If your degree is from a former polytechnic, do you regard yourself as having gone to university?

[reelingIn]

I'm asking this question because young people whose parents haven't "gone to university" are being given priority for university places and other related activities.

My cousin and I were both the first in our families to go onto higher education - I got a degree from a university and he got a degree from a polytechnic. We've both had graduate careers and, for what it's worth, he now earns a lot more than me, not least because he went into a technical field that needed specialist skills (exactly the sort of thing that polytechnics used to specialise in). But he told me he would answer no to the question "did you go to university?" Other countries around the world probably have similar idiosyncrasies in their definition of a university. So it strikes me that, if the question is being used to prioritise applications in a highly competitive admissions process, they should be a bit clearer about what they mean by a university. For example, they should say "Does your parent have a tertiary level qualification?" instead.

Thoughts?

p.s. He said one of the reasons he would say "no" is because it always used to piss him off that some people looked down on polytechnics as inferior.

Thinking about it some more ... giving that it's not possible to conclusively prove the absence of something, how on earth do admissions authorities know whether people are answering this question truthfully?

Are universities and new universities (old polytechnics) compared on the same league tables? If they are, then they are comparable, so yes, I'd count a poly as a university.
For what it's worth I went to a new university (old poly), but I only went to have a good time and had no interest in the education really. If I had been more academically minded I'd probably have aimed higher than a poly.

People will take him he didn’t go
To uni they he went to a polytechnic when it suits them to look. So no I would count it as the same as a uni

Absolutely yes! I went to a college of Higher Education which is now one of the top 'new' universities

also, two of my sister's WENT to university, but they didn't finish the course. both dropped out. So how should they answer?

He is an idiot. If anyone looked into it then they'd think his child had lied on their application which is a sure fire way to rejection. Not worth the risk really and who wants to start their working life/career lying. If he would say no I presume he didnt put his uni degree on his cv and his work were happy to recruit him for his technical role without any qualifications for it

They're universities, he's taking the absolute piss and he knows it.

Good point Didntwanttochangemyname ... I know a few people who were enrolled in a university but certainly didn't "go to" university in the sense of attending any lectures. Some dropped out and others scraped a pass. I wonder what they tell their kids to put on their university admissions forms!

Yes - they are asking the wrong question! It should be asking whether parents have a degree not about where they got it!

@Wheresthebiffer2 they should say no because when the question is asked it is plainly being asked to see who has parents with undergraduate education minimum. Unless of course they dropped out but still got a qualification I.e. a certificate as opposed to full degree

If you have a degree, it’s a bit disengenuous to answer no for the purposes of this question. It’s obvious what they’re asking and why.
How prestigious the uni/poly was is not particularly relevant.

I would consider him to be lying if he makes that claim. But perhaps the question should be clearer to prevent genuine confusion.

@reelingIn if they scraped a pass they have a degree. So they would obviously answer yes wouldnt they.

90% of posters on the Higher Education board would agree that if you went to a poly you haven't really been to university

I went to a poly. It wasn't seen as being as good as a university. I didn't go to university but got a 2:1 degree and did well.

My DH got his degree in his 30s from the OU.

I suppose you could say he did go to uni.

I agree, they are asking the wrong question.

I always wonder whether or not I was a first generation student by these measures (there's quite a lot of talk at the moment about being first generation among academics and I keep quiet because I genuinely don't know if I am!) - neither of my parents and none of my grandparents went to university when they left school, but my mum got an OU degree in her 40s (when I was in my teens, so before I went to university). The experience of going away to university isn't in my family before me but a degree is.

The question to be asked is; has either parent been educated to degree level?

The educational establishment is irrelevant and your cousin's education evidently let him down in the flexible thinking module.

Good point LisaSimpsonsbff. Also, if one of your parents went to university but they buggered off and left the other parent to raise you, the answer should tecnically be "yes" but probably nobody would begrudge you answering "no".

It's a bit of a silly measure really.

I don't think he is lying to say no, because when he applied, the place he attended, the place he got his qualification from, was not a university.

However, for the purposes OP describes, the question is poorly worded, I agree.

If the question they're asking is literally whether he "went to university" and, at the time he attended the institution in question, it wasn't a university, then he is not unreasonable to give the answer "no". It's probably the wrong question for them to be asking, but that isn't his fault.

I have a post-graduate qualification from a new university which was then a central institution (no polys in Scotland) and is in the same city as my university. It was then as highly regarded as a university and higher for several subjects eg engineering. My certificate is CNAA one but I always put both former and current names of the institution on a CV to avoid confusion. If you've got a degree, it's technically equivalent wherever you got it from - poly, university, OU.

It would be better if everyone used the UK Qualifications Framework, ie "educated to Level 5" etc.

Eh?
Why would he downplay it?
What an idiot!

Wasn't it 1992 that the last of the polytechnics became universities? And many had already made that move in the 5+ years before. So that's 1987.

Do he's talking about 32 friggin years ago.
What a dick!

Yes some uni's are more prestigious that others: Oxford, Cambridge, Russell group, certain Universities specialise in a subject .... sciences @ UCL for example. But really?

If it's a university now, of course. Mine was a former poly but was a university while I was there. I think polytechnics and HE colleges did a brilliant job and it was a shame that that they all became universities.

DH takes a sort of perverse pride in the fact that his degree came from somewhere that was still a poly when he was there, and laughs at his contemporaries who try to hide it. Certainly it's never held him back in any way.