Universities mis-selling courses

[LornMowa]

Having read a post in Money Matters and knowledge of 2 other people whose lives have taken a turn for the worse since becoming a student, AIBU to think that Universities should be much more discerning about who is allowed to take courses.

I think that by enticing people whose earning prospects are unlikely to be enhanced by a degree to become students, some universities are as reprehensible as other leaches such as loan sharks.

To the poster on MM, I do hope that you can improve your prospects and resolve your current problems.

There will be complaints if the unis do deliver what they promise. A 2.2 in philosophy from [blank] is worth less in the market than a 1st in engineering from Cambridge, just because from an employer's perspective that is the way to bet, not because philosophy is intrinsically less important. The philosophy student needs to know that before starting the course, but why should [blank] have the obligation to point it out? Caveat emptor, as when buying a dress from Next.

agree tinker, and I have trouble beleiving that any prospective philosophy student wouldn't know that a 2.2 in philosophy is worth less than a engineering 1st from cambridge. Or that a degree in football studies is worth diddly squat to anyone and wouldn't get you a job sweeping a kids football pitch.

It's not always that easy to know which courses are respected/well taught though - especially if you don't have the support at school when you're applying (my teachers knew sweet FA about applying!).

For example, I think it's Teeside university has an excellent reputation in engineering, but you'd not know it from the general reputation of the university. In contrast, I know someone who studied German and Management, and I saw the prospectus describing her course. It made it sound as if she'd learn really important business skills and simultaneously become fluent in German, which sounds really good. By her second year she was still way, way below GCSE standard and had realized the course description was basically a lie.

Now, you could say she should have been brighter and worked out what was going to happen, but she and most of her peer group had been told they 'must' go to university and that it was crucial to getting a good job. There should be more protection of people who're quite young, and often not the brightest stars in the sky.

I started Uni this year knowing that I may have loads of debt at the end but for 3 years would be well taken care of.
I worked 3 jobs since my son was born 6 years ago and still struggled to fund the car to work, childminders fees,household bills and never having a second to myself. The degree is bliss!

I get housing costs paid,don't have to pay council tax and get tax credits as well as uni loan. Also get a bursary and grant. All for 8 hours of lectures a week.

It sounds bad I know but it beats 45+hours of working for someone else,never seeing my sons sports day,plays etc and I come out of it with something for myself. If I don't earn any more than before then I don't have to pay the loan back.

However I agree that teaching 50% of the population Harvard APA does not help them or the country become brighter. I think we need to lose the idea that higher education is this amazing thing and celebrate people that can actually "do" something constructive. Whether that be inventing ,selling,plumbing or being brilliant doctors.

at 'all for 8 hours of lectures a week'.

Amazingly, in spite of large numbers of young people going to university, we are still as a country lacking skills in certain areas.

We do not have enough students studying the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects. We have a shortage of people with high level IT skills, to the extent that employers are having to import talent (such as computer programmers) from other countries.

I think maybe too many kids are going for subjects like law and psychology (nothing wrong with these subjects as such, only that there are not enough jobs for them all in law and psychology) and too few are going for STEM subjects. The reasons are complex - there is a perception that STEM subjects are boring and/or not suitable for women (thus wasting a lot of potential talent).

As a society we need to think about how degrees in subjects where there is a skills shortage can be made more attractive - so students choose computing or engineering rather than subjects that they perceive to be more fun, like media.

I hope you do more than 8 hours a week, otherwise you won't be coming out with a degree at all.

18-year-olds are told things like "the average graduate job pays £25K rising to £50K within ten years". What they don't understand is that these are jobs that require graduates, e.g. graduate entry into a big company, not the actual jobs that graduates end up getting, e.g. call centre. Only when 50% of job vacancies ask for degrees do we need 50% of 18-year-olds going to university.

One outcome of the tuition fees rising might be that some of the lesser universities will go out of business.

Someone was on about apprenticeships as an alternative to university ^^. My dd is going to uni in Sep. I have just looked on the site and there is 1 apprenticeship, in her field, in the north of england. Its a good idea, but its simply not a viable alternative.

skirt - not all employers advertise via this website yet. Your dd could contact employers in her field and enquire if they offer apprenticeships.

I do appreciate that there are not as many apprenticeships as there are university places, but both the Labour and subseqently the coalition government are encouraging employers to offer apprenticeships so hopefully the situation will change.

8 hrs sounds about right in the later years

No, it really doesn't geez.

LRD- "It's not always that easy to know which courses are respected". Sorry, I disagree, it is easy. The subjects that people find hard (physics, chinese) are respected and the ones they find easy (english) are not. (And if anyone reading this did english, suck it up.)

ccntact time I reckon it does.. some of our courses dont have much contact time after level 4

Coming from the other side - I was missold a university course back in the 90s, before tuition fees came in. It was for a course that was nothing like that which was advertised. Many other students on the course felt the same way, and when looking for an alternative course when I dropped out of that, one lecturer told me he's heard a lot of complaints about the course I was on! My parents weren't in a position to advise, I was 18 and didn't have much of a clue.

Though I have education only up to A level standard, what hacks me off are lazy employers who overlook experience and good references and require degrees for example, call centre management jobs or other jobs where experience and common sense are all that's required.

Erm do you actually know what's involved in an English degree tinker? It's lots of sociological and psychological theory critically applied to literature.

It's not a cop out degree like some of the others mentioned before like gambling studies. Admittedly it's not a job specific degree (unless you want to teach) but it is suitable for applying for many graduate jobs.

Fwiw my first degree was in English from a white brick uni. I stayed with the company I'd been working for as a student and became a manager. I would say I've had more success than my friend who started about the same time with a first class degree from Cambridge who joined via the graduate scheme. But that's because my attitude, networking and practical skills are better. Probably as a result of my practical work experience rather than anything academic.

Yes, tinker, I did English. I've not really had anyone suggest it's not respected though, so perhaps it's not so easy to judge as you thought?

I really don't believe it is easy for an 18 year old to work these things out, and certainly it's hard if that 18 year old is not very bright anyway. I mean, I doubt there are many 18-year-old geniuses whose course choice matters much!

geez - that's the point I was trying to make: that poster sounds as if she thinks she's only being funded to attend the contact hours, and she'll very likely fail (and waste all the investment put into her studying) if she does that. It'd make me cross if she were my student.

what is a white brick Uni? Never heard of that before.

I've heard the term 'white tile university' but don't know what it means - are they the same?

Why are "not very bright" 18 yo going to Uni?

8 hours lectures a week should not be enough to get all the benefits and discounts suggested, as that counts as a part time course (unless they've changed the rules again) Our students had to do 15 contact hours a week to qualify for all student benefits of a full time course.

Having said that, back in the olden days when I was at Uni (a couple of decades ago and before the grants were removed) a friend's sister was doing an Art course that was only 6 hours of lectures a week. We did 28 hours so considered that a bit shit, tbh.

Agree entirely that if someone thinks that 8 hours per week ONLY is going to get them a degree then they're very wrong - but that's not what the poster said, she said she had 8 hours of lectures a week. That's different.

Because the Labour govt. decided it'd be a good idea to encourage 50% to apply?

I think it is really cruel that the system encourages kids with Ds and Es to think that they can and should be going to university - there's no thought that it might be cruel and wasteful. I grant the odd person will have made an accidental mess of their schooling and will suddenly thrive at university - but most of them, no.

What gets me is that I don't think it's even the brightest 50% of kids who're expected to go - I know people my age and younger (20s) who are not remotely academic and not remotely capable of academic study, who're still encouraged by parents to get themselves onto any course that'll have them. Complete waste.

I honestly don't think that some of the students I've known were bright enough to realize they were being duped. It's not just a waste of three years of their time, it's a waste for all of us.

No, thumb, she said 'All for 8 hours of lectures'. The money isn't 'all for 8 hours of lectures', it's for that and a whole lot more, which she should be doing.

Btw, I graduated in 2007 and never did more than 2-3 hours contact time a week; I still got full-time funding.

Ah well, you're more recent than me so I'll assume they've changed the rules. Or maybe they only applied to us because we were a college affiliated to a Uni, rather than a Uni.
And I take your point re the "all for 8hrs of lectures".

Not very bright 18yos going to Uni - something to do with the reduction of requirements in A levels to get good grades, perhaps? Why is it that so many students now get loads of As and A*s, enough that students with 5 As can't get good University places, purely because there are too many of them?!

Could be, thumb, I'm not sure. I think it might be that some places get around rules by just saying they don't run any part time courses so the amount of hours isn't examined.

Sorry to have harped on about the 8 hours - it's only at the forefront of my mind because I've been trying to explain to one of my students that if he has a problem, it just might be because he's working about 20 hours a week instead of 40!

I think the current situation with A-levels is horribly unfair. Students work so hard and get so little back - and it's not their fault that they're sitting a particular kind of exam.