Just received email saying tuition fees to be increased to 9K from next year. aibu to want to weep?

[ladysybil]

It wont affect the amount i pay, as i am already a student. grandfather law applies. I knew this was coming. but am still unreasonably upset at this.

Well, yes, nanny, but I don't expect students to need a strict ratio of nursery staff to care for them!! Though some students I know could probably benefit....

Books aren't necessary. Those of us who couldn't afford them went to the library. I'm still a student. I still go to the library!

My dd is in her late 20s. The books on her book list for university cost over £200 and she bought more in the first few weeks. DS1 had to buy drawing board, special pens and masses of other stuff in addition to books. Nothing about university is cheap. Also not all students can do paid work. Engineering students have 30+ hours per week lectures/tutiorials. DS1 couldn't even manage any sport. He played in university 1st teams in his first year but further into his course he didn't have time for training.

Strange you say books aren't necessary DH has worked as a graduate/chartered engineer for nearly 40 years and on occasions he still refers to his!

DS1 who also did engineering keeps many of his text books in the office.

nagy - I guess it depends on your field. The few uni books I did buy are now so out of date they're works of comedy. But even in your examples, the books might still be helpful now, but there is no reason why as a student, the person couldn't have used the library's copies, and then bought them when they graduated.

True Annie- But DD and DS1 were the first in either family to go away to university. DH did his degree as a part time 'sandwich' while working.
The book list came. DD paniced and thought she had to read the lot over the summer!

The books question very much depends on your field. For students of literature, having your own copy of the text that you can annotate and revisit is invaluable.

I did arts - TBH I could honestly say that I could have got through my degreee without buying a book. The reading list usually dominated by journals hence couldn't own them. The literature can be picked up pretty cheaply and I don't think you'd find many Englsh grads who don't already own eg, copies of SHakespeare.

I think it's interesting what you're saying Annie but it just is different in the UK where degrees are often meant to teach abstract thinkgs like lateral thinking, writing skills etc.

Most of the larger firms prefer to train their own graduates and therefore don't want universities to teach subjects like accountancy at an undergraduate level - they want graduates who are articulate and confident, who can speak up in a meeting and argue their point (hence the preference for students who have been through the Oxbridge tutorial system). The city firms and institutions love classics students, for example. For whatever reason, business studies is regarded as a fairly soft subject (as is American/European/media studies etc) and the top tier universities don't offer it (but will instead offer economics and politics).

I think the science degrees have the same links to eg, IT & engineering that the arts degrees have to media/publishing/advertising etc ie, you're more likely to go into that field but I wouldn't describe it as vocational in the way that a nursing or architecture degree is.

"hogsback Thu 03-Mar-11 10:23:12
On the positive side, I think a lot of students are going to consider going to uni abroad - the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Germany are looking attractive and even some US schools, particularly if you can get a scholarship."

genuine question, what about the language issue (not US)?

A lot of universities abroad (particularly those with relatively obscure languages) offer courses in English deliberately to attract foreign students from eg, the Middle East and Asia.

I fully expect my former university to announce very soon it's going in at the 9 grand mark as well... it's one of the traditional second-choice of the Oxbridge crowd ones and if the other similarly placed ones have jumped at that level, it won't go against.

I was the last year that got a student grant. I also squeaked through PGCE in the time they were doing training bursaries there. I was incredibly, incredibly lucky.

There's no way I would have gone to the university I did, where I was more than academically capable of holding my own, if the fees then were what they are now. I would have been limited to my home-town uni only, that's a pretty badly-regarded one.

staranise, I'm not sure how you're proving your point about not needing ot buy books. "The literature can be picked up pretty cheaply" sounds to me very much like a purchase, and the statement that "I don't think you'd find many Englsh grads who don't already own eg, copies of Shakespeare" implies that either they must have bought them at some point, or else perhaps they are lucky enough to have had someone else buy them for them. Lots of students don't have a family bookshelf stocked with classics.

You can choose not to buy books in that you can rely on the library.

However, the classics can be picked up for as little as 20p secondhand, £1 new (Wordsworth classics).

Sure, not everypne's family has books but I would imagine an English undergraduate to be sufficiently interested in reading to either own copies or have a very well-used library card.

catinthehat: lots of English-medium courses in Dutch and Scandinavian unis. But it's also a really good incentive to do MFLs at school. Most European students get a great pick of unis as they must study 1 or 2 foreign languages to a high standard at school.

Unfortunately in the UK and Ireland MFLs have been so poorly supported in schools that we really limit our choices - not just for uni but for employment too.

I'm a consultant and if you have a second language and international exposure and experience you are vastly more flexible and attractive to clients - as a result we recruit almost exclusively bilingual staff, which as we need people with technical skills means we find it virtually impossible to recruit British graduates.

The combination of hard science/engineering + languages is a ticket to a great career - we start new graduates on £35k and it goes up steeply from there.

Did anyone hear on the Today programme this morning the discussion about vocational courses and the contrast between the UK and Germany, which offers superb vocational apprenticeships at great companies. These were contrasted with the low level UK qualifications at low level colleges that offered no chance of hands on experience and therefore were no help with finding a job. The German courses were very expensive however (for the governemnt/sponsor, not the student).

star: yes I did. The elephant in the room is that Germany has huge numbers of employers to take on skilled machinists etc, whereas we have virtually destroyed our heavy engineering and manufacturing sector.

The fantastic Technische Hochschulen feed giants like Siemens, VAG, Daimler, BMW, Bayer, BASF and the thousands of smaller companies that feed their supply chain.

We just don't have a comparable industrial base: BAE, Rolls-Royce, Shell, BP are about it and much of their operations is outside the UK, as is much of their supply chain.

Well, I have indeed learned something today. I honestly had no idea that the big businesses employed people with irrelevant degrees and trained them up. Sounds like a good system - a win-win for business and student. And gives people an incentive to study the classics and arts. Good! I like it.

But why is a degree in English irrelevant to working in media? I work in the financial sector in communications. Reading 17th literature doesn't directly feed into my work but the writing/editing/analytic skills I learnt does.

Many jobs in financial services don't really require specialist training and those that do eg, accountancy, don't want to train 18 year olds who have just left school - they want the more mature, independent 21 year olds. I'm not convinced that business studies can teach anything in a lecture hall that woudn't be better learnt on the job.

hogsback - yes, this is the impression I get from DH and his friends who did science degrees. There were just no jobs in what they studied or, if there were, the field was very limited (and competitive) eg, in what DH studied (and did a PhD in) there are only two companies who do it and hence few job prospects.

I work for a university and word from the top is that it has to charge close to the £9k as it would hurt its image to be seen as one of the bargain basement degree providers.

It's almost comic the way that the government told universities they could charge up to £9k and then acts shocked and disapproving when they actually do.

Hogsback/Staranise...This is also why many people in this country think an engineer is someone with a spanner. I think the man who mends washing machines does a great job, but he is not an engineer. Also any degree in science/engineering can also lead to post grad study in law etc. Not so sure a degree in english would be so useful in post grad science.

Nicknametaken...So with 17, 15 & 14 yearolds who may well want to follow their older sibs and do 3 or 4 years at university. How much realistically are we looking at if we stump up the full cost!

star: my first degree and PhD are in hard sciences too. I don't use them directly in my job, but I could not do my job without the skills and knowledge gained via my scientific background. Most Physics graduates don't end up working as physicists, however some of the most highly paid jobs in the UK (e.g. investment bank quant) draw principally from physics and maths grads.

My experience talking to science and maths undergraduates at Imperial, UCL, Oxbridge etc is that most of them do not expect to go into a career that directly uses their degree, however they expect their degree to make them extremely attractive to employers who value rigour, logical thinking and mathematical ability.

Sorry, nagy, I don't know any more than that (and the university is making me redundant anyway...)

Sorry to hear that Nickname.

DS are fully aware that their choice of universities will be limited so that they can live at home and still study. Not ideal maybe but we do have some good ones close to home.

Costs? I am not sure how the £9k will increase year on year but remember no one has to pay a penny of it unless they want to. I suppose someone could produce a computer programme to analyse when to pay up front:-

1. Student A will be a City lawyer, banker etc and has a reasonable chance to earn £30k - £2m a year +. Probably worth paying their fees upfront.

1. Student B hates capitalism and money and would regard any job as part of the system as a sell out. She intends to read advanced bead work studies degree. She intends to join a commune or else sell her beaded necklaces before she marries a man and has babies and never erally works much in the future. Not much point in paying her fees as she'll never have to pay the loan back.

1. Student C wants to read medicine at Leeds - 6 year course. probably will become a doctor on £100k a year eventualyl. Will earn that for X years... I can't do the maths for that one etc etc

Then we hav the risk of the rules changing 5 years later and repayments being raised etc

As for costs of paying upfront I have been paying £10k a year for the older 3 which is the same as their school fees. That was made up of fees of £1k or £3k, rent - can't now remember what that was and £100 a week for travel food books etc. It is not painful if you've been paying school fees anyway but obvously is if you don't have the funds for it. Most students however at present have a mixture of some parental help and student loans and jobs.