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?

These are stats from HESA for 18/19 grads who left for jobs. As you can see, few careers have a salary of over £30k 15 months after graduation. Some have great salaries available to grads but you must be outstanding to get them. You cannot imagine the majority of grads getting £45k a year after a few years.

@mids2019
I do think soft skills can be acquired from non degree courses! If an employer isn’t looking for academics then are they really looking for a graduate at all? They could well be better off running an apprenticeship scheme. However many complain about standards of maths and English when they do this!

Some apprenticeships take highly qualified young people who could have easily gone to a RG university. Don’t assume apprenticeships are for the CCC student. Many are competitive and get very bright DC on them. If there isn’t a suitable apprenticeship near you, what do you do? Rural DC are often disadvantaged.

In no countries do people think lower qualified people are “academic”. Germany has long made distinctions. France too. Why do DC have to be academic when they are not? We do know they are not because they have done a low tariff course! They might have other skills. Why not celebrate and hone them? There are training possibilities for them but it should not be at university - it should be at colleges of higher education as it used to be.

Very many of the new universities were formerly colleges of higher education or teacher training colleges. They didn’t offer degrees (usually) but they did offer high level professional courses and HND/HNCs which employers valued. Lots of people got jobs at 18 and then did day release which could work up to professional qualifications. I think we have shut out this type of education. It was a big mistake. It certainly provided good jobs and training for the less academic. I did exactly this. So lower qualified DC can access higher education but via employment and day release. You can end up in exactly the same place as a degree holder. Just might take a bit longer. But that’s fair as you learn on the job.

What we need to aim for is every young person getting the job commensurate with their abilities. We cannot pretend they all have the same abilities. They simply do not. Other countries recognise this and we need to. Or we waste money and don’t get the qualified people we need. We need to be much sharper in matching young people to opportunities in companies. We should not expect to import talent to cover for our shortcomings, or pretend all unis and courses are equal.

Agree wholeheartedly @TizerorFizz - and I wonder whether this obsession with ‘academic’ success is what’s driving the focus at schools as well. I see it in my own children, one very very bright, excels at school, but has ASD so struggles in other areas. The other is still very young but I’m starting to see that he might not be academic in the traditional sense, or at the very least struggles with the formal learning structure. I’m wondering how we celebrate his strengths (he has many) when the whole education sector is focused on a very narrow sphere.

Getting rid of the technical training programmes (which would have covered many of these less academic degree subjects) was a huge mistake. And like all of the huge mistakes our young people are paying the price.

Excellent post @TizerorFizz

@mids2019

I went to an RG university and there was a fellow student who studied American History that walked into an accountancy role at one of the big 6 companies and I think that type of role should be open to financial grads of 'lower' ranked university especially if the degree has an immediate technical focus. At the time it really looked like the company were focusing more on the institution than the direct applicability of the degree.

That's because you don't need ANY degree to become a qualified accountant. Most firms also offer trainee jobs to A level school leavers. Moreso a decade or two ago when there were fewer going to Unis. Larger accountancy firms who do insist on graduates are simply reducing the size of the pool of applicants by making their entry graduate only when in reality, school leavers with A levels are just as suitable.

In fact, it's actually quicker to become a qualified accountant if you don't go to Uni. You can study part time and get the necessary supervised experience in fewer years, simply because even with a degree (even an accounting degree), you still have to do professional body exams and get supervised experience. I was fully qualified within 4 years of leaving school, without going to Uni, whereas graduates I was working with took 6 years, i.e. 3 at Uni and then another 3 doing the professional body qualifications and gaining experience, all for the same professional body designation!

@TizerorFizz

Brilliant post.

Re the lack of literacy/numeracy skills for apprenticeships, I don't think that applies to the larger firms with their own in house training, i.e. the sought after ones such as BNFL, British Aerospace, etc.

It's more the small employers, i.e. one man garages, plumbers, etc., who get their apprentices via the local college. Unfortunately, now that everyone has to stay in education until 18, there are a lot of students who go to college because they're nowhere else to go and aren't interested. That's the problem. The higher level of students with good GCSEs and good literacy/numeracy are pushed into academia, sixth forms and then Unis by their parents and schools. That leaves a group of students who'd struggle with anything really. Add into that some pretty poor college "teaching" of the trades and those students are being set up to fail, and their "employers" are seldom going to have good experiences.

I've had a succession of one man band clients who've tried out apprentices from the local college. Only one lasted more than a couple of months. Always the same story. Apprentices barely bother to turn up on time, whinge about "menial" work, colleges barely doing any "hands on" practical work and concentrate on "chalk and talk" classroom sessions, etc etc. The real problem I think is that the apprenticeship schemes are now "formal" i.e. via approved in house formal training (BNFL etc) or have to be "supervised" via a College. There's no scope for one man bands to arrange their own training and from what employers are saying, the College courses are pretty poor.

Great post @TizerorFizz Totally agree.

We have got ourselves into a situation where university is the be all and end all. Other routes and qualifications are seen as 2nd best.
German engineers are amongst the best in the world and many of them qualify on training schemes with the large technical institutions, not university.

@user1497207191
Yes. I didn’t mean the very competitive apprenticeships. I did mean smaller employers who use colleges of FE. FE is of course a Cinderella service. I think the other issue is the attitude of some young people. It’s not universal of course! However I know my local hairdresser has had great young people.

I’m certainly advocating that the lower grade A level young people are offered something else that isn’t university. In my day (!) courses were available at my local poly which supported employers. Not degrees but HND/HNC etc. Ditto a college of higher education. We need to get more intermediate courses at these universities so the less academic learn in a centre of excellence but not immediately at degree standard.

Thanks for kind words from you all. Made my day!

I should have said a degree at university. Further comments suggest I would like to see a variety of courses at university.

Lots of good posts on this thread. It is a very difficult topic. When I went to university in about 1980 about 15% of teenagers went and hardly anyone from my school. Only a third got a 2/1 or higher. A levels were harder etc etc. My friend at school had a brother who went to the local polytechnic to do a fashion course (which I think was 2 years not 3) and he (and my friend) set up their own dry cleaning, clothes repair etc shop after. There was a clear distinction between that kind of course and a degree. My mother went to 2 years of residential teacher training (Cert Ed) and taught primary school pretty well - for her it was living away from home for 2 years, friends she made for life, introduction of all kinds of new things from choirs (she had as far as I know absolute/perfect pitch as my brother and I have - just a genetic quirk really) to just communal living with friends that I suspect was key to it and she joined in things with Newcastle University and met my father - all of that was enabled by leaving home for the residential course - the opening of horizons.

What is a problem is the debt some of these people never pay back at the worse universities ie tax payer gift to students that perhaps is hard for the tax payer to afford (we have the highest levels of taxation and burden of debt as a nation for 70 years).

Some employers even in London in my profession (law) recruit "institution blind" to try to be fair but if the person cannot pass the very many complex tests from Watson Glaser to legal exercises, interviews, assessments and the like (never mind passing all the professional legal exams - which are moving to exams called SQE1 and SQE2)

Below is only interest for lawyers but last week's first SQE1 exam was 100% multiple choice questions (although big law firms wll still be requiring people to do a "law conversion course" or LLB as well as SQE1 and 2). It was made MCQ only in part because those with poor English did badly in early tests for it when it contained the usual law exam questions particularly BAME people apparently.

Last week's first SQE1 results found despite that concession to allow people in with poor English (a silly decision in my view given English does matter if you write contracts for clients etc) has not worked I hope they can toughen SQE1 and not keep it 100% MCQ.

"The SRA found there to be no difference between the results of men and women. However, there was a large discrepancy between white candidates, 65% of whom passed, and those from Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups, where the pass rate was only 44%. The regulator last month drafted in Exeter University to examine the “attainment gap” between different ethnic groups.

"Bradley said: “We anticipated that we would again see the troubling difference in performance for candidates from Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups that has been a longstanding and widespread feature in examinations in the legal and other sectors. We know the reasons will be complex and, as well as ongoing review and analysis, we have appointed Exeter University to carry out in-depth research better [to] understand the factors driving the attainment gap for these groups in professional assessments, so that we can do everything we can to address the issues.” "

I am not sure that is such a big issue as in the UK we have more BAME lawyers than the number of BAME people in the population and plenty of Asian and black families are very keen to get children into law. Plus poor SQE1 test results could have come from people abroad trying to pass UK legal exams in other words foreigners with bad English rather than UK BAME British born people who can have excellent English like Rishi Sunak (Winchester etc). I certainly welcome Exeter looking into it.

"Pass rates were significantly higher for white candidates – 66% compared with 43% for Asian candidates and 39% for black candidates. For comparison purposes, the SRA provided LPC [the old course being replaced] completion rates for 2019/2020: 65% for white candidates, 52% for Asian candidates and 39% for black candidates."

There was also a 53% pass rate of everyone sitting the exam.

Thanks @Xenia, very interesting, do you have a link to that document by any chance? (SRA?)

@Xenia
Am I correct in thinking the only people who take these exams are those holding training contracts? If so, selection of candidates might be an issue? If not, are candidates taking it who are unlikely to get a training contract and realistically become a solicitor?

I know lots of candidates fail the Bar exams. Lots of candidates who pass and have paid between £14,000 and £20,000 for the course never become barristers as they don’t get a pupilage position. However most of these candidates will have a decent degree but some won’t be good enough to ever become barristers. We have huge numbers studying law. We have even more thinking they want to work in a professional legal role. Sadly very many are not good enough to pass everything they need to and be selected for a job. They already know some professional Bar exam courses get very few students into pupillage positions. It’s a malaise we have! Selling courses and not being discerning enough about who does them! Ditto at some universities. We need a serious rethink about quite a lot in HE and selling dreams simply is not fair.

This is such a nuanced subject.

I was interested in accountancy being a non graduate career in essence and fundamentally being about the passing of professional examinations. This makes sense but I wonder how many do start their career after A level and whether accountants are happy with their profession being described as a non graduate one? Can professions such as investment banking and being an actuary fall into this bracket if being those that a junior level or open to A level students? (I don't know myself)

The term academic is a little loaded as I know of some with relatively weak A levels who have done higher degrees and are now professors. Can these people be truly described as non academic based on A level performance? A look at the alumni of even the worst performing universities reveals those that have gone onto great things whether in academia or elsewhere.

What about unis that are in the middle of the league tables. I was thinking about UEA and Sarah Gilbert (of AZ fame) and the fact that it's shown that non RG universities can produce graduates of exceptional calibre. ( A lot of people were struck she wasn't Oxbridge educated and I think her story does not fit into the stereotype high flying narrative)

When we talk about universities where does the middle

I think it is also the case that some ‘lower ranked’ universities can be exceptional in one or two fields - a less-visible version of the conservatoire issue I mentioned upthread. So, for example, is Abertay amongst most people’s lists of ‘top universities’? No. But if you are in the games industry, it’s one of the very best. Conversely, I am old enough to remember when there was an issue with Oxford’s Engineering degrees being of sufficient quality to be accredited by the professional bodies.

So there are a number of substrata - the generally excellent (with some less good bits); the generally well thought of (with some excellent and some less good bits); the adequate (may be all through adequate, may have pockets of excellence or pockets if really poor practice), and so on, down to the universally pretty awful.

It is really hard to create a ‘fair’ assessment that both challenges the ‘poor quality’ within all institutions while recognising the ‘excellent bits’ that can equally be present in many surprising places.

We also have to remember that some people cannot live away from a family home (for whatever reason) and thus may have a need to access a ‘decent’ local offer even where ‘better’ educational offer is available but at an unattainable distance.

@mids2019

I was interested in accountancy being a non graduate career in essence and fundamentally being about the passing of professional examinations.

The professional qualifications of the chartered accountancy bodies are masters degree equivalent, so "chartered" accountants are effectively graduates even if they've not actually "attended" a Uni. Basically, the only thing "missing" is the social life as the professional body exams are very challenging and those who've passed them without attending Uni are often looked upon more favourably by employers as they've done the studying/revision etc alongside working full time jobs (usually) so you've the "evidence" of good time management and planning etc.

Again, at a personal level, I have a very high. Level qualification from a world-renowned setting - and a necessary professional qualification from a low ranked local institution. I had to gain that professional qualification locally, as I could not move for the necessary year, being married with 2 small children.

Some employers even in London in my profession (law) recruit "institution blind" to try to be fair but if the person cannot pass the very many complex tests

It would be interesting to know what their experience of 'blind' recruiting is. Did they indeed pick the best candidates for the job? Or does knowing an applicant's University help asses them more easily and find the most suitable candidates?

There are such a lot of interesting issues on this thread. I have not derailed it by talking about the new exams for solicitors (which is quite a niche subject).

"Am I correct in thinking the only people who take these exams are those holding training contracts? " Most do not have training contract even now under the old system of a law conversion and legal practice course (2 years post grad) but it is certainly a risk (if you ever earn over the repayment threshold for masters student loan and have to make repayments) that if you do not receive a training contract or cannot get a paralegal job you will have the debt but not the career.

With the new system (SQE) anyone with a degree can self teach for SQE1 and 2 exams (like the New York Bar exams) (although most people will need a law course to pass) but you need two years of a training contract or trainee solicitor type work experience (which can be at 4 places) signed off by a solicitor before you qualify plus a first degree. So someone could do a law degree, study for SQE1 and 2 even during the degree - although that would be unusual and once they had the 2 years of work could be a solicitor. Whether anyone would want to hire someone who was badly trained or never did a proper law course however is another matter. So we might solve the bottle neck over more people passing courses but cannot get a training place but instead have lots of people (who perhaps should not be in law anyway as they are not up to standard) trying to get jobs on qualification unable to compete with those who were "properly" trained in a good firm. Or it might work well. Time will tell.

Tizer, yes it is the same for solicitors - if you can get your masters loan to fund the post grad courses nowadays or a firm to pay then anyone just about can get on the course even with a low 2/2. Currently about 62% pass the legal practice course first time but others will pass on a resit and the log jam is getting a training contract. In my day there were only 3 places you could do the equivalent course all run by the College of Law (London, Guildford or Chester) and it was as far as I remember harder to get on the course and 50% failed it. I think then or earlier they rationed places on it based on the number of trainees predicted to be needed.

Anyway I am sure most people doing the course know if they have a reasonable chance of being good enough to get jobs and if they cannot do a web search to work that out then they do the course at their own risk.

The idea behind one company (Kaplan) marking SQE1 and 2 exams is to make it centralised and fair. However one down side is that most people will want to pay for a course as now BUT they also have about £3900 of course fees just to sit SQE1 and 2. So it may end up more expensive plus you cannot get a masters student loan for the exam fees.

SRA link I was asked about above www.sra.org.uk/sra/news/press/results-sqe1-assessment/ I think I read another article on it which says those with 1st did best, 2/1s second best, 2/2s 3rd best but could not find it this morning.

On blind recruiting I don't know how it is going. Clifford Chance are doing it and the bit below does sound a bit risky and possibly unfair on more traditional candidates.

"In 2013, we were one of the first firms to introduce CV blind interviewing. In 2015, we took things a step further and worked with RARE recruitment to become founding partner of the contextual recruitment system, allowing us to fairly benchmark candidates against each other and further break down barriers to the profession. In 2017, we made the bold decision to remove minimum academic requirements for our roles. We are confident that the changes we have made allow us access to a much broader pool of talent, whilst allowing each individual to showcase their authentic journeys and experiences through the process." careers.cliffordchance.com/london/apply-now/how-we-hire.html

If people get through who cannot do the work very well then I assume they will not be kept on when they qualify I suppose and that would apply as much to an Oxbridge first as a 2/2 from Sunderland ex poly.

Most of the big firms however want AAB or higher at A level and a 2/1 or higher from a decent degree including want to see every mark on every paper even in year 1 of your degree, plus the psych tests and much else.

I have heard that recruitment profiles change little when university is hidden. It’s those pesky tests and interviews. Some people from the top universities are better at them and apply for the jobs in the first place.

As @cantkeepawayforever says, staying at home is desirable for some but it can limit degree quality and employment options. I think it’s been found that poorer Oxbridge grads go for poorer paid work so ambition can be lacking. Going back home and not branching out can hold them back.

I don’t agree that we can keep poor courses going and that university should enable students to stay at home. I don’t agree that many need to do this but plenty want to and stay in friendship groups etc. There is help for everyone to go away and study and parents/schools should encourage this instead of saying stay local.

Yes, there are undoubtedly good courses at overall not great universities. However (this is radical) why can they not keep going but other degrees are culled in favour of HND type courses for lesser qualified young people? Or even move the Department under the wing of another university?

As for which universities to look at: the ones with highest drop outs, ones with lower grad employment stats (but arts might need to be looked at differently) and essentially lower ranked ones. So the Ex Polys would stay as unis. Colleges if HE, Teacher Training and others should be reviewed. If few students pay back the loans they are very expensive to run and do we need over 100 universities when only 30 are RG or “elite” according to the Sutton Trust? Surely we could rationalise somewhat and make sure we get the best outcomes for young people and not jobs they could have done without a degree.

Most accountancy employees I know all have degrees these days. Apprenticeships will mean they can get employment at 18 and that’s not a bad thing.

I am not sure that ‘lower paid’ is always quite the right metric in jobs, though.

Public service jobs - teachers, academics, faith leaders - as well as charity jobs and creative jobs can all be ‘destinations for high quality graduates’ while not being ‘highly paid’. My family are all Oxbridge graduates, all in careers widely seen as being ‘vocations’ rather than necessarily bring high paid. In fact, all have had ‘classic high flying graduate jobs’ as well as their current ones to which they are ‘called’. I have not been brought up to see this as a failure…..

@mids2019
I certainly would not look at the universities like UEA. Or Surrey, Sussex or Essex. All were established in the 60s I think along with the Polys. But the notion that some universities should offer more foundation courses, HNDs, professional qualifications etc as well as degrees is worth looking at. We had local colleges like this until 30 years ago. They were successful in my view and certainly had centres of excellence.

@cantkeepawayforever
I really meant low paid non grad jobs. Minimum wage jobs. Most of what you quote are not low paid but, at the moment, sit on the threshold for loan repayment from day 1. In a few years time, with salary progression through grades and with pay rises, they will be paying grad tax. They are not low paid when you compare them with shelf stacking of care worker roles. I’m not setting the threshold at the higher rate of income tax. However we have 80% plus of grads going into employment but it’s often the case that a degree isn’t required - I think 50% go into grad employment in the traditional sense. So a better descriptor might be grad job with further training and clearly identified career progression? But it would not be the only aspect considered.

Sorry - me again. Public service jobs can be well paid and still have better pensions than many others enjoy. A greater issue might be evaluating the self employed.

Some places started blind recruiting as they were not getting any diversity in their applicants otherwise.

It wasn't just a case of meeting diversity targets, they found that just because someone ticked all the academic boxes and came across all smooth and confident it didn't mean they could do the job well.

When I got my training contract the slightly more enlightened law firm I trained at saw that I was clearly a hard worker with a great deal of determination and drive as things hadn't just fallen into my lap all my life.