University Fees

[Xenia]

I see that Lord Browne in his report may apparently suggest (Sunday Times today):

• rights for universities to charge fees of up to £10k a year rather than the £3200 or whatever it now is perhaps from 2012

• removal of cheap loans for children of the middle classes (presumably even if their parents are not prepared to help them)

• interest rate susidies on loans going up 2%

• students who go into high paid careers will have to pay back more than they borrowed perhaps capped at 20%

• and one which pleases me - parents will be able to avoid the graduate tax for their children if they pay the fees in advance. None of my older 3 children took out student loans as I paid as I wanted them to be in the same position when I graduated in the days when there were no fees paid by students.

However the report is not yet finished and he may recommend abolishing the cap on tuition fees and let the free market rule which may be wise.

Lots of the large accountancy firms offer help to students.
If your children trawl the websites, it's all there - who is offering what.

"No reason why they can't chase up old students who've made a bob or two and ask them to help fund some of this."

They already do, Litchick - DH and I frequently got calls from the university we were both at asking for contributions - they stopped after I pointed out that now that DD is at the same university, we didn't actually have any spare cash to support anyone else's education....

litchick - i will do that. with the jobs market as it currently is i didn't think of looking

I suspect there may be tax incentives for them to do it...but who care really.

When I needed help paying for law school I sold my soul to the devil for a couple of years. Better than a loan I felt.

absolutely litchick.

i think there comes a point when you have to ask how worthwhile a degree is against all the debt.

"as someone from a working class culture the block was simply cultural expectation. School, shit job. Marry at twenty two. That was it."

Absolutely, and your story is inspiring to those of us that had it laid on a plate. However, I'd take some convincing that the increase in university places between 1980 and 2000 was occupied by mature students "catching up" to any significant degree: maybe it was 10%? 15%? Certainly not 50%. The rest of the increase in take up didn't come from people raised in environments like you experienced going to university at 18, because rates of DE university take-up have been stubbornly low. No, it seemed to come from an increase in middleclass take up, although Figure 2, Page 15 of this seems to make a different case.

What I want to know is in a few years time, where are the academics going to come from to actually teach any of these degrees?

If all students are going to only go for the highest paid jobs in order to pay off student debts, fewer and fewer will go down the PhD followed by academia route.

At our university (a very large institution) there are only 100 people in the entire work-force on salaries in excess of £100k. That means that there are a few thousand working for less than that.

So, in future, rather than having people leading their field teaching the undergrad courses, you will end up with more "university teachers" who are not research active (all the research active academics having left for better conditions elsewhere).

Well summed up Unseen.

well that's that then. my two won't be going to university at all.

You know how in the 80's and 90's there were lots of people saying 'Of course, I was the first person in my family to get a degree', well we're about to start seeing a reverse trend. 'Yes I got 4 A*s at school, my parents have 3 degrees between them, and i'm the first in my family not to go into further education because it would have meant them taking out another mortgage'

Higher education, even

dreamingofsun if your child is interested in accounting then they do not need to go to university. I wish I had known this at 18. Go take a look at the ICAEW website - www.careers.icaew.com/school-students-leavers/Entry-routes. There is information on there about companies (big four hire school leavers) who are willing to take on students with A'Levels.

Knowing what I know now about the accounting field, I would strongly suggest this route rather than spend three years at university.

Tokyo- it varies.

46% of teh students at my uni were amture. now, it specialised in teaching and social work so I am certain there was a percentage of career changers in there. DH's though is non-existent and I was arned off Brizzle as a matrure student becuase they are (alledgedly, and I trust the person who said it- they were in the position to know ) treated as second class to the younger students.

I don't know if tehre are national stats on the mature student aspect, I think it would be good if there were, however.

Oh and I absolutely agree the catch up wasn;t all teh number- it's obvious there has been a widening. But it's one of the reasons.

Xenia Sun 26-Sep-10 16:09:04
"Most tachers could not get jobs as doctors or in the City. It is easier to become a teacher than those other jobs. There will always be loads of people whoc an't get into better paid jobs who go into worse paid ones."

And how does this square with your previous statement that the children of the poor do not need to fear debts, as it is only a question of picking your career wisely?

They can't both be true, you know. Either everybody has the choice of a high-flying career or they don't. And society needs nurses and teachers, lots of them, far more than can be provided by rich families who can afford to pay for their children to indulge themselves in this way.

You don't really mean that everybody can be a 100k earner. All you mean is that you don't care about the rest. Including the teachers who teach your children or the nurse who looks after you in A&E. Her own stupid fault if she was too dim to become a company director!

The best route for accountancy is A levels then get in with a training firm, even provincial practices will train a school lever. Do AAT then do ACCA or CIMA whilst getting paid. In fact there shouldn't be any reason to do A levels a school leaver could start this route with GCSE's.

As perhaps a follow on from Cory's point, a "high-flying" career is not necessarily the same as a well-paid career.

The profession our undergrads are being trained for is typically well-paid, but actually the most well-paid aspect is arguably intellectually the least rewarding. The success or otherwise of a career is so much more than simply the size of the salary you take home.

abouteve - I didn't know that you don't even need A'Levels! Having said that I don't think I was mature enough to be working at 16.

Is this the new contraceptive??
What happens to the larger families?
Am I the only one that thinks that although loans have to be paid back as an investment i feel terribly sad that if the youngsters did meet someone and want a family before they have wrinkles and have loads of enthusiasm a mortgage,family and debt is almost too much to contemplate.

A training place with a firm might ask for A levels but to study AAT they aren't necessary.

Not all doctors are from rich families.

My best friends DH joined the forces and was an army doctor for six years before leaving to become a GP in a practice. The army paid his fees etc but he was bonded to the army for a period of time before he could leave.

There's a lot of common ground on this thread

I think we all agree that:

1. Universities are underfunded
2. Children are getting themselves into debt getting degrees that are either useful or useless to them
3. If degrees are useless (oft cited Media Studies degrees with 80%+ unemployment rates) then pursuing them should not be at the taxpayers expense

So, surely uncapping tuition fees addresses all those issues?

Sure I'd like my DCs to benefit from the free education that I myself benefitted from. But we can't as a nation afford it. Or we can only afford it if we abolish another treasured national institution - for example the NHS (currently the largest employer in Europe).

There's no point in handwringing. It's just got to be done.

"My best friends DH joined the forces and was an army doctor for six years before leaving to become a GP in a practice. The army paid his fees etc but he was bonded to the army for a period of time before he could leave."

I'd rather pay the £50k than have my child in the services, I was offered a Naval bursary type of golden handcuffs arrangement which sounded marvelous at 18, I had over looked the fact that they actually expect you to kill other people if necessary in exchange for your free education. Once that was pointed out to me it became less attractive.

As for the free education in the early 90's well we at our school simply didn't know about it, the school careers talk was brief to say the least but then logically that was why it was free, not many people took up the opportunity.

Mamatomany he's not killed anyone to date!

Has saved a few lives though.

He may not have, that's great to hear but if push came to shove he'd be required to down his stethoscope and pick up a gun, first and foremost he is a soldier and that didn't sit well with me.

Just as I hate to think of unemployed young men being targeted by the armed forces, you can be strolling down the beach with the hot girl, ski ing with your mates type advertisements but by the way in the small print is the bit where you can also be blown to bits, I'm equally against Britain's brightest relying on the forces to fund their University education.