I know how to solve the University funding crisis

[senua]

Every time a company employs a graduate they have to pay a levy into a University Fund. This will have the effect of:
a) raising money for Universities
b) making the beneficiary of the added-value (the employer) pay for it
c) making employers think twice about demanding degrees for non-graduate jobs.

Whaddya think?

I think it would cripple graduate employment rates making it even more discouraging for people wanting to go to university.

As for the companies, small companies would particularly struggle - agency fees take a big enough chunk without having another big fee on top.

Are you proposing a one off payment for the first job after university or every time people switch jobs? How are you going to track it? Will the admin cost more than it's worth to collect it?

It would cost the taxpayer a fortune - teachers, doctors, nurses as well as graduate management types.

More jobs would be advertised as having A levels as the required qualification just to get round the payment.

EU graduates would be preferred over UK ones, or others with right to UK residence and degrees awarded from overseas.

"I think it would cripple graduate employment rates making it even more discouraging for people wanting to go to university."
"More jobs would be advertised as having A levels as the required qualification just to get round the payment."
And this is a bad thing because ...? If there isn't the market for graduates then perhaps we shouldn't be producing so many, nor pretending that non-graduate jobs need a degree.

"Are you proposing a one off payment for the first job after university or every time people switch jobs? How are you going to track it?"
I think it might be an annual charge. If you employ someone during the year you already have to operate PAYE - deduct tax/NI/student loan, remit it to HMRC and account for it all at the end of the year - so one more levy wouldn't be that difficult. Add something to the NI Number to indicate graduate?

"EU graduates would be preferred over UK ones"
Nope. Applies to all graduates. If you think that you need a graduate-sized brain to do the job, then the company pays a contribution to society for it.

It would never work. It is an individual's choice to go to university and business shouldn't have to pay for that.

But it has got to the stage where it isn't an individual's choice any more. Employers are taking the lazy way out of recruitment and shortening their lists by asking for graduates when the job itself quite often doesn't need a degree.
So individuals are being forced to take degrees just to stay in the game. Individuals cannot buck the market on their own.

Why shouldn't UKplc pay for the benefits of degrees? Do you have training at work: do you pay for that or does your employer? What's the difference?

I am sorry but agree that many companies would think twice about recruiting graduates at a time when it is very difficult for young people to get jobs. I would prefer a graduate tax based on levels of earnings particular for those who received a free university education. I would be willing to pay.

By the way I work in HR, and increasingly statistics show that employers are putting soft skills above academic qualifications. We recently recruited the first bunch of graduate trainees in to the business because they were hungry to succeed (probably to pay off their debts) and perhaps a little desperate but the trainees chosen more on their personality analysis rather than their grade or university choice.

"employers are putting soft skills above academic qualifications. We recently recruited the first bunch of graduate trainees in to the business"

So you are agreeing with me? - that a degree has been devalued to the status of 'necessary but not sufficient'.
To think that it used to be considered the pinnacle of most peoples' academic careers.

I think the end result you'd be looking at would be similar, in that a lot of universities would close, less people will be university educated. Sadly I think whatever happens this is becoming an inevitable outcome.

I'd rather live in a system though where we university educated the best and the most motivated rather than only the rich. But we live in a society where access to the best education is almost entirely based on ability to pay (whether you do this by huge debts or cash it's irrelevant).

Your answer is a much more palatable one to me than the one we are facing now. I heard on the BBC radio a couple of days ago about the knock on effects on entire towns like Southampton whose economy is largely based on student population. They reckon they will lose millions a year as graduates will opt to do their degrees locally.

I think you're going about this the wrong way. Rather than punishing those who have degrees to get those without more jobs, why not look at supply and demand instead?

I think we'd be better served at cutting the number of degree places available (50% of the student body targets always seemed nuts - where's the differentiation?) so only the top students get into university but use the funding saved to give them a totally free education.

Employers would be forced to accept applicants without degrees simply because there wouldn't be enough to go around. Those who don't really want to get a degree but feel they ought to would have more freedom to take alternative routes into careers.

I agree RubberDuck. All degrees should be the same as medicine, very competitive to get in and limited places. This would surely have a knock on effect on schools, including A levels and ability to educated at the right level.

However I guess you will have the same problem highlighted with grammar schools, where ability to pay will get you more access(tutors, private, middle class schools, etc)

"Rather than punishing those who have degrees to get those without more jobs, why not look at supply and demand instead?"

I thought that I was looking at supply and demand. At the moment there is little cost to the employer associated with degrees, so they demand them unnecessarily. If it actually cost them, they might start to think twice before specifying that the tea-boy be a graduate.

RD, that is what is happening. As most of them are chargning £9k the Govenrment punishes that with a limit on student numbers for that institution I thik under the new system thus it will be harder to get to university even with £9k fees.

At the moment all taxpayers pay for degrees even those who don't have degrees. its' not unreasonable to make graduates pay although they don't have to pay a penny back ever unless they earn over a certain level anyway and the poor pay fewer fews and get more grants.

Universitry places should be decreased so that we move away from the daft 50%+ of people going to uni. And this should be done without charging £9k pa of fees.

Sorry that is a truely crap idea.

If your suggestion went through then someone with a third class degrees might as well jump off the nearest cliff. Having a third class degree would damm someone for life as no one would want to employ them. At least someone with a third can do bar work or general office work. Some graduates are self employed and surely they should pay something towards their uni costs.

Personally I would like the unis to shoulder some of the risk of charging high tutition fees. There is no moviation for unis to keep the costs down. I would like unis to lose funding if 70% of graduates on a course are not paying their tutition fees back after 5 years. Prehaps the uni could pay the interest on the lones of duff graduates. It would make unis wary of charging high fees and taking on any student.

But your idea of making Unis pay off the loan is also unworkable. There are all sorts of reasons why students dont (and wont) pay the loan and it isn't just about them being 'duff'. it is also about them going into jobs that don't meet the threshold. and as for using the threat of losing funding (up to 70%), why do you think they are setting these level of fees anyway? They are already going to lose that level of funding. Frankly I'd have been happier with a graduate tax.

I do have a (quite controversial) solution to the uni funding issue, which is that degrees which preclude jobs where you really NEED a degree in that subject, such as engineering, medicine, and also other top subjects such as maths and sciences, are free to top achievers.

Other 'mickey mouse' degrees such as make up, television studies etc are charged at 15,000 per year. The fees from these degrees, which most people on these courses end up doing jobs for which you don't need that degree, are used to fund free degrees for engineers etc..

There are plenty of graduates like me who aren't paying off their loans, for good reasons. Ie. I'm working part time because I have a young baby. I did earn above the student loan threshold before my son was born. I did work for two and half years directly using my degree, but my present job has nothing to do with my degree.

There was an unfortunate lad on my course who developed schrisoprena and is life long disabled. The poor lad was a high achiever, but hearing voices makes it very hard to hold down a job. Medication has helped him, but this lad has not been able to work to his full potential.

takewhatyoucan, I studied physics so under your proposal i would get my degree for free. Only good degrees in physics are useful. I think physics departments should not take on someone with poor A-levels. A third class physics degree is as useless as a Tv studies degree.

If 100 people graduate from a course (ie. TV studies) then its reasonable to expect that 70% of them will be available for work in some shape or form. If no one from a course have never earnt 21K after 5 years then the course has achieved nothing. The problem with your proposal is that some one would get the maximum loan and never pay it back.