would you all like your children to attend university?

[GabbyLoggon]

I have mixed feelings but they say the beer is good. You dont even necessarily get a good job with a degree these days. ..will that change?

rightly or wrongly I don't know, people assume that the standards are dropping at school and GCSEs or A-levels are not the equivalent now of what they were in the past.

My dd is not at that stage yet so I really cannot comment on it but I think that may be a reason why employers look for graduates to fill positions that would earlier have been filled by non-graduates.

I thought sometimes at university that really only a very small number of first year students came to university equipped with the skills needed to study and the kind of background general knowledge to master the subject. Perhaps at more prestigious universities it is different. I've had people study history who did not know about some very basic facts and it was difficult to know how to teach a specialisation to someone who didn't know the basics.

I would, going to uni was one of the best choices I ever made, it was a ticket out of the life I'd been born into, which wasn't awful but I wanted more.

I didn't have much debt because I went to a uni near home in London, thus saving on accommodation. I also worked 2 jobs part-time, which was hard but it meant I only borrowed about £1k the whole time I was there. I also limited my time in the student union bar and got my mum to mend my clothes so I didn't need to buy new ones in order to save money. It wasn't easy but I knew I had to minimise my debt. I got on a grad training scheme the year I left and I haven't looked back. I also met many different types of people, types that I wouldn't have been exposed to if I never went which changed my outlook on life too. I also got into jobs that non-grads were locked out of.

Up to them.

I think it is very hard on students when they go to university and are expected to do their coursework yet lack the background knowledge and basic building blocks. I remember when I had my first teaching post I was warned that I would find my students quite "primitive" and asked how I was going to cope with that.

I had no idea what that meant. Rather a strange way of putting it. What it meant was they were badly prepared and badly equipped to study the subject and it was not easy to teach like that. It might matter less outside of the humanities.

Could imagine it would be similar in say engineering if you lacked the maths skills so had to acquire the new knowledge whilst trying to make up for what you did not entirely grasp and master in maths at school. It is possible but not easy to do.

If she was doing a proper degree at a proper university, then yes. If she intends doing a mickey mouse degree at some crappy place she won't be supported by us. Equally if she wants to do vocational training we will support her doing that.

I do not approve of going to university "for the experience".

no. i think that (caveat: the coalition appears to be changing the Labour gov'nments thinking on uni for all) anything that is accessible to all is instantly devalued. Therefore, if everyone goes to uni, all are equal and you need to go up a rung. I wd prefer the dcs to think about the career they want, and how to achieve it, or to think about the lifestyle they want and how to achieve it. IE a) career as a writer - maybe creative writing degree/ unpaid work experience or b) any job earning lots of money - accountancy in house training.

Definitely! University broadens your mind, teaches you independance, makes you challenge your own thought processes and can put in contact with world experts in your chosen subject. I loved my experience and so did DH, we are both ex-oxbridge, and i know compared to friends of ours that our experience was more of a challenge than many - this is my personal experience btw not a criticism or judgement! Someone above mentioned at UCL not feeling particularly pushed in learning, and I know when i considered Kings, that was my main concern...the workload looked like the sort i would procrastinate with! (i am inherently lazy)

HOWEVER i would never force a DC to go to uni, nor promote uni for unis sake. Not every career path needs a degree so the importance is to listen to what they want to achieve and help them on the best path there. It is also important to realise some people dont enjoy it and need support with quitting, transfering or finding another subject.

As for affordability, my kids will use the loan system as I did, and pay it back as I did. Higher education is not only for the rich, and student loans are accessible to all. i came from a rough old state 6 form into my degree and the loan was invaluable!

Yes.

Two of mine have been and one is 15. I don't think going to University is the passport to a better life that some claim. Many graduates end up doing jobs they could have done without a degree. My GS has a good degree from Imperial and no job. Makes you wonder if it was worth it.

Possibly. I went to uni but didn't particularly enjoy the experience but it did keep me off the job market until I was mature enough to be fully independant and responsible enough to find the right job and do it well. If DS was bright enough, and interested then I'd back him all the way and do all I could so he didn't graduate with lots of debt. However, if he really didn't want to go or wasn't suited I'd make sure he got a job, preferably one with prospects, but any job so he was busy and earning, not hanging round the house unemployed. Have seen plenty of people (men in particular) who have 'blossomed' later in life and either gone back to studying or have built a business or career when they were not particularly driven in their late teens.

what nomdeplume said

I suspect with 4 I'll have a mixture and I'll support them whichever way as long as it wasn't just to slack

my personal experience of studying - both in the UK and later abroad (phD, post doc) was very positive and I just cannot say if I would have learnt as much, experienced as much if I had worked those years, trained outside university. Maybe, cannot say. I was maybe very lucky in that I had fabulous lecturers/tutors in particular for my first degree and I took to the whole thing like a duck to water. It was mainly the personality of some of my lecturers which motivated me and they expected a lot so you rose to it. So if I think my dd wasn't going to experience that, I think she'd be missing out. Dh has a kind of intellectual brilliance that I don't have and it is one of those things you have or don't have, so university for him was a breeze. His career suits him and he could not have done it without the degrees he did. So we don't either of us regret the experience.

Hard to say. Still I wouldn't get really upset if dd didn't want to do it so long as there was some other reasonable plan for her life and I didn't think she was on the road to nowhere.

Dh's nephew has just dropped out of uni in France and after drifting about smoking cannabis for a while he is doing something else (vocational training). His sister is at a grande ecole gearing herself up for a specific career and very motivated by the sounds of things. They both had the same education, hard to know what dc will make of what you provide for them really.

I would only want my children to go to university if it was a 'proper' uni or it was a vocational course, eg nursing or teaching. In my experience and that of friends/family, there are so many organisations giving out degrees that the only way an employer can distinguish the applicant's calibre is to look at the uni from which the degree was obtained. Unfortunately nowadays, there are thousands of graduates applying for a finite number of jobs.

I want them to be happy and productive members of society. I would be delighted if that included them going to university and getting a decent degree, but I would also be delighted if that involved them getting vocational qualifications and working hard at another kind of job.

What I would not be delighted about is either of them loafing around and sponging off either me or benefits because they are lazy or cannot be arsed to decide what they really want to do, be that at university or not.

And if one of them turns out to be a plumber, builder or mechanic or a gardener I would be thrilled, because both their parents are hopeless at that kind of thing and we could use the help.

not read thread but no
unless is proper subject/course that they really want to do for proper reason
am v disillusioned with uni system

Up to him. If he is academic, then yes. If not, and is more interested in a vocational career route, then I will be just as happy for him.

Basically - as long as he has more ambition than sitting on his arse and playing computer games for the rest of his life, that's fine by me

no, because the one has severe learning learning disabilities

I would hope my middle one will go as he is very academic at maths

youngest is too young to tell really

why are you disillusioned MayorNaze?

because arent 70% or something stupid still unemployed after 12 months?

My friend got a 1st 12 months ago and got an unpaid internship for 6 months and not even a whiff of a job since. She has ended up working back in retail. I don't think it is that uncommon

most degrees were never directly vocational

is that what you meant with being disillusioned with the uni system MayorNaze? (Just mildly curious ...)

www.notgoingtouni.co.uk/apprenticeship-vacancies/

article here

apparently it is 25% unemployed but that only covers new graduates. There is another article here

also bearing in mind that there was a 44% increase in new graduate unemployment last year

so the disillusionment is with a degree not equating ready entrance into a qualified paid position?

I wasn't sure what exactly she MN meant. Could havebeen with the way degrees are taught, students are selected etc. That's why I was asking.

well it isn't just lack of job is it? It is the amount of debt aswell