Practical problems for students studying Degree Apprenticeships

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Just thought I would share this as it has been a steep learning curve for me and I have not seen this information anywhere else. DAs are generally assumed to be a Good Thing but they are a bit outside the main student system and this has given rise to some issues for us.

I'm not commenting on the DA itself as it has not even started yet but so far I have discovered the following:

The degree enrolment takes place outside UCAS so you can't prove you have accepted your offer even after getting exam results. Why? surely this should be treated exactly the same as all other degrees.

This means that when accommodation providers ask you to prove you are a student you can't until university term starts and you are issued with student ID. This is much later than when the apprenticeship starts and the accommodation is needed. Requests for the university to issue a letter beforehand have fallen on deaf ears.

DA students will be barred from a lot of student accommodation because they are not full-time students so you will have to focus on hybrid accommodation. Understandably my DC does not want to live in an HMO but would like to live with other students.

DA students (unless very low paid) have to pay council tax unlike other students.This also causes accommodation problems.

Students are going to want to live near their employer. Check carefully which university they nominate for the DA. Ours is an hour and a half away with no direct train routes.

There is absolutely no support with accommodation for DA students.You will need to go out and sort it yourself even though they are first years.

My DC is keen to do the DA and I support that but I wish I had known and been prepared for the things above. Sharing in the hope it might help someone else in the future.

These are good points to highlight. I've always thought that degree apprenticeships aren't the easy route they are spouted to be.

My DD2 would prefer not to go to university full-time and is taking the apprenticeship route but as things currently stand I can't imagine her being mature enough to move away from home independently at 18. Which means she's hands to be lucky enough to find a local DA. Something that is more likely to benefit those in well connected areas rather than deprived areas.

Degree Apprenticeship students don’t typically go into student accommodation because they’re employees studying for a degree at the same time rather than full time students. Hence the council tax. Living in student accommodation probably isn’t an ideal option for people working full time either!

Have you had the structure of the apprenticeship yet? Some will have blocks of uni time for which accommodation can be booked for a ‘student experience’

But ultimately if your DC wanted to live like other students as a primary concern, a degree apprenticeship wasn’t the best route for them.

Degree Apprenticeship students don’t typically go into student accommodation because they’re employees studying for a degree at the same time rather than full time students. Hence the council tax. Living in student accommodation probably isn’t an ideal option for people working full time either!
^this. Degree apprentices aren't "students" in the way that FT students are. They have FT jobs. They are unlikely to be suited to live in university accommodation. They're going to be getting up early every day and going out to work at somewhere outside the university, not rolling out of bed at 11 to go to a lecture.

It's a completely different route to getting a degree than being a "student" and it means growing up quickly and putting the slog in. If someone isn't ready or suited for that, they should probably choose another route.

Vs doing a four year degree with a one year industry placement in Year 3? I'm not seeing a fundamental difference here.

Well the job and the salary are pretty significant differences I'd have thought.

You're right to point out the differences, but it does sound like you/your dc thought they were almost the same as a 'standard' full time degree - which they're not, at all! They're jobs, with additional training. But jobs first and foremost.

Agree with the above points. DA path is not the same as typical degree student pathway and wouldn’t expect them to experience university and student living in the same way at all.

...You don't see the difference between being a FT employee who also studies on the side and being a FT student for your first two years? Okay.

Small clue, in general FT students do not get up at seven, put on a uniform, and do a job for eight hours five days a week and potentially also fit in study on top (depending on the structure of the course). Degree apprenticeships take focus and an acceptance that you're not going to get to fuck about and be carefree like most FT students do. You show up on time and you do your job professionally and display the right interpersonal and soft skills as well as learning your stuff academically and if you fuck about you lose that job. In exchange you get paid and no debt and much greater security when you graduate. Because you work for it. Yes, students with an industrial placement have to do that too, but they get to fuck about for a few years first.

I am a learning mentor for an DA in my work place I qualified doing the same degree the traditional way only a few years ago. I promise you there is a huge difference!

Degree Apprenticeship students don’t typically go into student accommodation because they’re employees studying for a degree at the same time rather than full time students. Hence the council tax. Living in student accommodation probably isn’t an ideal option for people working full time either!

This ^
It is an apprenticeship. they are not a student.
They are getting up and going to work every day.
They are being paid.
They are people who are at work with release time (works differently with different employers) in which to study.

It is completely different from choosing to be a student for 3, or 4 years, at University, paying for the privilege and taking out a massive loan to do so.

Accommodation - your DC could live in a shared house with other profrssionals / working people. This is an option if not wanting to live at home and not able to afford to rent alone.

Op - re-reading your first post, it sounds like you think a DA makes your son a student foremost. Apprenticeships make someone an employee foremost. The employer partners with an educational institution to deliver the formal education parts of the BTEC or degree. They are in no way like students doing a full time or even part time ( eg masters) course.

There are courses, like in health, where students dolong pavements as part of their degree, but they are not paid and they are treated as full time students.

Is your sons apprenticeship with a company that had multiple apprentices? If he has to move away from home, are there other apprentices at the company he could live with? Does he even need to move out? If he only has to be at the university once a week, 1.5 hour journey time sounds feasible. Il

If my DD does an apprenticeship, I'd prefer her to live at home for a year or 2 so she doesn't have to adjust to the demands of work and study at the same time as learning to take care of herself independently. I think a DA is a huge thing to take on and hence, don't like the way they are regarded as an alternative to a debt-ridden full-time degree. Not everyone is ready to take on that kind of thing at 18.

I would prefer an alternate university system more in-line with the American system where students earn credits and can stop and start their degree, or take fewer classes but longer to complete their degree. This would give students more flexibility to fund themselves as they went along.

Are there some IT degree apprenticeships which work differently to the normal ones where you work a job 4/5 of the time and have courses/ study release for 1/5? I think Leeds do a course in conjunction with one of the big 4 where you are a full time student for at least term time?

I'm coming back to this hoping OP is still reading - I don't think you/ds understand what is expected of him.

He's got a job - a full time job. The most common working pattern for a DA is four full days of work, 9-5, with one day off (day release) during term time for lectures. Uni assignments, revision get done at the weekend if he can't manage them during the day release.

He's an employee. He can be sacked, put on disciplinary, has to book annual leave, turn up on time. Same as any other employee. He can't take a few days off to have a go at freshers week activities. He can't have every Wednesday afternoon off to play uni sport. He'll have a line manager, colleagues. He can't rock up a couple of hours late cos he was at a house party.

He is an employee. With a bit of training on the side. Your posts give the impression you think the DA is him being a student, with a bit of work experience on the side. It's categorically not. It's the equivalent to someone working in an office/shop and doing an OU degree in their spare time.

That's why UCAS isn't involved. That's why he shouldn't be looking at student accommodation - he is a worker not a full time student.

To be fair I think the OP DS may be doing a Degree apprenticeship whereby they will be doing a 'normal' three year degree with a year working in between. They are becoming more common. I hadn't realised that for these degrees the application isn't via UCAS and the applicants can't yet apply for uni accommodation so they are valid points. Having said that the benefits are huge (in having all fees paid etc by the employer) and the competition to get on to them is fierce so if there are downsides in terms of needing to find private accommodation late and pay council tax etc then probably not a huge impact.

And may be the Uni or dept in question could help with sorting some of these issues if you got in touch. They are fairly new so may just be teething problems

If that is the case though I'm not sure why you necessarily need to live near the employer, you could get a shared housing contract for the 'year in industry'. I know there is often a commitment to work several weeks each summer but Uni accommodation doesn't always cover the summer holidays so wouldn't help here. It is only big Companies providing these schemes so I think it would be unusual and fortunate to have both the employer and the Uni in the same location. I would be more concerned about the quality and delivery of the degree course which may have to be delivered in a different city to get that

Have you got a link to any like that @Oratory1 - they don't sound like they are actually degree apprenticeships at all (there are very specific requirements of funding DAs and I'd be interested in seeing how these fit / if they do).

www.birmingham.ac.uk/partners/news/items/degree-apprenticeships-PwC-Vodafone.aspx

There are others but this is one example. My DS looked into it but decided against applying in the end.

Hmmm - this suggests they're still expected to be at work during the term - they couldn't physically make up the work requirement just working in the holidays.

This is another more full time student degree apprenticeship:

courses.leeds.ac.uk/ap01/computer-science-digital-technology-solutions-bsc

You work for the summers after years one and two, and then for a full year in year 3.

Interesting. I wonder what the salaries are. Minimum apprentice wage presumably? For how many hours a week?

I have a DC doing a degree apprenticeship. For his employer they took on quite a few the year he started. Think in the region of 30-40, there are quite a few more than that in the actual degree run by the university.

Of that number only one elected to stay in halls in first year, for my DC we suggested that it would be easier to be supported from home for at least the first year as it’s very full on.

They work 4 days and have one set day for study while the academic year runs. The academic year is a lot longer than normal to fit everything in. September to July, when university is out they work 5 days a week.

They are expected to study a lot after work and on the weekend - they still need to cover the material that they would in a normal degree.

They are actually only expected to be physically at the university once a month - everything else is on line/delivered remotely. This was true pre Covid. Proximity to the employer is much more important than the university.

Pay and benefits are a lot better than minimum wage. Full pension, holidays, sick pay etc, once they graduate their salary will be a lot higher than national average.

A lot of the better schemes are way better than minimum wage. Engineering ones can be very good. As a real outlier I came across an apprentice on with an IT giant on £60k after his second year.

Titchy, they work for a full year with the employer and in the holidays so if you averaged it over the four years it may be similar. And they are approved schemes.

Oratory1 I think you might be right that it maybe what OP DS is on.

I was looking a them after DS2 mentioned them as what he'd liked to aim for.

Although they are called degree apprenticeship, they seem more like sponsored degrees.

A bit like how the armed forces offer sponsores Degrees.

I would call that a sponsored degree too. It's interesting to know these things exist.