Really shocked at myself for thinking this (tuition fees)

I suspect, from talking to a friend who's a head of admissions for a humanities subject at a Russell Group university, that what will happen is that some of the universitiessome of the courses, or will simply fold. People won't want to pay to do degrees that aren't valued by society/employers. So History at the University of the M40 will probably not be around in 2014. But History at Oxford will be.

relevant degrees - microbiology, geology, engineering, architecture, nuclear physics. these are all vocational / relevant degrees and there are tons more. not just talking about law and medicine. btw media is an excellent vocational degree - good jobs for editors and producers out there. economics also good - relevant to plenty of jobs.

degrees like arts majors are interesting and enriching for the soul. excellent. that doesn't pay the fees unless you are exceptionally talented and can be another tracy emin.

and i have also worked in investment banking in the city. i have also recruited graduates. and guess what - we only touched maths, physics, computer science at a push. degree in history of art? hahahaha

I started university in 1997 which was the last year that students didn't have to pay any fees at all. My course was an amazing opportunity. An opportunity for which I am extremely grateful. With thanks being due to all the tax payers at that time.

Today, as a graduate, I am extremely happy for the taxes I pay to be used in part for young people to take up the opportunity of Higher Education.

Therefore, I feel unbelievably sad that this won't happen from now on in England. I feel as a citizen, a voter and a tax payer that I am letting young people down.

You are having a violent agreement with someone who agrees with you expat.

So then we should only pay for those, Abride?

Because personally, I don't think we should.

Either pay for none or pay for all because the worth of each one of them can be argued by someone.

At present, the House of Lords has backed the government.

It's very likely this will go ahead.

'Shall we pay for that, too?'

Er, did I say you should pay for any of it, Expat? I was answering the point that only 'some' degrees are worthwhile to society.

Also, I did write that one had to go to university to play chess.

But please continue twisting it all up to suit your own ends, because it's like pissing in the wind.

The fee hike has already been backed by the House of Lords. So it's pretty much a done deal.

Now people have to consider what they are going to do about it.

Fin.

'but I think its just as patronising to say degrees are worthless and you might as well travel the world. I cannot quite beleive this is said by someone who have been to university.'

And I don't believe it was said at all.

Because it wasn't. At least not by me.

Expat, of course you don't have to go to university to play chess. A degree is still a very good filter if you are recruiting. I don't play chess with the people I interview and with all the candidates available I don't have the time. Most of the time I find I can pretty accurately pick out the person who has been to university and the person who has not. Its normally fairly obvious.It might be patronising to say so, but I think its just as patronising to say degrees are worthless and you might as well travel the world. I cannot quite beleive this is said by someone who have been to university.

I don't get what you are saying about a degree being "relevant". Unless you are training to be a doctor or a lawyer perhaps, no degree is on-the-job-training. You will find that a person with an economics degree and a person with a media degree would often have done a lot of the same courses.

I work in investment banking which is mentioned here as a highly paid profession. When I recruit for my team which is highly specialised, I look for graduated from good universities, but I am just as likely to recruit someone with a degree in history as economics or maths which might sound more "relevant". The fact is no degree is really "relevant" and I have to train them anyway if I take on a graduate. I just need to know that they can be trained and that they can fit into the team. MrManager is so right in his post from last night that graduates are just a better "class of people". It does sound patronising, but that is how employers think.

Most of the people in my team are not English. I already find that people from Eastern European or Asian countries are more highly educated that British and they now fill many jobs in the City. I find it suprising that a lot of British people and the media don't see this coming....

Most people are able to THINK and do high-level analysis without ever stepping foot in a university as a student.

I've seen illiterate people playing dominoes and chess who can out-think and analyse people with degrees.

Education doesn't just include university. Many are enriched just as much by other experiences, such as travel.

Shall we pay for that, too?

If you let it be, all of life is an enriching education.

warthog - i don't totally disagree with students paying something towards their degrees - in fact many have been doing this for some time - 3k tuition fees and living costs. What i do disagree with is the increase of 6k a year to 9k which will leave children around 50k in debt when they leave uni. if you also take into account lost earnings thats around 85+k.

yes i know this country has to do something to improve its finances - but this is an awful lot of financial burden for students - and who else is taking on this sort of pain in our country at the moment to solve the economic problems?

abr1de, it's not enough to be able to THINK - competition is too high. gone are the days when that attitude is enough.

if you have a job available and two candidates, one with french lit and one with a relevant degree, both first class degrees you're more likely to choose the one who already knows the field.

apart from all this, i still fail to see why the tax payer should foot all the burden. the student should contribute SOMETHING or they don't take it as seriously. they should invest in their own future.

i worked through uni. no contribution from the government at all. why do people in the uk think differently?

we expect our healthcare, education, pension etc. to be provided, just like very expensive, unaffordable children. when are we going to grow up and start providing these things for ourselves? time to take responsibility.

The country needs a cadre of people who are good at thinking and analysis. It doesn't matter if it's Latin or French or History or English: if they're studied at a high level, in a rigorous environment, these subjects teach you these skills in a way that vocational degrees don't necessarily do. If you have a strong humanities degree from a very good university you will be able to read things such as the chancellor's budget statement and pick it apart. Or your local council's proposals to build a new road and see if the arguments stack up. You will be using high-level analytical skills.

Thirty years ago people who went to study History, say, at Durham and got a good degree were recognised as being bright, trained, minds. They were snapped up and there was no talk of them being non-beneficial to the country. This debate seems, incidentally, to have been ignited at the time people stopped talking about 'university' and it became 'uni'.

mrmanger - i agree that there is now an argument to make people pay for 'a' levels. when i was at school we were led to believe that the main objective of these was to prepare people for uni. having a broad education (ie GCSE level) is obviously important for everyone but to specialise in 3 subjects if you are not going to uni? I can't see that this benefits the country - just the person doing it - ie same arguements apply as uni ones

Frankly if someone was studying that degree, Warthog, it would suggest to me that they were very intelligent and would be doing far more than a noddy job.

That's another point about some of these degrees: they are all about analysis and high level use of skills. So if you are very good at french 18th century literature you are bright. You have a trained mind. You will be very good at any kind of job requiring analysis and observation. You would be able to work for government, teach. You'd obviously be good at the language side, too.

I wouldn't mind paying someone to study this at a very good university. I'd be paying for them to THINK. Very important.

spending £30000 or so on someone's french 18th cent lit course so they can stack shelves you think is worthwhile is it?

and do you think they'll feel fulfilled because at least they've done their degree, doesn't matter that they'll earn min wage for rest of their life.

i can find much better uses for that money.

Graduates are a 'better class of people', to put it patronisingly, because they mixed with people of all backgrounds for 3 of the most formative years of their lives. The degree or course is a sideshow, the real benefit is the skills and the impact on your personality.

No, that doesn't mean that you have to go to university to be a nice person, or that university cures people of being arseholes, but it helps.

I'd love to live in a nation where the McDonalds till girl has a degree in French poetry, and the shelf-stacker has a degree in Geography, as long as they were interested in it, and found it worthwhile.

Where do you draw the line on how much education is 'worthwhile' to pay for? A-Levels? You don't really need anything you learn there, it's just learning basic skills for university - why should we pay for that? GCSEs? Apart from Maths, what will you actually need? Who will need basic literature criticism? Why do I have to pay for that?

because it's fucking expensive mrmanager, that's why.

i'm not prepared to fund someone's degree in 18th century french poetry so that they can go and work in macdonalds and not put back into the system what they took out. they're welcome to do it, but they can pay for the luxury themselves.

Why should a degree have to be about job prospects? Shouldn't we let young people pursue study of an area that interests them?

'We believe there will be no pension for us.'

Sadly, I believe you may be right, expat. But that's OK; we'll be working until the day of our funerals, anyway.

I think what I'm starting to believe is that, if you want to study arts or humanities, you need to do it at one of probably a dozen or 15 highly-regarded universities. Save your money if you don't get into one of these.

' one brilliant degree in english and one brilliant degree in a relevant topic. which candidate would you choose?'

If you were applying, say, to do journalism on a graduate scheme at the BBC, you'd have more chance with a brilliant degree in English or History from Durham or Oxbridge than with a brilliant Media Relations degree from a lesser university.

My nephew with a degree in Japanese from Oxford walked straight into a job in the civil service (not a foreign office job, and one not requiring his language skills).

My nephew with a design degree from a new university is still working on freelance contracts with small earnings and no benefits, aged 28. On paper, he has a 'relevant' degree.

What benefits would those be, granted?

I realise fully that I'll never see a penny I've (or Dh has) paid into NI in our old age.

We believe there will be no pension for us.