Anyone discouraged kids from university in light of tuition fee rises?

[Officedepot]

In light of uni fees now being £9k per year (so £27k for three year degree) plus living costs students starting uni now would be coming out with debt over £40k

Anyone actively discouraged kids from going to uni on this basis?

I can understand if they are going to a top uni to study medicine or law etc, but AIBU to suggest if they are going to a rubbish uni to do a pointless degree it should be discouraged.

I have lots of friends who did degrees at second rate unis in random subjects and are still earning a tiny amount in their early 30s.......

I think young people should always be discouraged to going to university to do a pointless course just so they can "have the experience".

Regardless of whether it was under the old fee system or the new one.

But I'm talking Davic Beckham studies style courses here.

My dh has degree did nothing with it, he on his own studdied for CISSCO exams and has a good career now.

I went to uni after working for 2 years and now have a career I could not do without my degree but I only went to uni for the degree- not for life experience- which was minimal tbh.

An OU course costs £5k per year full time equivalent since the rise, so £15k for a standard degree + a bit more if you do any residentials or extra bits.

The dc that do go to university to do 'pointless' courses probably have the best chance of never earning over the threshold and so never paying a penny of their loan back, so in some ways the new system encourages the pointless courses.

Move to Scotland.....although how long it will stay free here is anyone's guess.

No, but it has hugely impacted on how we plan our finances and the private education they may have had will not be.

Having said that, huge numbers of people were going to 'University', so I am not sure that loosing a few (provided it is the right few) is a disaster.

Can't some degrees/post grads be free? Thinking of medicine (and related), teaching, foreign office etc... You could agree to working so many years 'for the state' to wipe debt.

DS is 6 yrs old - who knows what things will be like in 12 years time. All I can do is save money between now and then and help him make sound decisions that will benefit him long term.

Farrah

No bit their are more bursaries later on in the course Ds2 looked hard into it . He has a long time studying the only good bit is after 5 years he can work and study to

He wants forensic pathology but after talking to people has been told that doing the standard forensic courses thanks to Csi a lot are doing and very few get job in field

Instead he been told med school then specialise in pathology and then do postgraduate course in forensic so lot of studying for a boy brought up by a single disabled parent living in council estate but he wants it his teachers feel he can ( y11 now ) and he wanted it since age 11 so I shall encourage him to follow his dream and were handle the how's as they happen

farrah - as human says, there are bursaries for some degrees.

Lots of postgrad courses are eligible for funding - some of them earn students more than minimum wage (there is a MNer whose degree was getting her 17k per year).

But still, it isn't really good enough when undergraduate degrees have so few bursaries.

Just to show how much OU fees have gone up, they were about £750-£1000 for 60 credit module in arts/humanities subjects. My entire six year degree (360 credits) is going to cost about the same as one module does now.

Also it's impacting hugely on the way OU operates. Residentials are disappearing fast, modules are vanishing and there is already a lot less choice than when I started. My last tutor was very vocal about this and my current one can't actually bring himself to talk about it as he gets so angry! In a nutshell they feel that it's a raw deal for students :(

I would encourage mine to do it anyway - I was a self supporting student with my degree - 4 jobs - fair bit of loan debt and I self funded my post grad - £6500 in 1995 - I left with a lot of debt but it's paid off now and I have (not for much longer sadly) a well paid professional job

I loved my degree - I value learning for the sake of it and I will encourage my girls to if they want to

Reading all this I'm so glad we're in Scotland and have been long enough that we dont pay fees locally.

That said, if an alternative was available and best for my dc, I'd happily pay.

For some degrees now if you are in England/Wales it's worth looking into the Netherlands at their English language unis (Maastricht I think), UCD in Dublin and even the US can work out cheaper with live-in bursaries.

Luckily for us Scotland has good unis (we met in Edinburgh) and so far our children aren't looking to do anything strange or startling!

If you look at uni as merely a path to higher wage then yeah, £9k plus living expenses would start to make you think twice.

However it is so much more than about a better paid job, the experience I had at uni was priceless (cliche).

I loved my course and the work, loved the social side and being involved in sports clubs and the national student organisation for my sport. I grew up, developed better social skills, learnt how to cook and love away from home. Oh, and did I say I loved spending hours in the library researching my essays .

However my experience would have been much poorer if I had beem seriously worrying about money all the time and having to work evenings and weekend in paid work.

I think it's a real shame the emphasis has to be out ok monetary worth of a degree and not just the importance of learning and education in its own right.

I couldn't have got my job without a degree, so for me it was also 'worth it' in terms of money. My employer does now do an apprenticeship scheme where you qualify in 6 years with a degree and professional qualification. They are paid OK for those 6 years, think they start on £16k outside of london but if you weigh up they aren't paying out for their education at all it's a great scheme. IF at 18 you know what you want to do and have the sticking power of 6 years.

Oh, also the previous governments target of 50% to go to uni was total bullshit. 59% of this country does not need a bloody degree in beauty, or leisure, or 'law' from an ex-polly.

I'm trying to look on it more as a graduate tax than a debt.
A bit like the hopefully manageable, predictable, and normal debt of a mortgage.
I'm reasonably reassured by things like it not having to be paid back until earning over 21k and then at reasonable rate of 9%. And being written off after 25 years one way or the other.
I'd still look at other options though, such as them studying abroad - Europe ?
eg Netherlands seems promising ? Or moving to Scotland ?!
And am aware that it will likely push me towards encouraging them to do something more vocational than in my laid-back day. But that's probably no bad thing.

Whois,

I think it's a real shame the emphasis has to be out ok monetary worth of a degree and not just the importance of learning and education in its own right.

A lot of that I agree with, unfortunately it comes down to how much the country can subsidise the education, it's already 4 (3 with the guaranteed nursury parts I guess) to 18 so that's 14 years worth. Obviously there's a big return to the country in that investment, but with the return to the country being less after 18, and the investment rewarding those who continue to study disproportionately. It can't really happen.

Hopefully more bursaries, scholarships, awards etc. that are available in countries which have had paid tertiary education for some time will appear so there are routes for people still study without the worry.

I couldn't say until nearer the time, because I think it depends on several factors. if the likelihood of her getting her feet on the housing ladder is as dismal as it would be now then I'd say go for it, get into that debt and see where the qualifications take you. If however there was a chance of her getting a decent house I might advise her to wait or try a different approach.

I went to Uni as a mature student at 21, having worked for 3 years with a decent enough salary before going. After Uni I got a job earning fractionally more than I did before going, the new job was in London so my costs were higher, and I started with 20k of debt and no chance of saving a deposit for a house as I had my student loans and overdraft to pay back.

By the time I had paid them back 5 years later and was able to start saving for a house prices had gone mental, even when I relocated back out of London, I'm now in my late 30's and still have insufficient savings to buy my own place. I'm a SAHM having been made redundant, and I can hand on heart say I would be MUCH better off, with a house of my own, had I never been to Uni. plus jobs in my trained field are scarce and I am now doing something completely different.

I know thats not the case for everyone, but I'd advise DC to consider very carefully the end result of their studies and whether Uni was a wise decision for them. I wish my parents had!!

You've got to live in Scotland for 3 years before uni to get it free!!

Whois, it's about more than finances. I feel a complete failure at times for not being able to buy a house, despite having been very well educated at a top ranking University. I'm not sure being at Uni did bring me any more in the way of learning than real life did before and since Uni, and I'm afraid that so many people go to Uni these days, do next to bugger all work and come out with tinpot degrees that 'education' in a university sense doesn't mean at all what it used to!

also the previous governments target of 50% to go to uni was total bullshit

50% in some form of further education, not necessarily university, which I think can only be a good thing. I'd rather that than go back to the days of thick Tim Nice-but-Dims going to uni while the rest of sweated down t'pit.

That's interesting weegie - maybe they could go as mature students as we need to stay in England now they've started in a good secondary school ? (half-joking )

Having seen how light the lecture/seminar schedule is for humanities degrees (esp in the 1st year, which is a JOKE at £9000 tuition + £5000 finance ), I think most universities would be well advised to change 3-year/6 semester courses to 2-year/4 semester, both to help to reduce debt & to encourage more students to reconsider applying.

This doesn't apply, afaik, to things like Maths & sciences, which are pretty full on but do at least tend to lead to a more practical career path.

DS1 is doing Politics & Philosophy - he's second year, so is on the old tuition scheme, but even so will graduate owing c £25K. & what he'll do then goodness knows...

ponders - but surely if there were more lectures/seminars, some students who were actually studying properly would not be able to study fulltime and attend them? Of course some very bright students can attend all lectures and seminars and still have hours of free time. But the course is designed for the average. If the average student attends all their lectures and seminars, the rest of the time is intended for study. If that is not carried out, the student may well get a 2:1 instead of a first, or even a 2:2 instead of a 2:1.

According to my economist friend, most students will come out with a enormous debt under this new system but will pay back less than students who have graduated under the old loan system due to the higher level at which payback starts and the writing off after however many years.

When the huge amount this will cost the country hits, it will cause a major problem.