to be very heartened by the student riots!

[Heathcliffscathy]

apathy be damned...I predict more riots...looks like the youth have found their teeth.

OP - YABVU.

Hope the police trace as many of the rioters as possible and the bunch of them end up with criminal records after what they have done. If they think life is hard now, lets see how they fare trying to find a job with a criminal record.

The current university system is a joke. Pottonista is spot on in her earlier posts.

Blinks you silly old sausage

Minus the violence I think hallelujah that students are getting up agin (and it's not all useless degrees; it's any degree getting a BA and not a BSc / BEd. That's a lot of useful ones- like my BILs languages degree).

Violence is never OK though.

Tey were NOT riots. It was a peaceful demonstration. There were only 32 arrests out of 50000 people.

The media has labelled this demonstration as 'riots'. It makes me very cross.....spin, spin, spin......

Haven't read the thread but have some difficulty in trying to work out why the 60% who definitely won't go to the uni and are likely to earn less than those who do should have to fund the 40% who end up with a degree and who are likely to earn more.

Everyone is funded up to 18. If that the statutory education is insufficient and inadequate I really do think that is where funding needs to be directed.

My understanding is that 9k is only for Oxbridge anyway. Otherwise it's 6K and that's almost what we pay per term per child. So to me, for non mandatory education, quite frankly it looks like a bargain. Those that don't want to pay it don't have to.

mmm yeah, bargain.... how the other half live, eh. fuck me sideways.

Rather than using foul language Blinks why don't you argue why the 60% who cannot attend obtain a degree should financially support the privileged 40% who can?

Your language appears to be indicative of your ignorance and I trust you will agree that someone so vulgar does not deserve an education at the expense of others.

The idea is that the "privileged" 40% will go on to good jobs and pay back via taxes the money invested in them.

the problem is that many graduates are now facing a situation where there not enough jobs for them. this, IMO, is due to too amny people becoming graduates for the number of graduate-type jobs. Can we not tailor the number of people getting degrees to the number of jobs likely to be available to those people? When my parents went to university they were far from "privileged". When they graduated and went to buy their first home as soon as the bank discovered they were graduates they were welcomed with open arms. And indeed they did go into good jobs, as did their fellow graduates, and worked all their lives, paying taxes.

I don't understand why now it seems that we have a culture of everyone going on to further education. We NEED all the other trades too. We need a balance. So to me the answer has to lie in trying to make graduate numbers tie in with society's actual requirement for their skills, and not just encourage everyone to go to university as some kind of "everyone is equal" statement. Everyone IS equal, but we can be different and equal. Shock, horror- people have different skills that can be balanced in an intelligent society.

onceamai - I think it is ludicrously optimistic to think 'only' Oxbridge will charge £9k. Once they are allowed to, they all will. Certainly the whole Russell Group. The only ones that will want to compete on price are the ones that have less demand from students. So the most prestigious universities will become the preserve of the rich and the few members of the very poorest section of society who manage to find their way through what will undoubtedly be a bureacratic nightmare of form filling. Ordinary people who aren't reach but whose parents earn more than the minimum wage will be squeezed out.

That's not good for young people but it isn't good for society, either. We will lose the talents of people who may well be brighter and more inquisitive than those whose parents cannot afford £9k + living expenses. Or those whose parents can afford it but choose not to.

yYou know that 9k will have to show special measures for poor but bright?

Agreed Jooly - all the more so in that many of the graduates I hire on a regular basis for what would have been solid O'Level/at best A'Level entry jobs 30/40 years ago, can barely string together a grammatical sentence. I didn't go to uni, but in my 20s/30s had a very successful career and do again, post children. As I said earlier, funding needs to be focussed at pre 18 to drastically improve foundation standards of education. There is a huge difference between being well educated and well qualified.

I just don't understand why we can't go back to the old system of limited uni places, funded on means-tested grants. So anyone who is suitable for doing the course - regardless of wealth - gets in. And anyone else - regardless of wealth - simply can't.

Demote the 'new' unis back to polys. Focus on skilled labour and also admissions for mature students doing career/vocation - based courses, paid for by their employers. How many people truly know what they want at the age of 18 anyway?

Bloated is exactly the right word to describe the system. Too many unis, too many students. No wonder the tax payer can't sustain it any longer.

"How many people truly know what they want at the age of 18 anyway"

It wasn't that long ago that we left school at 16 and in DH's case (he is an august baby) starting work when he was still 15. We were expected to know our career path in those days at a much younger age.

DH went straight into an apprenticeship and got professional qualifications (IET) through day release and evening classes and I suspect he didn't have to pay for most of it.

And DH said he could always tell the engineers who had gone through the university route.
The could explain how an oscilloscope worked, but didn't know how to turn it on and use it.

Lol bruffin. My dad's a UMIST-educated mech engineer, he's just managed to build a house, albeit VERY slowly and methodically!

I certainly didn't know what I wanted at 18. If I could have my time again I would swap my degree in Spanish and History for a degree in Marketing. It would have been far better use of govt money. I still got to management level via making the coffee and answering the phone as my first job. I do wonder though, whether I needed to study four years at uni to have got a job as the tea girl.

Agree with bruffin, bolter, once amai: bruffin, I think you said what I wanted to say way back on the first page of this thread.

The current system works for no one. Doesn't work for my bright but non uni suited son: doesn't work for my two other uni-hopefuls who will struggle to find a job anyway. It's just crazy. Bring down the number of graduates and bring up the number of on the jobs.

When I left school, I really wanted to join the WRAF. I went through 3 days of interviews and sat a test to see which jobs I was intelligent enough for. I could have done any job in the WRAF however I wasn't accepted, thankfully I realised that it really wasn't the right environment for me.
I then got a job within a few weeks of leaving school at an Inusrance company.
Every year this company took on a 16 year old school leaver who started off giving out teh post and telexes (shows my age) but that schooleaver basically ended up following their own pathway through the company. Some doing secretairal, others like went into technical accounts. One of the managing directors started off as the teaboy. I was earning enough to buy a flat in london by the time I was 21 when most of todays students are now just coming onto the jobs market with very little work experience and I am sur ewould be totally aghast to be giving out the post and doing the photocopying.

Apple: true, the current system is crap. Probably works for the rich who get to join the Bullingdon Club and go on to run the country, though.

But special measures for the poor but bright don't really ameliorate the terrible effects of this appalling policy. What about those who are just above the cut-off? What about that favourite phrase of politicians, the squeezed middle? What about those who don't have supportive parents - just because they earn enough for the offspring to be charged £9k doesn't mean they have to pay it.

I think students are the only group of adults who are assessed on someone else's income. (Most of them are not living at home so they aren't part of a household, unlike couples where one claims benefits.)

I agree about that assessment thing. Surely then if patent dies when child is still student no inheritance tax should be paid.

Bruff YES. You could do virtually anything bar jerry surgery that way! Certainly journalism was a teaboy start. Or could be. Some people don't have the self motivation for imo and are camping at the bot to earn some money and plan a career on the hoof. Hate this system and it's jot because of fees or money.

My ING phone made a right meal of that!

Bruffin, the reality is though that most 'milk round rejects' like me do go on to become teaboys/girls after graduating and have to work their way up regardless of having a degree!

My dsis, who graduated just over two years ago, has been promoted from her first job, on the factory floor of a well-known luxury brand retailer, but is still earning a pittance, and is rubbing shoulders with plenty of non-graduates at the same level as her - and of a similar age.

I'm rambling now, time to bow out!

So many people could just start at the bottom and work their way up and they didn't have to have 2:1 degrees.
I know someone who started out stacking shelves in Tesco at 16yrs (he was a drop out and only did it because his parents said he had to do something)and now he trains graduates. Someone who started in insurance, took all the exams while working and now is in a top job and can afford school fees for his DCs. There are many more like them-I can see lots of examples on friends reunited.
Lots of successful people didn't go to university and it is a sad day for everyone to feel that they have to.

I live in a uni town and i dont feel the students do themselves any favours at all.Round here they shop in cult clothing eat in nandos and go clubbing (getting really pissed) about 5 nights a week.I cant do any of those things so i must adnit my sympathy has wained a little. Maybe they should cut back a bit and thus wouldnt have to borrow so much money in the first place.
On ther other hand i do hate the idea of only the rich being entitled to a degree level education but dont really know the answer to that.

Agree Piscesmoon. Self belief and common sense can go far further than a degree.

Ledkr - I was one of those hedonistic students! If it's any consolation I really paid for it later...