New universities are in the government 's sights?

[mids2019]

www.theguardian.com/education/2022/jan/20/ofs-publishes-plans-to-punish-english-universities-for-poor-value-for-money

The government plans to penalise universities whose courses are "poor value for money' . Won't this disproportionately effect newer universities and by extension students from poorer backgrounds? Are we starting to see the end of social mobility being extended through education?

Or.....is this a sensible approach to prevent students wasting time and money?

We have cash but absolutely no contacts! Neither do I feel I have sharp elbows.

I think that things might change but everyone will have to be patient. At the moment most state schools pupils that go to Oxbridge are not on fsm. They are the DC of well educated people who just use state schools for a numbers of reasons. It’s really not sensible to suggest these DC cannot get internships and decent careers. They can if they try.

Some undergrads don’t try that hard. Even Oxbridge grads. Some only want lower paid careers and are happy to be teachers or similar. They don’t have to do this but choose this route. So even with 3 years at Oxbridge they might retain their need to work in public service and accept lower salaries. They will have mixed with people aiming for other jobs but maybe they don’t want them?

I know very clever people who want to work in universities. Everyone seems to suggest that’s precarious. They could try for a well paid city job (degrees in economics) but prefer to do research. We cannot say the ones who do go for the city jobs have sharp elbowed parents and somehow don’t deserve what they achieve. As the numbers of comp pupils increases, this might change. But it might not if they don’t want higher paying jobs.

I don’t agree that low ranking universities are there for less well qualified and poorer people. It’s like giving them crumbs off the table. Half of these low level degrees don’t lead to grad employment. Some no employment at all. It’s mis-selling dreams.

Earlier I posted info supplied by Worcester university about their LLB that appears in a guide to degrees. It’s utterly misleading. Why should folk be duped into going there to study law just because they are poor? Never mind that the course requires average A levels. It says it prepares students for being a barrister. In whose dream? This type of course needs to be culled and university courses must be fit for purpose. They must not be there to dupe poorer kids into thinking they are the same as high ranking ones.

Of course lower ranking unis aren't there just for poor people. But the point of thread was the Gov's insistence on equating quality of provision with outcomes, with little account taken of the individual students circumstances. And that means those that attract white middle class students have a piss easy job compared with those who largely attract disadvantaged students.

And there are a myriad reasons why disadvantaged students don't go to 'elite' unis - again these are not the fault of the unis - there are far wider structural issues at play.

@titchy
We have been having a perfectly civil conversation about just that with the OP. Individual circumstances are often put up as a barrier to a student attending a better university. Perhaps read the thread and see what ideas have been put forward and what we have been discussing without the need for emojis. It seems to have taken a sour turn.

It's so much easier to get internships and graduate jobs if mummy and daddy have cash & contacts

Does this still happen? None of my immediate family work in professions/jobs where this would be remotely applicable so I am bit shocked to hear that it's still an issue.

Maybe the quality of advice which sixth form pupils get needs to improve? I think it's quite hard for them to sift through all the options now that so many universities offer a wide range of subjects. If they come from families who don't have a university background themselves it may be difficult to assess the relative merits of different courses and different universities. This is where more information and advice could be helpful…

@thing47

It's so much easier to get internships and graduate jobs if mummy and daddy have cash & contacts

Does this still happen? None of my immediate family work in professions/jobs where this would be remotely applicable so I am bit shocked to hear that it's still an issue.

Maybe the quality of advice which sixth form pupils get needs to improve? I think it's quite hard for them to sift through all the options now that so many universities offer a wide range of subjects. If they come from families who don't have a university background themselves it may be difficult to assess the relative merits of different courses and different universities. This is where more information and advice could be helpful…

Absolutely to better school advice. And reinstatement of school careers advisors.

Internships c/o mummy and daddy are a small contributor to the problem. It's the whole cultural capital thing. Knowing people in professional jobs, hearing them talk about their days over dinner. Not feeling out of place when someone asks 'Oh what do your parents do?'. Being able to live at home rent free after you graduate so you can take that low paid job in PR because you know you need the experience and you have the confidence to blag your way through it. Being able to chat about art/classical music/stage plays/poetry etc. Having a parent who understands what career you're trying to get into and supports your endeavours. Being white... They're massive barriers for lots. And the uni sector by itself cannot be responsible for them.

? I can assure you the poorest in society live at home too!

I completely agree about careers at school and not saying all universities are equal. I hear so many stories about young people being told to choose the course and the uni doesn’t matter. If patently does. Therefore encouragement to go to the best is important and most parents still have that bedroom available.

It’s more expensive to live in London. That can be a deterrent but students really can aim high if they grasp what university has offered them. I do know plenty who were first to uni in the family and are doing very well. They aimed high. If paid off.

I don’t believe internships are now given by any other route than competition snd application. If parents own the firm, that’s different. They might want DC to take over. My DD is a barrister. She had no help from us. We couldn’t help. She doesn’t live at home. She gained the scholarships to pay for her training. Not us. Frankly I’m tired of parents always being described as the architects of their DC’s success . My DD did it all! And so many of her barrister friends haven’t had any help either. No doubt they have loving parents but they don’t have influence.

? I can assure you the poorest in society live at home too!

But not for free! If you as a low paid single parent has your 21 year old graduate child back home you lose benefits so the offspring has to pay their way. So low/unpaid internships aren't an option.

No doubt they have loving parents but they don’t have influence.

You massively underestimate just how important loving supportive parents are. Really you have no idea of what some have to deal with. The biggest factor of success we found at our uni was simply having the support of your family and having them understand why you were at uni.

I agre with some of titchy's list - although in working class Newcastle you still ahve families with adults going to night school and stuff like that. My grandparents met in Newcastle at the theatre royal in the only tickets they could afford in the Gods at the top. My parents I remember as a child joined a private library/club to get more books than they could at Newcastle's normal libraries. My father bought a book on opera he used to read before going. They paid for me to have elocution lessons etc. (obviously they were rich enough to afford that) In other words perhaps part of the working class has lost that desire to be better, have the best grammar, the best speech may be because some teachers are so left wing they delude the pupils about the real world.

As for internships it depends on the industry. i have never understood how people got their children jobs. I am the lawyer who applied to 139 firms and had 25 interviews before getting my first one during the last year of my degree so am obviously the worst person int he country at interviews. Then nowadays I just don't see how you give an advantage in terms of a job - do people call up their friends and say can you let XYZ work with you? It would just make people think your child is stupid they cannot manage on their own (and their are systems for lawyers where you obtain very hard to get paid vacation schemes in university holidays if you are not so lazy you don't bother to apply for them of course - some students are too busy drinking or sleeping in). Many do not think about careers until after they graduate so that is again being rather lazy and not bothering and then getting your just deserts whatever your class.

However I am not denying we all get all kinds of advantages for our parents from things as simple as being loved to genes and all sorts else.

I guess we're somewhere in the middle between what @titchy and @TizerorFizz are saying in the sense that DC got no help from us as regards university or jobs, they did all that themselves, and very little in terms of money. But they have both had periods living back at home and we don't charge them for that as we are lucky enough not to need to. Also DH likes to cook and is self-employed so they get decent, cooked-from-scratch meals every evening. So they get general support but not specific support, if that makes sense.

I can see that if your parent(s) are not in a position to offer any support, it must be much harder to work your way through all the myriad of options. Quite hard at 21-22, let alone 17-18.

There are countless DC who leave home at 21 or 22 and really do sort out their careers themselves. I don’t see many bright DC chucked out from home. Many are able to get decent jobs and live away. They do go home in the holidays for work and some internships are paid so all can participate. It’s really up to students to see what’s available and at university there are plenty who know thd time of day.

Interestingly on the masters PhD thread, posters really think DC should study for 9 years and not worry about a job. They do it for the love of learning. How many poorer people can afford to do this? The elite in society can but others seem to go into these qualifications with no job in sight and the universities then don’t offer them permanent contracts. I’ve just been told off for talking about money on that thread but If you are poor you need it. My family had no spare money. I needed money in my life to be happy. Others can afford a more laid back attitude. My DH was self employed. Work was in our DNA. So everyone needs to analyse what they need in life but I’m not sure that poor work outcomes should be top of the list for disadvantaged students.

But if people think they can get by on the stipend a PhD pays, who are you (or anyone else) to tell them they should look for a job instead, or even to have an end goal in mind? If you are happy to be broke but enjoying your study, well that's an individual choice, is it not? The only aspect that would be unreasonable would be to assume that the world owes you a living once you have your PhD – it doesn't, so at that point you will have to find a job, and I agree with you that having a PhD might not be of any help whatsoever. But that does not in and of itself invalidate the PhD.

Medicine is now possible at Sunderland, Anglia Ruskin, Edge Hill, Lincoln, all newer Unis. They must be doing something right to get brand new medical schools built.

Is there the samw kind of snobbery associated with where a student studies medicine as with other degrees? Given that all medical schools ask for a minimum of AAA plus a high UCAT/BMAT score, and that all medical degrees are conferred by the GMC shouldn't they all be given equal consideration?

I know that some MN posters don't think so.

www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/proportion-of-state-school-pupils-at-cambridge-university-to-reach-record-high-40749473.html

So Cambridge seem to be accepting more students from impoverished backgrounds? There also seems a relatively high proportion of children from families with FSM.

Is it a case of Cambridge opening the drawbridge to socially disadvantaged pupils but it being taken away for pupils from lower end universities?

I think there may be a case of the removal of some of the courses from the lower tier universities if only to be fair to students who are about to pay 27K for limited employment prospects. However no one can deny the correlation between family background and academic attainment so it makes sense to allow some degrees with lower A level tariffs to give students from disadvantaged backgrounds every opportunity.

@RampantIvy that snobbery only occurs very rarely, and usually by people who don't understand medicine. Getting one offer, anywhere these days is an achievement. And they all be one doctors.

@mids2019 neither Oxford or Cambridge offer lower grades. Still all AAA and A stars. But they do give more interviews using contextual data. So allowing for poorer GCSE results or less captain of the rowing team type extra curriculars.
Last year we had 2 refugee students getting in and this year we are up to 4. Thanks to fantastic outreach programmes giving young people a belief that they can do it. Stormzy scholars have also shown many poorer students it is possible. So as more apply from disadvantaged backgrounds, more get in. Nothing to do with lower offers, just basic stats.

[quote mumsneedwine]@RampantIvy that snobbery only occurs very rarely, and usually by people who don't understand medicine. Getting one offer, anywhere these days is an achievement. And they all be one doctors.[/quote]
Good to hear that. Unfortunately, I have encountered it on MN and was pretty disappointed with that attitude.

@RampantIvy and me. There are a few people who believe only Oxbridge or London will do. Which is frankly bonkers.
This year it's so so tough that anyone getting an offer deserves a medal for resilience.

Doh! There was me thinking that when this Government had new Universities in its sights it actually meant New Universities in its sights considering there is a lack of technical universities allowing further studies by non-academic routes and cities (e.g. Peterborough) that lack universities.

But I'm a silly dimdum who thinks that someday this Government might see evidence and act on it rather than do the opposite...

There are huge numbers of technical degrees that go into clearing every year. I have advocated for more degree apprenticeships. There are hardly any when compared against degrees offered. We don’t need more technical degrees because we don’t have enough well qualified people to do them. What we need are colleges of HE that offer HND level courses to prepare less well qualified people for degrees. So some universities should reduce what they do and provide courses for people with 2 A levels or 3 lower grade ones.

The country pays for 50% of degrees. I don’t see what’s wrong with expecting grads to get decent paying jobs. It certainly Sid’s so idk mobility. No area should expect a uni on the doorstep. They can suck in people who should be aiming higher. The whole idea of that is wrong when DC can go elsewhere. The ones that don’t, need HE provision that’s high quality but not necessarily at degree level.

In general, Universities do upgrade the area they are in in terms of more technical expertese, more business and potentially improvement to the local environment. However, success is strongly dependant on oversight and an overreaching vision as well as communication between all sectors - something that this current administration falls down on.

There is so much knowledge that skilled technical people possess but which risks being lost or underutillised without suitable investment and consolidation.

One thing that I think needs to be made clear from a relatively early age is thacareers such as acting, painting, crafting, entertaining, successful entrepreneurship etc are hugely aspirational and immensely commpetitive. There are a number of averagely intelligent students I know that are adamant they are going to have careers as actors, performance artists, musicians etc. and universities offering degrees that support these types of career enable this over optimistic career paths.

We do need actors etc but if outlook at the background of many successful actors and entertainers Oxbridge features in their background (Ian MCLellan, Stephne Fry, Emma Thomson, High Grant, Kenneth Brannagh, Tom Hiddlestone, Jimmy Carr,, Sue Perkins to name a few). An elite degree certainly seems to help in these careers! Many performers who aren't graduates have been to stage or music school that is privately paid for often with parents who are in a similar careers. Ed Sheeran for example attended a private prep school and explored music more generally from an early age.

The overall point is working class children hold into these dream careers a lot longer than perhaps middle class children who are surrounded by professional relatives of the more prosaic variety but realise for the vast majority of the population for relatively good career satisfaction and income careers such as law, medicine, engineering finance are clearer aims. The middle class kids therefore may put more focus on academic qualifications as they have more realistic career aims.

(Oh and the Apprentice does not show the typical type of worker in marketing and production management.....bad role models of kids don't realise this program is entettainment)

Interestingly with Oxbridge these two universities are no longer at the top of university sports. Applications are based on purely academic merit with no provision at all for say rowing ability. There may be a few good towers who do ally who happen to have great sporting potential but not in huge numbers. The Oxford Cambridge boat race is a televised sporting event between two universities but not necessarily the best two universities. The days when getting a 2:2 at Oxford with a sporting blue being indicative of an all rounded individual have long gone. Universities such as London or Durham seem to top a lot of university league tables. We do not have the sight of significant numbers of international criceteers or towers from Oxbridge. The schools that have very good sports facilities are mainly private so if we reduce the number of private school places at Oxbridge this will probably have a knock on effect on terms f sporting prowess. This is just an observation but I noticed on some threads a lament that graduates were not 'fully rounded' individuals any more and university life is too focused academically.

@mids2019

I think sport is a bit of a non issue really. Oxbridge still wants rowing blues but many are post grads for the boat race. They both seem ok with the rowers they get. If undergrads are keen on sport they can get that anywhere really. I do agree that employers no longer want a 2:2. Even Cambridge mathematicians with a 2:2 are not considered for many jobs. DH has a 2:2 back in the day and was offered 5 jobs. Not Oxbridge. He had a great time doing all sorts of music based things as well as civil and structural engineering. Didn’t stop him being very successful either. These days the doors would be shut but back then a 2:2 was what the majority got. No one batted an eyelid. Now it’s a death knell and considered a failure.

Lots of private schools give sports scholarships. Coaching iz taken seriously. Few state schools bother with cricket. Grammars and independents play rugby. If they don’t get to Oxbridge now, so be it. I used to watch lacrosse in The Parks. Just a thought….. maybe grads can try that!

I meant to say that I agree with Xenia too. Some undergrads don’t get round to applying for internships. Deadlines and CVs matter. So does ability to pass the tests. I don’t see parents being a huge amount of use.