to think that it's a really bad thing in the long term if so many young people become inured to debt?

[onimolap]

With the highest proportion ever of young people going to university, and today's announcement on higher tuition fees and higher loan interest repayments for all but the very poorest graduate; what is this situation doing to society's current and likely future attitude to debt?

Is the aim to produce a debt-ridden generation? Or to reduce the numbers going to university?

At what point does the "coping class" run out of ability to cope?

I would be very happy if teaching degrees were free :o

FWIW I'm doing an OU degree and due to low income it is entirely free. just need to save up for my PGCE now

People should have to pay for their own education if it means they have a higer earning potential because of it. And if they just want to spend a few years at uni getting a useless degree, then they should also have to pay for it. They are adults when they get to 18, and can make the choice.

Grants should be available for the proffessions that the country needs, and nothing else. Those students should then be obligated to work for the NHS or whatever for a set amount of time so that the country recovers the cost.

It's unfair that this semms to be all about degrees, when there are lots of training courses that would benefit people in the long run that could also be funded. Perhaps everyone could be given a set amount of money from the government in training vouchers or something, then whatever course they chose to do with it is up to them. It could completely fund some cheaper vocational courses, and pay in part for a degree. Seems fair to me.

50% of people do have above average intelligence. The same as 50% of people have below average intelligence.

pedantic aside 50% of people have median intelligence, this may actually be more or less than the average depending on the shape of the distrbution

meant to say at least median ...

We should encourage able people to go to university to study 'ivory tower' subjects. In fact that is exactly what universities are for. Unis are just about getting people into well paid jobs or providing 'socially useful' skills.

My DH ended up doing a PhD in Quantum Field Theory ... not exactly applicable on a day-to-day basis! However, stragely it made him more employable in the real world. When interviewing he always favours those with ivory tower subjects over practical ones. He's much prefer Anglo Saxon Literature to Business Studies.

Uni should be about taking able students and putting them in a top academic environment. Not taking them off the unemployment register and hanging debt round their necks.

sorry typing cockup

"Unis aren't just about getting people into well paid jobs or providing 'socially useful' skills"

No, gerontius, they don't. That would only be true if 'average' were a point with no value, which it isn't.

IQ graphs are shaped like a bell curve, peaking at and just to either side of the average (100). Plenty of people will have IQs of exactly the average (ie, exactly 100). Therefore, there will not be 50% of people left to populate either side of that average.

This is even more obvious when you think that average is usually, for education purposes, not defined as 100 but as a wider group going from a bit below 100 to a bit above. This is the most populous group on the IQ graph, and takes up the peak of the bell curve. Therefore, it is the minority who are either significantly below, or significantly above, average.

real post now. The point of making repayments contigent on income is that university education is a risky investment. Some people do really well and some are unlucky and do less well. Isn't a good idea that the state should take more from those that have been lucky and give to those that have been less lucky.

I would always encourage an academically able child to attend university, and help as much as I could, whether with costs then or later on in life when loans being repaid.

But equally, I would encourage a child who is not able academiclly to look elsewhere- never say no, obviosuly but there aremany options for a successful life and career, not all are graduate linked.

DS1 does jewellery design, at ten he is starting to sell 9to adults, nto family either) and has a clear talent; we shall point him the way of art college. DS2 has a clear vocation with nature and all its animals- two colleges he can access do relevant courses and my sister has a related HND.

DS3- ah now. Big maths talent (year 3, studying with year 6) but quite marked autism; I am thinking OU maths degree perhaps?

DS4 is a baby. We will see.

Dh adn I have both benefitted from moves to get more people into uni but we both acknowledge that whilst we worked and plan to make use of our degrees (DH already has even though he ahs yet to graduate, and I am doing my MA) tehre were people on our courses who quite clearly should not have been, if one considers a degree as the academic standard it once was.

What I would do is have the government fund X number of places for all of the academic courses (would have to properly look in to it to say how many), and then for all vocational type degrees (from photography up to medicine), look at how many jobs become available in them each year then fund that many people on the course. Have all this happen in 20-30 universities which the government subsidises so the course is either free or at least the fees do not raise above what they are now.
These places would become the highly competitive ones so the brightest people would still get to go, and the country would benifit. All the other universities could still offer whatever courses they wanted but they would not have government backing so the students would have to pay. That way anyone with enough money can still go for a degree if they wanted to, but you will always have a group of talented people that can go to one of the subsidised places whatever their income if they are good enough.
I hope I explained that right!

*Oh and it depends what kind of average you are using

But Riven didn't say "significantly above average". If we're just talking about "above" and "below" then it's 50% either side, because intelligence is a continuous variable and therefore no-one has exactly average intelligence. If you do it by IQ it's a little bit different. But there'll still be close to 50% on each side even if you're not including those with IQ of 100.

bambinobambino if teaching (for example) doesn't pay enough to attract graduates, as they can't repay their loans, then the govt could easily offer loan repayments as part of the teaching package (eg become a teacher and after five years of teaching we will repay your loan for you).

The thing is, universities have been turned into a business in the UK. The sector has been allowed to expand to meet demand through a combination of government funding and private sector expansion (attracting international students and charging them 12k per year, consulting to industry, contract research etc). There are now a lot of fairly poor quality universities out there teaching golf management and X-Factor studies all based on this great hope of having tuition fees introduced. It's a market that is built on the assumption that young people will get into ever-increasing amounts of debt to have a degree. How do you downsize the sector without massive job losses now?

I agree that an apprenticeship system would work better and be fairer to young people but few businesses in the UK are willing to make the long-term commitment that this kind of business-led staff training requires. In Germany, most companies take on 'Auszubildende', apprentices, as a regular annual intake, like a graduate programme and for white-collar jobs, not just trades or manual jobs. When I lived in Berlin, a friend of mine was doing an apprenticeship to be a 'media businesswoman' ('Medienkauffrau' i.e. someone with business training for the media industry) with a film production company. She went to school 1.5 days per week to study business and then worked in different areas of the business 3.5 days per week getting training in everything from accountancy to sales to production to editing etc. She was paid a fairly low salary (around 10k equivalent) but she had no debts. This to me would be far more beneficial to young people wanting to work in the media sector than doing a degree in Media Studies from the University of Bums on Seats, and getting no professional skills, as happens in the UK, while ending up with 20k+ worth of debt for the privilege. The thing is in Germany, the private sector shares the costs of training up its staff for the future and is willing to commit to hiring a young person out of school for 3 years. Here the private sector wants the young people to pay for their own training and the government to subsidise anything else. Businesses just don't seem to want to invest in people and they work to such short-term horizons that committing to a three-year apprenticeship programme wouldn't work.

WRT to what should be offered- I am on teh fence.

I did an ivory tower course; it has benefitted me as it got me on to the work related MA, many from it still unemployed though (though they could well be described, certainly one or two, as unemployable)

On the otehr hand, DH is doing a specific field related degree: one the univcersity is a specialist in, only one exactly of the type in the UK. poeple dismiss it as non academic but regardless, the industry love it and visit regularly to demonstarte new products, offer training, trial equipment and sponsorship.

Both are IMO valid. People on MN have suggested that DH's course should be moved to a college becuase of its nature but as the university hs invested several million in a state of teh art environment for them, hardly likely.

The courses I loathe are the also-rans I saw at Uni: English Lit courses that simply scooped up the ones other people rejected. Under funded and under staffed sciences simply kept on as a sweetener to a science dept now vanished. Courses that woudln;t even have enough students without clearing.

Offer varied options, most career paths need a group of people more qualified whoc an sdesign / lead and innovate: drop the stuff that simply isn't producing quality graduates.

I agree that the emphasis on so many of the population attending University is wrong. The problem is the horse has already bolted. Employers with jobs that traditionally went to school leavers with few qualifications now target graduates as there are more and they can get what they perceive to be a higher calibre of employee for the same money they used to spend.
People will bankrupt themselves to ensure their children have the same chances as others. Why should a very bright child miss out on Uni because they just miss out on qualifying for a bursary while the average child of a rich family can do the same course? Will standards be maintained if access to University depends on income? It's worrying and I'm not sure what the solution is. The graduate tax appealed to me but apparently it's not workable.

gerontius, I know she didn't say 'significantly'. But it's still incorrect to say that 50% of people have above average IQ, because IQ is measured such that many people have IQs on the average point.

In practical terms, it's pretty unhelpful to think of 50% of people having 'above average intelligence' I think, because although you are right that intelligence is a continuous variable, in practical terms, many people are around average and 'look the same' in education terms.

If we want to send half the population to university, we'll actually end up (as we do now) struggling to choose which of the 60/70% of the population qualify - those of above average intelligence, and those of about average intelligence. I'm not convinced IQ/intelligence as tested by A-Level is all that reliable in measuring how well someone will do at their degree and how good they'll be at their chosen job afterwards. But, it is wrong to imagine intelligence as something that splits so sharply into 'half are above average, half are below'.

I know a few Oxbridge graduates on the dole... it's worrying in the current economic climate (ooh get me using the buzz words!)

True BH.

And there's a very simple argument that the best reason to go to university is because everyone else who wants the job you want will have done.

It's great to moralise and argue about standards etc, but in relaity who would want their child disadvanatged competitively for a moral standpoint?

The former head of my MA said that we should accept universities for what they have become, an extension of general education, and look at post grad as the new answer: he may have ahd a point.

Does seem as though post-grad is the new graduate these. A straight BA or BSc just isn't enough to differentiate you. Moreover, students are competing against their peers globally for the best jobs, not just against other UK students. It seems much tougher than 15-20 years ago.

My DH goes back to help interview candidates for his old workplace. Last year they received 15,000 application for 25 jobs. HR basically rejects you before interview if you don't have something special on you CV. They haven't got the time.

Me too Algebra. But I think some people who are very good at one thing, such as an academic subject, are also very narrow, and not very good at anything else!

Sancti - I really hope postgraduate education doesn't become the new answer. For one thing, it's expensive, and for another, it means people may have to delay things like saving to buy a house or planning a family until later.

Riven, I'm sure you're right that being rich gets some people further than they otherwise would, but do you really think your DD in her first term, is a better judge than a panel of academics who've been picking candidates for years? Seems a bit harsh.

Agree Riven with the people being coached.

I have a friend who went to Oxbridge from a state comp and said that there were many, MANY people he met who were coached to get in. Which is all fine and well, but they really struggled once in Oxbridge as they'd never really had to be motivated off their own bat. Another friend who is a nanny has had mothers asking what maths their 6 month old or one year old should/could be doing?! BARKINGNESS

I have said already several times on these boards that poverty is not a barrier to an excellent and free education if one chooses to persue it. Harvard will take British students, pay fees & accommodation and fly them back to the UK for holidays. For free.

'Course you've got to be good enough...