University

[Goring Gull]

With record numbers attending university again this year is it all it's cracked up to be?

Will it generally increase the quality and calibre of the british workforce suppling multi talented individuals to the workforce allowing individuals to gain qualifications and therefore access to a range of better and more highly paid jobs .... OR

Is it a chance for the government to use it as a propoganda tool to keep the unemployment figures low and promise these young people that a degree will give them this magical peice of paper that will in turn give them access to a playboy lifestyle of large salaries fast cars and plush appartments in the city but all it really seems to do is lead to a lifetime of disenchantment and a series of dead end temp jobs ?

 

[Goring Gull]

My personal opinion is too many people go who simply aren't good enough - i think any less than 3 C grades at level and you shouldn't be going.

 

[El Presidente]

Shhhh. Most university lecturers are unemployable in the real world so we need all the students that we can get our hands on.

3 'C's is too high a threshold. I would set it slightly lower, at a cycling proficiency test and a 'Crackerjack' pencil

 

[Bluejuice]

There are too many places and too many universities.

I cocked up one of my A-levels but was too lazy to retake it after I found out I could still get to uni without problem. And I knew some proper idiots when I was a student, people that would be laughed out of Oxbridge, Durham, Bristol, Sussex and even Hull but can get places at lesser known but just as accredited former poly's.

The system is a joke now and unless your degree comes from one of the established names then it really is worth jack shit.

 

[Goring Gull]

I've seen mates scrape in and then get in to loads of debt and wonder why they bothered when they end up in temp job after temp job then again others have doen very well for themselves, I chose not to go despite getting A,B,C at Alevel In geography, Business Studies and English Lit, what the hell was i going to use a Geography degree for anyway.


Obviously you never know what migt have happened but reckon i'm a damn sight better off now than if i had gone , I have house and family, only debt is my mortgage, and yet at 28 i've got mate steh same age with adegree and are living at home will a 10k millstone round their neck on half the money i am.

I'm not against Uni but i think standards need to be raised and offer more practical vocational courses like Polys used too.

 

[lost in london]

It's also a great way for the government to tax us. I left uni a couple of years ago with about an £8000 student debts with the Student Loans Company - the government. I got lucky and found a reasonable job fairly quickly, and started paying it back, 9% of what I earn over £10k.

About a year ago I got a letter from the government saying that it was now 9% of what I earn over 15k. All that means is that it takes me longer to pay it back, and that the government gets to charge interest on it for that bit longer. The whole thing stinks. So many people went to uni for the lifestyle, which is fine, but when they come out with £10k of debts and no career path you've got to wonder why they were being encouraged to go in the first place.

 

[Goring Gull]

The lifestyle- oh yes going out every night running up a load of bilss, i managed to go out most nights when i was that age but i was only spend ing what i was getting paid. Granted i was still living at home then with no bills , but how depressing getting 3-4 years of freedon to then have to back to living at home, no thanks, when i moved out at 23, i intened to not have to go back and i didn't nothing worse than having to give stuff up you've got used to.

 

[D'Angelo Saxon]

The system is a joke now and unless your degree comes from one of the established names then it really is worth jack shit.

So Coventry Uni ain't all that then?

 

[hans kraay fan club]

It's also a great way for the government to tax us. I left uni a couple of years ago with about an £8000 student debts with the Student Loans Company - the government. I got lucky and found a reasonable job fairly quickly, and started paying it back, 9% of what I earn over £10k.

About a year ago I got a letter from the government saying that it was now 9% of what I earn over 15k. All that means is that it takes me longer to pay it back, and that the government gets to charge interest on it for that bit longer. The whole thing stinks. So many people went to uni for the lifestyle, which is fine, but when they come out with £10k of debts and no career path you've got to wonder why they were being encouraged to go in the first place.

LIL, I think you'll find that means, you are only obliged to pay back at 9% of your earnings over 15k. There is nothing to stop you paying it back sooner [as I understand it].

 

[Deano's Right Foot]

I did very well at my A levels, and managed to spell the word FOX with my results. Despite this I decided to not go to University.

Education is obviously key to a successful society, but to chuck as many people as physically possible on degree courses has some serious flaws I think.

 

[On the Left Wing]

Shhhh. Most university lecturers are unemployable in the real world so we need all the students that we can get our hands on.

3 'C's is too high a threshold. I would set it slightly lower, at a cycling proficiency test and a 'Crackerjack' pencil

Not quite as bad as Education College lecturers (in a past life!)

"Those who can't do ... teach
Those who can't teach .... teach teachers"

 

[ben andrews' girlfriend]

I think the record numbers going is slightly biased, as if someone has a year out they will have to pay £3,000 every year instead of the £1250 that our parents are part responsible for, as the system changes (again) next year.

 

[On the Left Wing]

I think the record numbers going is slightly biased, as if someone has a year out they will have to pay £3,000 every year instead of the £1250 that our parents are part responsible for, as the system changes (again) next year.

I went to Uni in Huddersfield (but it was only a Poly in those days) ... shit hole of a place - avoid at all costs!

 

[withdeanwombat]

Been at Strathclyde,Lanchester Poly,Manchester Uni...and Southampton .Have a list of good quals.,had a high level job until forced into early retirement.

Worked all summers as a labourer to supplement v.small grant,was pre student loans and other such governmental fiddles.

Enjoyed college life but refused to work in them.Would recommend it to almost everyone who gets good enough quals to enter.

Do not agree with some of the trendy new degrees on offer,and agree with those who suggest that standards have dropped.

Our media can never have been studied so much by so many,and yes,too many degrees are offered as stand alone rather than as a pathway.....the argument is still that if you can succeed in a degree then your critical facilities will enable you to succeed in almost anything.So the use of the once mentioned Geog degree could have been a pathway to accountancy,for example.

The govt.,of course,wants everyone in education for as long as poss. so that youth unemployment doesn't look too bad,with the added wheeze that participants then have to pay for it into the future.Isn't that Catch 22,or just a double whammy.

Oh,and all who rattle on about if you can't do,teach, etc, etc should try teaching,the low salary,low esteem.Should try dealing with the kids who don't give a sh*t and the parents who back them up.And ,yes,I know their will be retorts about the length of the holidays....and believe me ,it's easier hiding in the loo in some office,or sending joke emails about and never having to face up to anything more difficult than what to take off the tea trolley.

Here endeth the rant.

 

[enigma]

I went to Warwick, graduated this summer.

I think to an extent too many people are going, and there are certainly too many bollocks courses.

 

[SK1NT]

heard on the radio last night. There is a course opening studying Aliens??

 

[Barnet Seagull]

It's a difficult shout. It's not about courses or universities or numbers it's about personality

If you're driven and ambitious, Univeristy is a great way to piss about for a few years before getting to the serious stuff.

If you've no ambition or drive, univeristy is a debt-saddling waste of time.

University isn't the be-all that it used to be. Employers don't care if you've got a degree, they care if you're good at your job.

Simple as.

 

[lost in london]

LIL, I think you'll find that means, you are only obliged to pay back at 9% of your earnings over 15k. There is nothing to stop you paying it back sooner [as I understand it].

I appreciate this, but just wasn't sure why the gov would change the system. For most people the money just comes out of their pay and sorts itself out and they don't get involved. It just seemed to me that this was a way of dragging out my debt for longer by getting me to pay off less each month. I am however FAR too lazy to actually call them and set a sensible limit I can afford each month which will get the debt paid.

 

[Spiros]

Like anything in life, the more people that have a degree the less one is worth. I went to Reading Uni in the 80s and there were a number of foreign students on my course. I wanted to know why they were at university in Britain rather than say the US. They said that anyone could get a degree from a US university whereas a British one had real value. I very much doubt they'd say the same thing now.

 

[Goring Gull]

I remember chating to bird on holiday once who told me she was going to Portsmouth uni - she went on to say she got two E garde and failed a third A level, I just couldn't believe it, blew my chances that night the reaction "what and your going to uni" didn't go down to well.