I’m very interested to hear any views from people in HE and equally anyone really about the Foundation degrees (level 4/5) offered. I totally understand that HE should be there for people without traditional qualifications but I’ve increasingly become aware through DS that some of his peers have been offered places on Foundation Degrees yet have effectively not got the predicted grades to apply to university. It seems that the place this lad did his A levels / BTEC course also offer foundation degrees. The advice given to him - he is predicted to only get a grade in one of his exams - was to apply for one of the Foundation degrees they run. That’s great for someone with life or work experience but surely even if he gets his act together and gains the foundation degrees when he applies for jobs further down the line his ungraded Alevels etc will be a disadvantage- would he not be better resitting A levels? Plus he has no option but to finance his degree with the loans system which whilst it sounds cheaper than uni. Also if the college that he failed to gain anything from knows he has not done any work for these exams surely suggesting they can get him through a degree programme is slightly misguided. FWIW this lad has spread all round his peers that you can “just doss through college” because “ they’ll take anyone on this degree - they just want the money”. I just feel something is really wrong here. Am I just being old fashioned? I’m preparing to be flamed as I’m aware we should make education especially HE more accessible. My issue is younger people seeing it as the lazy route to a degree, and I’m uncomfortable with the debt angle if the qualifications don’t really provide the social step up the career ladder.