with Andy with the fact that places should reflect on the courses with shortages and not bashing people who do "useless" degrees. It seems comical to me that someone else can judge another persons choice and render it useless. The problem is many people go to University because there is no real alternative to getting a better job, and maybe if we offered more apprenticeships with companies and followed this with real jobs at the end of it, we might see the number of applicants drop.

No, can work whilst studying to bring in some income, can cut going out to once a week and drink at home with friends instead of drinking in expensive bars and clubs, can cook in, live somewhere cheap and study hard to get a useful degree for a future career. I do it for my benefit so I will pay for the costs.

"If parents plan for their children's future when they are born, even at a modest 2% return, £80 a month will grow into over £20,000 by the time a child is 18.
While £80 is still a lot to the poorest in society, to the great majority it is not an amount that couldn't be saved, and would be invaluable to offset university fees, or as a mortgage deposit at a later date."

Trouble with that is that you would not reasonably be able to implement tuition fees for 18 years, having given warning. Our flawed democratic system does not allow for this kind of long-term thinking.

To those who bad mouth 'media' degrees, I visited a magazine website a few weeks back and found an internship job which required a post grad with 6 months experience. FOR AN INTERNSHIP!! That is the level of competition!

Student's do media degrees because they want to work in the media and a degree is a requirement to getting hired. The problem is, as someone already mentioned, there are too many media graduates for the media jobs available. And one cannot exactly walk into an engineering job after failing to get into media with their media degree.

If degrees are necessary to get into any job industry, then indeed we do need the 'mickey mouse' degrees, we just need to monitor the intake to the amount of jobs available.

My mum did a fashion degree back in the 70s in a class of 20. Of that 20, only 4 actually became fashion designers, her included. I doubt the demand for designers has increased hugely, but I bet the amount of fashion graduates per University has what quadrupled? And that's not taking into account the increase in Universities since then.

But what University will reduce intake reflective on actual industry job availability when they could be getting several grand a year per student?

At the risk of sounding like an old fart, "in my day" going to university was something that identified you as someone in the top slice of the population for intelligence. That can clearly no longer be the case.

The situation became muddied with the removal of the demarcation between universities, polytechnics and colleges of higher education. The brutal truth for graduates of those institutions that used to be council swimming pools is that their degree in a made-up subject will be worth precisely nothing in the job market. The only thing they need to learn is the phrase: "Do you want fries with that?"

Everyone knows that, by and large, unless you can make it to one of the Russell Group or 1994 Group of universities, you're really just deferring your unemployment and landing yourself with a £20K debt you may never pay off.

So how about this for an idea: make available a limited number of state-funded and means-tested bursaries to students who attend courses in recognised and socially useful subjects at prestige institutions. You could call them "grants". Anyone who wants to learn about Applied Retail Therapy at the Polytechnic University of Pointless Studies should be made to fund the course themselves.

Since I graduated, I've since done a an MSc through the open university and plan to do another in the future. This while holding down a real job and having a life.

Forget about funding degrees. We have too many university students and too few working for a living.

No I'm not worried. I graduated with my degree last year.

Now I'm just worried about paying the funding back.

I will be going back to University to do a PGCE in the Autumn after 8 years in academia. During my time working for Universities in one form or another, I would say there is a good proportion of the student body who are simply not up to the task. Unfortunately, the moral compass of education is somewhere on an island in the pacific, in a chest buried under a big 'X' and money has taken over as a priority. People who may be better suited to other paths after 6th form are being taken for a ride with tuition fees, whilst the brightest may not even get the opportunity to attend University.

I am extremely worried about funding, I am very unsure about continuing as it’s impossible to study and get a great degree while constantly worrying about money. Its fine for the rich kids but for a mature student its about living below the poverty line. Grants are far and few between and they are not means tested. My only option is to work full time and distant learning or continue and work part time as well.
The other issues re funding are that I if I finish without completing the course then I have to pay back the grants as well as tuition fee and loan. And of course you cant have a grant unless you take out a loan!
Education is about profit these days, and people complain about lowering standards well its also true that lecturers and teaching methods need to be improved. What is irritating about university is that they still have a culture of elitism and despite paying for my education they see it has them doing me a favour!

too many people are doing pointless degrees, degrees where turning up gives you a pass, i have had graduates come to our office for jobs, and demand 30 -40k wages because they have a degree , i think one bloke had a degree in American History ! i ask you, what a pointless degree. When asked why he thinks he should be on this high salary he replied - ''because i have a degree' needless to say the average graduate wage is 15 - 20k if your lucky ! he didnt get the job.

if someone wants a university education then they should pay for it, and stop moaning

Yes it will stop people applying to University, but this is a good thing. As many people have previously stated 80% of young people going to/applying is far too much, I say this as I'm about to become a student again and attend university - Even i think there are too many going. Fortunately I am doing a 'Useful' degree in that it is a science where currently, there are a lack of graduates.

I also agree that many of these degrees such as media studies should be scrapped - through a moderation board of sorts that should be set up to assess the merit of each degree and take action depending on the decision.

Though if the 'media studies' courses were scrapped, the students who would have gone for these such courses would be far better suited getting an apprenticeship at a local radio station; where experience and proficiency are much more important than education. Valuable skills such as these can only be learned on the job - and with media related areas - you either have it or you don't.

Then the people who are going to do actual worthwhile degrees at University should have their course fees paid - and have financial support that need not paying back (as it would be sustainable due to the far lower volume of students) - they are the country's future after all.

Not to bring politics in to this but I also think that England should stop funding students in wales and scotland - if they want a devolved government then so be it - English students hardly get any funding compared to their counterparts in the aforementioned regions.

Well, surfingkenny (post no. 45), my advice to you is to contact that American History graduate you turned away put him in charge of external communications - unlike you he probably knows how to spell and punctuate and with his knowledge of a non-UK culture (and, given his subject, global affairs) he'd also fit well in your export division - although if you're typical of your organisation I doubt if you've got one.

As for his salary 'demand' (which was probably nothing of the sort - I reckon you asked him what he was after and he simply told you), he was obviously assessing his position in (a) your salary structure and (b) in the market in general - if I was you, I'd have negotiated. As it is, he's now going to end up working for one of your competitors (if you thought he was good engough to interview, they will, too) for just a bit more than you were willing to pay him.

Anyone care to guess which of these two protagonists will still have a progressive career in ten years' time?

If I understand correctly the argument for tuition fees is that students will later benefit from their education and it is unfair to expect other taxpayers to subsidise this. If true,
1. why not make A level students pay education fees? In fact many get a £30 per week allowance.
2. why not make NHS doctors who do lucrative private work as well as NHS work pay back the full costs of their medical training?
3. why not make ex Prime Ministers making millions out of appearance fees, book deals, speeches etc (resulting solely from their status as an ex PM) pay back their PM salary, which was taxpayer funded?
4. why not make BBC presenters who moonlight to do lucrative business award dinners, etc. not pay back the BBC and hence reduce the licence fee, when their marketability is solely as a result of licence fee funded media exposure?

There is a great hypocracy here. Many people better themselves at taxpayers expense but only students are expected to pay back.

Oh by the way, IF students do earn more as a result of their degrees then presumably they will be paying lots more TAX as a result. So why are tuition fees needed at all? Students end up having to pay twice !!

The NuLabour targets for degree students were always just a ploy to keep the unemployment figures down. A big % of students will never get a degree level job. It was always immoral to pretend they would.

I suggest on the whole fewer Universities and/or fewer places and then fund them properly with admission based on ability and ability to learn, and not on ability to pay. Places should broadly be based on National need and cuts both ways. Why are so many doctors recruited from overseas when it is so extremely competitive to win a place to study medicine in the UK?

University funding should be paid out of general taxation, because if a university education is as good as it is made out to be the graduates will earn more money and pay more tax.
As other's have said the problem is that there are too many people going to university, and not enough graduate jobs. Indeed there aren't enough jobs full stop, which is why a lot of people are going to university.
Under the current system my Daughter has graduated with a £22k debt. ASfter 9 months she has found a job, and under the repayment arrangements she is paying back enough to just cover the interest on the loan. Even if she gets her salary up to the average salary of £24k.and assuming there was no interest on her loan it will take over 15 years to pay back. If you take interest into considersation, and the fact that if she has Children and a Career break the loan actually will never be paid back.

80% of students, insane, university is about the best, not the rest.
It is meant to separate the most able from the field.
The state previously funded, by means test, the majority of students. The small percentage that achieved the selection process and had real exam marks got a grant.
Then Nu-Lab’s “everyone must have a degree” nonsense, result, we can no longer pay for education.
Restrict the number of bogus, puerile, and meaningless, make weight courses. If necessary shut a few of the plethora of new universities. Every other college is now calling itself a university!
Make the entry by test, exam, but impersonal, not meetings, no personal appearances so only the best get in!
University is to produce the best. Anti Nu-Lab here, quality not quantity!
Then, and only then, those who get there will be the best to get the best jobs – so no problem paying their own way!

We recently employed a girl with a Marketting degree as a temporary receptionist. She could not answer the telephone, or take a message, or greet visitors in a civil manner; she had at least one day a week off sick, was late more often than on time, and cried when we did not offer her a full time job. She said no one realised how hard she worked.
In my schooldays, she would not have got 5 CSE's. How on earth did she get into University? How can anyone suggest her education was value for the taxpayer? What did she learn? And how on earth did she get her degree? She has now returned to Uni to do Teaching. Words fail me.

Very soon University is going to be the only place to go on leaving school, as industry and jobs in the real world have dried up. It is highly unlikely that the dire employment situation is going to improve significantly any time soon.
As a result Universities have a whole generation "over a barrel". They will be able to charge what they want, as kids have nowhere else to turn. University at vastly increased cost OR scrapheap - tough call.

"17. At 12:48pm on 21 Jun 2010, Anthony Rat wrote:
#2 '...Waiving fees for certain "useful" subjects (not 'media' studies)...'

Totally agree. Also, make anyone 'dropping out' pay the full cost of the course, unless thay have a genuine reason, such as death of a close family member, medical condition, mental breakdown etc. Not because they've decided it's too hard a subject to complete."

No one insists people who quit jobs, even if paid for by the tax payer, should have to pay back their salaries!

Drop outs to pay, by losing a year to the degree, having to take another to look for work and/or apply to another uni. If a person drops out after a year without a good reason, such as those you've listed, the government will not pay for a second chance. I know, I've been there. I dropped out just after a year but the local authority did agree to pay only because of a letter from a doctor otherwise I never would have finally graduated and be contributing to society at a much higher rate than most uneducated unqualified people.

I wish people would lay off students. There seems to be a lot of resentment, bitterness and pure ignorance over what reading a degree involves and how useful it is. People criticise non-science degrees, but without these you never would have been taught English and history at school. In a theatre programme I saw everyone had graduated in drama and a fashion degree is a perquisite for a fashion designer.

Whist I do agree there a lot of pointless low league unis which make a mockery of degrees, where basically next to nothing is taught and there are no career prospects (such a "outdoor studies" and "surfing" and "TV studies") it's clear a lot of people don't have the intelligence to tell between an useful degree and a pointless one.

The real issue is the ridiculously high number of unemployables living off the money made by us graduates! I say unemployables because they have no qualifications, no ambition, no motivation and there are far more of them than students. Many of these have large families and never work, just leech off everyone else who does. I rather my money goes to people trying to make a life for themselves than these deadbeats.

"Are you worried about funding your degree?"

No I have a science degree.

And ever since then I have been worried about funding the rest of my life and everything else because of that degree.

Asking OUR youngsters to pay to be educated is plain stupid at the best of times. All the universities are just waiting to hoover up the Chinese because they get paid to come over here by their government.As a country we complain that there are no Engineers etc but are not interested in making sure we have our fair share for the future.In a world of ever decreasing work that pays a reasonable income we need to plan life long education because if we fail our young now we will become a third world country pretty soon.The answer is to overhaul how universities operate.Why should a student have to stay at any university when technology allows distant learning for everything but the very practical.Lets have 21st century education not 20th century capitalist greed from seats of learning.

Still all free in Scotland. Why the English stand for this blatant inequality is beyond me.

Totaly agree with 32 and 33!!

Spot on

If there are any students out there who are worried about funding their degree courses then the solution is extremely simple.

Do the Open University - you pay for each module as you go along so no student debt is at all necessary. It is flexible enough to allow you to work whilst doing the degree which is very appealing to future employers demonstrating a tremendous amount of initiative and capacity for hard work. OU degrees are also very highly rated.

Problem solved - no need to thank me, I just love to share information which directly empowers those who are unable to see the obvious for themselves.

35. At 2:11pm on 21 Jun 2010, HappyFuzzyBrain wrote:
I just don't understand why the experience to learn should be capped. Surely a more educated population can only be beneficial in the long run?

The answer to that is very, very simple - we are a small country and do not need thousands of people with degrees in sports management, my own brother has had to join the police to get a job 2 years after graduating! His problem was no one would entertain him for an unskilled job because of his degree whilst there were no jobs available in his chosen field. I just wonder how many others are out there with similar tales.

The other problem is attitude: so many graduates think they are something special because of their degree in 'watching neighbours on tv' that when tasked with a menial job like photcopying you receive a backlash or hissy fit from them to cries of 'I've got a degree I cant do that'

We need to educate people to fill real jobs, not some airy fairy nonsense just to get a degree! So maybe if fewer degree courses were offered the money saved could be better spent.......

People nowadays are far too worried over owing university debt. The fact that there's still rules in places for proportional payment over a earnings threshold and a cut off for any outstanding debts seem to miss a lot of people.

Debt isn't a nice thing, but as anyone who has it knows, it's not the end of the world. People seem to forget that a university education is a privilege and not a right. You need to pay for the resources and staff the university has at it's disposal to teach you, especially since university education is optional unlike school education.


@55: distance learning is practical, but a LOT of university courses and work still requires a physical presence in the lecture hall.

For over a century working class people and organisations have used the benefits of University learning to educate their children out of the poverty that is inherant in a free market economy.
Now we have a free market government which is willing to deprive those without money from receiving this help and support.
The questions about the quality of certain courses are irrelevant.
Removing or limiting the aspirations of those who are capable of getting a degree would be a crime.
There is no longer a middle ground.
Apprentice schools were dismantled in the 80's and more and more aprrentices are abandoned at the NVQ level 2 stage by unscupulous employers who don't wish to pay the wage that comes with NVQ level 3. Hence we have a skills shortage.
Be afraid for your children's future as they are about to be abandoned once again by the 'Powers that be'.
We also need to remember that our children are the taxpayers of the future and on their earning potential and wealth creation our pensions are paid.

Here we go again. Sorry, sd (post no. 51), but your temporary receptionist had a degree in marketing, not customer service. Customer interaction and a proper attitude to punctuality and sick days (which she may well have lacked) are workplace skills, not degree modules. Whose job is it to teach workplace skills to new employees? YOURS! It's easy enough to sweep up overqualified and underskilled graduates for posts like this, but a proper employer would either have provided training or paid the going rate for a professional temp.

During those schooldays you're so nostalgic for, employers had a proper sense of social responsibility and realised that one of their functions as employers was to train and invest in the upcoming generation of workers to the best of their ability and to the general good of the economy. Today's employers expect tailor-made, pre-trained perfect recruits to appear from thin air with no investment of any kind.

As things now stand, she's probably been put off the commercial sector forever, which is why she's now going to re-train as a teacher (at even more expense). Next time, try putting a proper mentoring arrangemnet in place and cough up for a couple of training days in office skills.

@SophiaT


"To those who bad mouth 'media' degrees, I visited a magazine website a few weeks back and found an internship job which required a post grad with 6 months experience. FOR AN INTERNSHIP!! That is the level of competition!"


In otherwords, there is absolutely no possibility of getting a job as such places are already over-subscribed and the intense competition means that it is extremely doubtful that any students in those subjects will ever be able to put their degrees to any good use in breaking into those careers let alone actually getting a job and paying back the student loan.

If students think that the rest of the country should be funding their particular set of career options, ambitions or personal hobby horses then is it not fair for the rest country to ask back "what do we get in return especially if you're unable to get a job?"

Courses in subjects that are over subscribed should be entirely funded by the students themselves whilst course in subjects that the whole country needs, depends oupon and are in short supply (maths, physics, chemistry, engineering, computer science, medicine, etc) should receive a grant depending on how urgent the need is.

Costs shouldn't go up. Let's make that straight from the very start. Graduates (a recent one myself) are saddled with a debt of £20K+ which takes years on years to pay off if at all.

Couple this in with the fact that, since property is now too expensive to purchase, you have the situation where a person who has shown motivation to study and come out with a recognisable achievement is forced into a situation where they cannot setup a life for themselves.

Companies should be invited to sponsor prospective university students. The government should guarantee a minimum amount of places available in each subject, with a top up of places for ones it considers more valuable.
University places should not ever factor in affordability. This simply guarantees the rich a place whilst the poor, who may be more academically minded, are left behind.

Education is the most important aspect of our future economy. Deterring people will do no good for anyone living here.

While I agree totally that a lot of the subjects offered by universities are less than useful (media studies, equine psychology, golf course management and the like), I get very concerned when people equate the Arts and Classics alongside these subjects.

Before I returned to University (as a mature student to study law), I worked in IT Management. When I appointed staff, I did look at the degree subject of each candidate, not only because I wanted to know that people were capable of studying at a high level, but also to see what kind of mind they had. Personally, I found that graduates with Classics, Theology and Arts degrees made excellent IT staff. Why? Because their minds were enquiring, they had been taught to think laterally about a subject, and they could write good, comprehensible english. Which is more than some social science lecturers (let alone students) can.

So, my advice is to study what interests you, but be prepared to demonstrate how you can contribute to the world of work. And, to be fair, universities are trying to respond by providing transferable skills training (although they haven't quite got it right yet).

As for fees, it's a double edged sword. True, some students value their courses more because they are paying for them, but there is a small minority who feel that because they've paid, they should automatically get their degree without having to work for it.

My fear is, as fees increase, we will de facto get the kind of education system that we had up until the 1950s, where only those whose parents could afford it would go to university. As we no longer seem to have high quality technical training - let alone any industrial base in the country - that's a lot of young people who are going to have not a lot to do in the future.

If I were in charge, I would reinstate the system of the 1980s. University degrees that are unashamedly academic in nature, Polytechnic degrees that teach people more concrete and practical subjects, and Teacher Training / HE Colleges to provide specialist training. Then each part of the sector can concentrate on what they're good at.

45. At 3:13pm on 21 Jun 2010, surfingkenny wrote:

A few years ago I had a very similar experience to surfingkenney, I had to recruit a graduate quantity surveyor. We advertised the job, weeded out the chancers and interviewed the 3 best candidates.

No. 1 Despite the advert clearly stating the salary wanted 30% more and a company car similar to my own, because that was what another company had offered him and he would accept nothing less - he was told to close the door on his way out!
No. 2 Had a problem with our working hours 8:00-5:30 and didnt think they were fair as they would interfere with her social life. Poor dear.
No. 3 Had difficulty accepting that the reason he was being offered a company car was so that he could travel to where we wanted him to go, which wasnt 5 mins from his home!

In the end we found a school leaver prepared to study part time (1 day a week) and work the rest of the week. What a difference in attitude, because his grades had not been good enough to get into the full time course, he was delighted to have been given an opportunity. It is also my belief that he will be a far better surveyor in the long term, than any of the others, although if he reads this I will deny it!!

"18. At 12:48pm on 21 Jun 2010, Bunglebear wrote:
I'm a biochemical engineer, but I selected my vocation on the chances of finding work."

Plain to see you didn't graduate in English! You don't select a vocation. It's something you really want to do, not something you choose to do in order to be secure in employment.

Are you worried about funding your degree?

No, it must have been much worse funding the Three Degrees, especially with cost of hair stylists.

There was no funding problem with university places until, under their absurd mantra of "education, education, education", Nu-Labor seized the opportunity of minimising unemployment figures by hiding illiterate school leavers in the university system with their incredibly ridiculous objective of having 50% of school leavers going on to university; that's also why they devalued the 'A level' pass rates so that entry applications could be seen to rise, even though an extremely high percentage of school leavers can barely read or write and are certainly unemployable.

If we returned to the previous 'status quo' where only our very brightest student go to university, we will also very soon see that the state could not only easily provide funds for them, but also make an overall saving because of the reduced numbers applying for these places!

39. At 2:28pm on 21 Jun 2010, RadialSymmetry wrote:
At the risk of sounding like an old fart, "in my day" going to university was something that identified you as someone in the top slice of the population for intelligence. That can clearly no longer be the case.

The situation became muddied with the removal of the demarcation between universities, polytechnics and colleges of higher education. The brutal truth for graduates of those institutions that used to be council swimming pools is that their degree in a made-up subject will be worth precisely nothing in the job market. The only thing they need to learn is the phrase: "Do you want fries with that?"

Everyone knows that, by and large, unless you can make it to one of the Russell Group or 1994 Group of universities, you're really just deferring your unemployment and landing yourself with a £20K debt you may never pay off.

This is crass generalisation and completely untrue. Like anything else, what a student gets out of a university education depends on what he or she is willing to put in.

I went to a 'new university'; i.e., a former polytechnic. I worked damn hard for my degree. Now, at the age of 30, I am the strategic director of one of London's leading marketing agencies. I am happy, fulfilled, I know where I'm headed career-wise and I earn over £100,000 per year.

Although I guess my own work ethic would have carried me through life without the degree, up to a point, many opportunities that I was able to capitalise on early in my career would simply not have been open to me had I not had a university education.

"59. At 4:22pm on 21 Jun 2010, pzero wrote:
We need to educate people to fill real jobs, not some airy fairy nonsense just to get a degree! So maybe if fewer degree courses were offered the money saved could be better spent......."

No, we need to TRAIN people to fill real jobs, and EDUCATE them beforehand to be able to benefit from that training, AND to enhance their own life experiences (appreciate art and music, sport, history, other cultures, etc., etc.).

There are far too many people going to university these days studying for useless degrees in flower arranging and wayne rooney studies as a) an excuse for not getting a job and b) because of the obsession that you have to have a degree these days. It has gotten to the point that degrees are really meaningless as everyone has one, just like A-Levels and to a lesser extend Highers with so many students getting A**.

University degrees that people require in order to perform the profession they intend to work in that society requires should be funded by the taxpayer - doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, scientists, etc.

Those wanting to go to university to undertake media studies or some useless degree in 18th century poetry should be made to pay top dollar.

100% of young people going to uni is a waste of time. We should be providing more opportunities for apprenticeships for plumbers, bricklayers, sparkies, etc rather than importing them all.

pzero (66): Your first candidate had obviously had a better offer elsewhere and was giving you a chance to match it, which is hardly something you're entitled to resent - it might well have suited both of you to do just that. As it is, it's not his problem if one of your competitors can offer graduate recruits a better deal than you - it's yours. How much less did you pay your school leaver than you would have paid a graduate? Need this have been advertised as a graduate appointment at all?

As for the other two, while I wouldn't have employed them either, did you seriously conclude that your findings had something to do with the relative merits of graduates vs. non-graduates? All you did was trawl in a bunch of applicants, one of whom got the job in preference to the others. Isn't this what usually happens? One of your graduates could just as easily have shown the best potential, while your school leaver could have turned out to be a feckless waster who didn't get good enough grades because he didn't do enough work or simply wasn't bright enough. What you encountered is implied to be some sort of graduate 'thing', which is clearly not the case - it's just the usual spread of attitudes you'd find within any group of jobhunters.

raise the entry requirements not the fees!

when studying a long course like medicine, I really do not relish the idea of coming out with £35000 in debt from fees alone.

Donnerstag, your comments illustrate the issue that real employers have with some graduates. After going through University and studying any subject you should not need to have taken modules in being polite, answering the phone, turning up to work, passing an interview, or addition/subtraction. You shouldn't need training in the workplace for these things either.

This reminds me of a posting on a related question a little while ago where somebody complained they didn't know much about current affairs but they didn't study politics so why would they?!Completely ridiculous.

Well, this is what the tories do. Did you expect thatcherite Cameron and his gang to behave any differently?
The pain is only just beginning. You who voted this latest bunch in, I hope you're very happy.

I'm a mature student, and just as I experienced in the early 90s I am experiencing now as well - many (but not all) students are there because they don't want a job. Gaining a better education is certainly not at the top of their priorities. I have to agree with many of the posts on here; so many students aren't even able to speak, read or write properly. Even with tuition fees growing, there is still huge subsidisation of further education and frankly, why should wage earners be expected to pay taxes to send large numbers of teenagers to university that can't even spell. It is a priviledge and not a right to pursue further education - alas it is now seen as a right, no matter how ineffectual or uncommitted some students might be. It also demeans the achievements of those students who do add real value to the experience of univserity life. Quite frankly, vast sums of taxpayer money is being wasted on people who simply don't deserve to be in further education and who are emerging without teh ability to spell or communicate effectively. Spend teh money on primary and secondary education - we don't need more graduates with poor second and third class degrees; we need a lot more people that can do simple arithmetic, spell and communicate effectively.

Simples

abolish fees and give students living grants THEN charge 1 or 2% extra TAX on EVERY ONE in the uk who has a UK university degree regardless of age or when they took it.

Why should all the people like my self or the MP's that voted top up fees who had "free" university degreens not pay back something into the system.

This TAX would be a revinue earner, and be very cheep to introduce and would be fair! My generation left university with little or no debt, the preceeding generation also had their accomodation paid for.

Recent figues say tha aprox 40% of all student loans will be written off at the end of the repayment period!

Yet more social engineering from the ConDem Dynamic Duo, how long have they been in power? And to think they and other people moaned about Labour's social engineering! Who is anyone to determine who can go to university and who can't? people should have a right to education if that's what they want.

It's time to call a General Election.

Anyone who suggests that university education should be reserved for the rich, is your ideological enemy and needs to be pushed aside. Higher education should be the right of everyone. What is the point of 13 long years of education if you are denied a place at university at the end, which is really just the 'Job Centre' of the capitalist class. Not having a university degree can ruin your life chances and living standards. I got my degree, in fine art just before tuition fees came in, my sister wasn't so lucky and got hammered with debt. Although my degree hasn't made me rich the snobbery that surrounds such a qualification opens doors to many places, not necessarily in your area of study. It also makes it easier to make a career change later on in life.
Im not saying a degree is a guaranteed promise of a decent career, but for that brief investment of time and study, you will never regret it. And everyone should have this oppotunity without the burden of debt.

DUnit (75): I see what you mean, but the fact is that a great many degree courses - and I include here many of the most demanding ones devoted to complex subjects at pre-1992 universities - actually mitigate against exactly these skills. Tutor contact time is often brief, lectures are by definition one-sided affairs, solitary research and private study are the norm and time management is, to a very large extent, a matter for the student. The majority deal with all of these things very well, but not in a way which is comparable to or compatible with a conventional workplace regime, which can often seem completely baffling to those with no experience of it and no preparatory training.

I recall being completely bemused by the workplace during my first job after graduation. Why was it such an issue if I borrowed a spare chair from the boss's office without waiting until he returned to be asked? Why were people who were doing exactly the same job as I was, only for longer, regarded as 'senior' to me? Actually I'm still not sure I can answer either of these, but I'm sure I must have appeared rude and bumptious when I enquired about such things.

If we decide that this really should be the business of universities, then there might well be an argument for formally teaching workplace skills to all students before they graduate, involving maybe a week or so of workshops, roleplay and all the usual stuff, with a certificate of attandance, or similar, being tagged on to their degree.

Hey, an interesting dialogue on HYS! Whatever next!

As usual with debates that mention University education the usual suspects are out complaining about, 'soft' degrees in the Arts.

How about the tens of thousands of students dossing their way through Business studies degrees by plagiarising each others essays the day before the deadline? And then awarded good pass marks whilst I, the Arts degree student, was busitng a gut to acheive the same grades.

Arts degrees should not be charged at a higher rate (or any degree for that matter) becuase society will become polarised and some jobs will only be accessible to those who can afford to pay for the higher value (in monetary terms) degree.

£7000??? I get that there is a need to reduce the numbers of people going to university as there are already too many but steep costs like this are going to only cause so many to drop out that would have made excellent candidates for higher education. It will also further widen the gap between the rich and the poor as the poor will feel that tuition fees are too high and only those who are well off will be able to easily access higher education. This will mean that higher education won't be about academic ability but more about how big your pocket is.

I am a (just turned) 20 year old student who has just finished the 2nd year of my degree and am part of the 3-and-a-bit thousand pounds a year for tuition fees system.

(University kindly paid my fees for me in my 2nd year as I was a "high achiever" (just to point out for those of you who are criticising the system for not encouraging intelligent students to stay in University..))

On top of this I also pay..
- £4000 of rent per year
- Bills
- Food and living costs

I am very lucky that my parents are able to help support me financially, as I honestly do not think I would be able to go to University otherwise. I am eligable for just over £3000 a year in maintainance loan, I work full time during the holidays and voulenteer for a local, degree relevant charity during term times, however, this would not cover my rent, never mind my food/living/bills/transport etc etc.

There is NO WAY that if University fees went up to £7k+ people would be able to go to University. Are the government proposing that students get loans for fees like they do now? Because as it is, thousands and thousands of students have been left without this loan because the student loans company aren't capable of doing their job..

If people are suggesting that the Universities help to fund high achieving students as they kindly did for me.. then how is this going to work with higher fees? The protests about Uni funding cuts have been massive for these last few months. Universities can't even afford to keep on their staff at the moment, nevermind paying for all the student's fees too!

The proposition that students study from home is also seriously misguided. The idea of University is not only to get your degree, but to experience living away from home, make new friends, learn and work independantly and develop who you are as a person away from your parents. Increasing fees/loans mean that students would come out of Uni with even more debt, making it impossible for them to ever be in a position where they can purchase a house and finally "fly the nest" and start a family. The majority of my friends/family who have graduated from 2000 onwards have all lived at home until they were 26/27 due to not being able to afford anything else because of Uni debts.

To #48 Jacko, Most students do not get a £30 a week allowance at all - this is an attendance based payment that depends on your family income, you only get £30 if this is below £20 800 annually: so this is not an allowance at all, it money that the most disadvantaged students need to go to college. Please bear in mind that these students will typically live in the poorest housing, eat the poorest foods and are typically exposed to more social problems – all of which inhibit educational success.

Also, will all of these people who keep harking back to ‘in my day’, please realise that we are 2010! Please, explain to me how I’m supposed to get a job when most employers appear to desire a degree? The apprentiships etc that were available then: are not available today!

To everyone who is whinging about degrees in media studies, you are on a media website! Media is a bigger part of our world now, if you want less media graduates then don’t whinge when you no longer like your paper, or what you watch on TV.

I’m so sick of people who never seized their chance, resenting me being an A – Level student, who works very hard and aspires to an audacious dream where I might one day (gasps); own a modest house, which does not have subsidence, and will have a sink in the same room as the toilet; own a car which will pass 5 consecutive MOTs and would be able to go on holiday every 5 years or so as well. In the real world today, yes I’m scared about being in a ridiculous amount of debt for this privilege that will fall entirely on my shoulders, but how else am I supposed to realise this dream? Or would society rather me aspire to be famous, or a lottery winner?

But, let me guess, I’m young, female, live in a council house and on top of all this evil I’ll be learning the social science of sociology at university in September. Although I suppose if half of you appeared to have your way I’ll probably in the work house or working down the docks with my Father……

Students should be awarded grants based on their scores at A-levels and the value of their degree to society. This would discourage people who would be better advised to avoid continued academic work from attempting to study "mickey mouse" courses, and invariably dropping out after a year or two because they can't hack it anyway. Even if they had completed it, society would have got practically no return on a C-grade student studying Sociology anyway.

They should also be encourage to get a part-time job, at least for their first and second years. Contribute to the economy, learn work discipline and stay out of trouble, while supplementing their income.

I can't see a way round the fact that higher fees will mean that university becomes unaffordable for people without reasonably wealthy or forward-thinking parents.

The current system means you don't pay back the loan until you're earning, and then only in proportion to your salary. Great: university is entirely affordable for anyone willing to save during a working gap year and so on. The problem is that increasing fees under this system is hugely expensive for the Government in the short term (and not ideal in the long term; as #78 rightly pointed out many loans are written off because the recipient never earned enough in 25 years to pay it off).

So, it seems inevitable that repayment terms must get stricter. Interest rates could be hiked, or upfront payment required. Upfront payment doesn't really bear thinking about; no amount of evening jobs and living on beans and toast is going to help someone get £7000 + living costs together every year for four years (think engineering and some science degrees).
Commercial rates of interest and repayment terms still don't help the Government in the short term, and I think it would be a brave 18 yr old who takes on a £35,000 loan (Very roughly, £7000 fees/yr plus living allowance and interest from the time spent at university) at say 8% with no sure future in the jobs market.

I prefer the idea of a graduate tax. I was part of the last year not to pay top-up fees, lucky me. I wouldn't mind paying, but would most graduates accept this? Not likely.

I'm also concerned about this talk of remote learning. Excellent idea in principle; in practice poor people go local, rich people get to go to Oxford, Cambridge or whichever other university is good for their subject.

Oh yes, and balance in all things, especially when it comes to the arts. Do we need as many arts graduates as we have? Probably not, but I'd rather be shot than live without the arts

I dont have a problem with funding uni courses, but can the government not target that funding? I dont particulalry want to pay for courses in frisbee throwing and Klingon, but surely if we want to claw our way out of recesison we can fund courses that may get the tax payer some pay back, perhaps engineering or medicine? Give more money to those courses, perhaps build in some sort of clause that the student has to work in / for the UK for a few years (im not talking slavery here - 2-3 years maybe?). Perhaps that way we can get some of our money back.

I wish this myth were exploded that the value of a degree can be judged by how many hours of lectures a week it requires. Lectures are just the tip of the iceberg and if all a student ever did was to go to them they'd be struggling badly. Going to university is not the same as going to school; a university student is expected to study, not to be spoonfed, and a good student will spend many hours in the library working on their own. Meanwhile their lecturers will be preparing lectures and tutorials, because they don't deliver either off the top of their head and they have to keep up to date with the latest developments in their subject - yes, even theology and classics have 'latest developments' - marking, doing admin work, producing the research that universities require their staff to produce and all the other things associated with being a modern academic. Universities are not just big schools and students aren't schoolchildren.

In my opinion, there is not enough emphasis on learning-on-the-job. There are very few degree courses, if any, that adequately prepare students to start a job and hit the ground running - it is simply unfeasible. Certain jobs (science-based, medical and law) will require advanced learning as a pre-requisite for the training they will undoubtedly undertake for their job. However, for the vast majority of wannabe students, an apprenticeship or other vocational training is the best, cheapest and most efficient way to excel in their chosen subject, and the sooner the government and the job sector appreciate this, the sooner the vast (and unnecessary) debts incurred by today’s youth and the throng of average-to-poor graduates invading the job centres will decrease.

My perspective on this comes as an employer in a global chemical company. Year-on-year I'm left disappointed by the quality (or lack-of) from the work placement students and recent graduates, who are leagues behind the school leavers who join the company and do part-time degrees as part of their development.

I'm fed up of funding, via tax, phoney degrees (in ridiculous subjects) from crap universities (the vast majority).

Cut the number of university places to 10% of its current value, and thereby give some meaning to the word "elite".

The encouragement of the mediocre to get a degree devalues everything, discourages the gifted and - as was Liebour's plan - reduces the unemployment figures temporarily, as low quality "teechers" (sic) lecture equally low-grade students.

When the previous incarnation of Labourinsanity increased direct taxation to a staggering marginal rate of 97% (including the infamous IIS), many of the smartest left, never to return (except to post on HYS, perhaps). The result was decreased tax-take and the country having to go cap in hand to the IMF, something most third-world countries had the pride to avoid doing. Notwithstanding this, I classify the latest Labour contamination to be the worst ever.

The average UK science, engineering or maths graduate/postgraduate (the rest don't count) is laughably ignorant by comparison to his peer group in the two most populous nations on earth. This does more than indicate the direction of change - it guarantees it.

Great Britain once was Great. Now we have ZaNuLabour, Media Studies and Big Bruvver.

Too many people going to University - maybe but that's not quite the point. However useful your degree may be its only the rich who can now afford to go. My daughter has always wanted to be a nurse and has an unconditional offer from a Uni - will she go - probably not because we simply can't afford it. Its not to do with ability, but wealth. When you get to hospital next time and there are only foreign nurses there you'll understand why.

73. At 5:32pm on 21 Jun 2010, Donnerstag wrote:

Sorry D, but as we were paying top dollar at that time the first candidate was simply trying it on.

The other two were representative of the attitude that we experience with most graduates we encounter, and I dont blame them as people I blame the schools and universities for brainwashing them, that they are somehow special and that we should adjust our business to revolve around them and make life easier for them.

Sorry but it doesnt work that way, especially when doing the most basic tasks required of them either results in failure to do as they were told (because they know better) or a hissy fit because it is beneath them!

I am seriously thinking of telling my kids not to bother, unless they have a true vocation for a subject with a serious chance of it leading to a good job.

3 year earning will be worth more than having the "uni experience" and a £20k+ debt.

My eldest is at college at the moment and since his last exam 2 weeks ago he goes in for one hour per day, and most of his tutors are off on some course or other...hello, its mid june! When I went to college in the 80's it was 9-5 plus evening practical, now they are never in!

I suppose the down side is that a lot of jobs still require a degree... why?

I have no idea how to finance univercity education, all I do know is that it seemed to be OK until New Labour pulled the ladder up behind them when they introduced tuition fees. I do wonder how many of Blairs new labour MPs and ministers paid for their univercity education.

53. At 3:49pm on 21 Jun 2010, Leella wrote:

No one insists people who quit jobs, even if paid for by the tax payer, should have to pay back their salaries!

Whist I do agree there a lot of pointless low league unis which make a mockery of degrees, where basically next to nothing is taught and there are no career prospects (such a "outdoor studies" and "surfing" and "TV studies") it's clear a lot of people don't have the intelligence to tell between an useful degree and a pointless one.

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Maybe you would have been better studying English Grammar, going by your last sentence? The truth is Leella, a piece of paper which demonstrates you have a superior memory doesn't mean didly squat in the real world. I am probably one of your "unqualified" or "uneducated" people, on the basis that I left school at a6 with just 7 'O' levels. Fortunatley for me I now have an excellent job, that I've been doing for the last 24 years. Amd yes it's a very technical role and was achieved by hard work, not a 4 year jolly, tax payer funded and a few letters after my name!!!

If you really pay attention to what was said in the comments you are so quick to trash, you will see that we agree that those students who work hard should get their fees paid for, and good for them for wanting to better themselves... What we disagree with is funding for those who cannot be bothered to complete, and that included thiose who find it too stressful.. agh bless!!!!!!

Post number one says it all. It is insane to want so many kids to beggar themselves in getting worthless degrees. Just a way of reducing unemplyment at the expense of the young who pay for it until they are 30 or 40 years old.

Too many people are going to university on the false promise there are any jobs to graduate to....with sugnificant over capacity in the system by older more experienced workers this is not a good time to fund university education.Graduates today will be having to retrain when they graduate at even greater expense what as mess!

One great hope is that the limited money will be targeted at degrees only in Engineering,technology and science (including maths but excluding medical school)

Perhaps this will be incentive enough to get the country back on its feet again!

Bring back work based degrees,traing schemes and articles

Some parents seem to think a new car every two years on HP is more worthy than paying for their childrens education.


Its alway someone else who pays,this is a business proposition and learning about life.Clearly the Federation of the UK Uneployed is wright.A partnership between industry and universities to set education demand ensures success.