To Think That Students Studying Science Degrees Shouldn't Be Charged Higher Fees?

[LadyLance]

www.theguardian.com/education/2018/feb/18/cutting-tuition-fees-would-backfire-justine-greening-warns-theresa-may

Teresa May wants to make arts/humanities courses cheaper for undergraduates, and not every university course should cost £9250. Her rather interesting position is that the market has not done what she has expected (sorry, the free market has not emerged), so she is going to try and force it into a shape that's more pleasing, and perhaps more appealing to young people.

I don't work for a university, so I don't know how much your average humanities course costs to run. I do know that many (most?) STEM courses with regular labs, expensive equipment and heavy contact hours cost more than £9250 to run. Although these departments can bring in the big money grants, I do think there is a perception that (some?) universities overfill humanities courses in order to subsidise their science departments.

However, I'm worried about the proposals putting people from low income backgrounds or who are the first in their family to go to uni off STEM courses. I'm also wary that the proposals really amount to a real terms cut for universities in terms of funding.

Obviously the current loans system is unsustainable for the government when many graduates in all fields will never pay their loans back in full. Even high earning doctors might go to work abroad, or take career breaks, and so not repay their huge debts. However, I don't think this is the answer.

We need more people in STEM. This isn't the way to do it. Economically, it makes sense. STEM courses cost more and the gradates aren't working at McDonald's so will be able to pay eventually.

But in terms of encouraging people onto courses, it's a terrible idea.

I heard this on the news earlier.

So we have a massive shortage of people studying STEM subjects generally, so the solution is to make the courses more expensive to really put people off

NigelMolesworth I may have misunderstood, but I think that Teresa May was advocating keeping the £9250 cap, but making non-STEM courses cheaper. So, in effect, cutting university funding!

I do agree with your general point, though!

Her rather interesting position is that the market has not done what she has expected (sorry, the free market has not emerged), so she is going to try and force it into a shape that's more pleasing, and perhaps more appealing to young people

So she's become a socialist ?

Aah ok - was sort of listening but also supervising biscuit decorating . I did think it seemed a particularly stupid suggestion, but in a sad indictment of our current politicians, I didn't really question whether I'd heard right!! Just thought, oh another one

DGRossetti On this one issue, apparently! I guess she's trying to court someone's votes- I'm not sure who's though.

NigelMolesworth It's still a pretty stupid suggestion for that reason, as in a few years time the effect will be the same, but also universities will be generally underfunded. I think it will put students, especially those who don't have family in STEM, off applying for STEM degrees.

I did a STEM degree and I think if it had been significantly more expensive to do so I probably would have been put off. Although not too much as it was the only kind of degree I had an interest in studying.

I can understand that STEM courses cost more to run but I don't think making them more expensive is the answer. As PP have said, we need more people in STEM.

I wonder if maybe courses that might naturally lead to higher paying careers and give the graduates a high earning potential should charge more, since the graduate is more likely to earn a decent salary at the end and therefore be able to pay the loan back? I'm not sure what the answer is.

Generally, I've never believed that the Tories really like domestic education. It causes far too many problems. An educated population tends to ask awkward questions, and - more annoyingly - has the vote.

In general, it's far better (for the Tories) to keep education for those that can be trusted with it (i.e. Eton, and the top Unis) and pretty mediocre for the hoi polloi. If you do need specialists and experts, it's far easier to ship them in on a visa, so you know they're pretty motivated to toe the line, and in any case they can't vote.

Seems to be the US SOP too, at the moment.

Well if she's also planning to pay lots of people in the biological sciences (think NHS laboratories, Ministry of Agriculture, EA, Natural England etc) more then by all means fine. Not all STEM graduates work for multi nationals or command 6 figure salaries.

Maybe universities could stop paying their vice-chancellors huge sums of money. Maybe they could also look at what they offer for 9k per annum. They were all very quick to put their fees up to the max, to twice what is spent per child in the secondary school system in fact, and yet the education they offer is far less intensive, variable in standard and not subject to the rigours of OFSTED and such like.
I can't help but think that young people are being massively ripped off. FE colleges have been stripped of their funding, but what about looking at offering more degree level courses through FE? It's all very well to say that lots of people won't have to pay back their fees, but has anyone thought about the psychological burden of being £40K + in debt in your thirties before you even factor in mortgage, kids and so on.
Why is Theresa May looking at this now? Is it because university strikes are just around the corner? After all, the Tories - with a bit of help from Nicky Clegg - are the party that brought tuition fees in in the first place. Poorer families are first to suffer - better-off parents at least have the option of giving their kids a bit of help.

This is very interesting on the subject: epigram.org.uk/news/2014/11/its-official-arts-students-pay-for-science-degrees

Shakira I think basing tuition fees on future earnings is risky- do we charge female students less, because their earning potential is lower? An individual student might also become disabled, or chose to work in a lower earning field that was beneficial to society. Also, I think even in relatively high earning careers, a lot of graduates won't pay their full loan back at current rates of interest.

Also, should we put students from lower income backgrounds off degrees that will lead to higher earning power in the future?

Arts degrees are clearly cheaper to run, but we need dentists more than we need classicis, so should we put people off entering dentistry?

It's an interesting point. I did an arts degree and had a lot less contact time than my friends and family who did science or more vocational courses.

I was lucky to be the last year not to pay for tuition and I use my degree in my job.

Nowadays I think I would choose a more directly vocational degree!

Many young people might then be more likely to choose a course based on cost.
History at £3k v Chemistry at £12k?

Maybe universities could stop paying their vice-chancellors huge sums of money.

If the VC were sacked, that would free up around £10 per year per student at most universities. Perhaps £20 in the most egregious cases. Do you think that will materially alterer the cost of a degree? Perhaps we could try sacking the top ten salaried administrators in each university? £100 per year per student? Don't spend it all at once.

I'm no fan of university administration, which I think is in general overpaid and undertalented (have worked in private sector, public sector and universities). But the salaries aren't the issue. Most universities would be better off with better management, even if they were paid more.

After all, the Tories - with a bit of help from Nicky Clegg - are the party that brought tuition fees in in the first place.I

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3434329.stm

"Tony Blair has scraped home by just five votes in a crunch House of Commons test of his controversial plans to introduce university top-up fees."

I didn't know Tony Blair was in the coalition government. You learn something every day.

Given that degrees are financed by government loans I don't see why it would put low income background students off. And it does seem fair that STEM students pay more because their degrees cost more to run. Of course this may have the undesired effect of ushing even more students into pointless arts degrees.

Why?

Arts degrees are likely to be lower paid so maybe they should get the lower fees?

Also if EVERYONE goes in to stem then the world would be shit, what happened to appreciating literature, art, music, language, history??

My arts degree basically paid the lecturers and the markers, we didn’t even get a hand out booklist or course guide like the Scs or management school did. All on email. Because the dept has no money.

I think the UK university sector is moving inexorably to the North American model. Parents will fairly soon be offered an education savings deal whereby the govt makes a subsidy on an annual basis to those saving (which is stripped if the funds are not used for university). Courses will become more expensive (because the expectation is that parents have been saving since birth) and yes, universities charge more for certain higher worth programs.
Dd1 is studying a STEM degree. We are paying more.
(I’m not commenting on rights or wrongs. Just saying that I think the expectation will gradually be for parents to start preparing for this at birth).

And I’m also sick of all the STEM snobbery .... not all arts grads are working at McDonald’s @TheButterflyOfTheStorms, how fucking rude.

We are utterly desperate for Stem grads in this country. Courses such as physics and engineering don't have that many students on them in the first place and we're due to see about 3 million engineers/engineering related persons retire in the next few years, with nowhere near the numbers to replace them.

I came from a poor family and did STEM to PhD level. I use it in my job and have pulled myself out of the life my parents and grandparents had. I would think hard about going to uni at all if I had such a debt burden when housing is so expensive and living costs are rising.

The whole of modern society is based on the work of STEM graduates - engineers design our transport, infrastructure, communications equipment, entertainment media, furniture, buildings and more. We all benefit from their education. When we need medical attention, we all benefit from the education that doctors and nurses have received. It's not true that a degree benefits only the graduate - it benefits society as a whole. To effectively punish students for being audacious enough to study a STEM subject over an arts one would be a retrograde step.

We may well need more people in STEM but not everyone has the talent or the inclination for STEM-related careers.

Anyway in my view uni degrees should be free. Everyone pays tax, most graduates earn more than most non-graduates and therefore repay the State for their free tuition over and over again. I'm not against a slight increase in tax for graduates eg 2p on your marginal rate, even though you're paying plenty of tax anyway if you earn well, but think charging massive fees is counter-productive. We need doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, gosh even lawyers. The economy needs skilled workers to thrive - both STEM and non-STEM graduates.

If I were choosing a degree course I'd choose what I thought I'd enjoy and what I'd get a good grade for, not something I didn't like but that might get me a well paid job. No good studying engineering if I'm going to get a pass degree, when I could study languages and get a first, for example. It's not the greatest example as I'd need STEM A levels for engineering which I don't have, but you get the idea.

Its the wrong way around, we need to reduce the cost of STEM subjects and increase the cost of Arts. We are not short of people wanting to go into the arts we are short of people wanting to go into STEM.

I'm assuming that this idea comes from the same people offering high bursaries for people to train as classics teachers.

I did a degree in the social sciences. Is that an arts or science degree?