Are some degrees more equal than others?

[sheepdogdelight]

Musing upon this really.

If student A gets a 2:1 from Oxford.
Student B gets a 2:1 from Aston
Student C gets a 2:1 from Wolverhampton

Are these degrees all of equal value?

I know some people will say the one from Oxford is worth more, because, well Oxford. And the one from Wolverhampton is worth less, because, ex polytechnic.
But have the students achieved equal academic excellence in reality?

But jobs are only half the issue. To grow an economy people need to start businesses and careers.

Absolutely. Business skills and entrepreneurship are important skills.

But you don't necessarily need to spend several years at University to learn these.

But it helps to meet like minded people, have a wider understanding about your passion, learn the skills of being professional and the opportunity to live somewhere else in a supportive environment.
For less obvious talents Uni gives people choices.

But it helps to meet like minded people, have a wider understanding about your passion, learn the skills of being professional and the opportunity to live somewhere else in a supportive environment.

But that's a very expensive 'learning experience'. I wonder whether (our tax) money wasn't better spent on helping youngsters learn those vital skills via apprenticeships or similar?

The thing is, the graduates lauded in this thread - those who go into banking or law or the City - really don’t need the content of their degrees at all to do their jobs. They need - it is said - to be graduates, usually from certain elite universities, but they very much don’t need the content of the degrees that they study there.

So, as I said before, it would make much more sense for these large institutions to recruit at 18, and do all training internally, rather than recruiting graduates who have essentially been spending 3 years studying largely job-irrelevant degrees to gain the BA/ BSc from ‘appropriately selective’ universities as their ‘entry ticket’. For future academics, scientists. researchers, teachers, musicians, doctors, engineers, vicars etc etc - that is who the content of degrees is important for and who it should be directed at.

What I am saying is that it seems very idd to push apprenticeships for those passionate about, and needing, the content of their degree, but push degrees for those who only want to use their qualification to buy entry to a career that dies not need or use that content?

@cantkeepawayforever - the difference is that city bankers are highly likely to repay their student debt. Other courses less so.
The question is not whether these other courses should exist - of course they should. But the number of places on them should be less tailored to how many students have a passion for it and more towards how many we need for our society and economy to function well. How to ensure people do a job relevant to degree? - you could reduce debt if a person completes 10years or whatever in their chosen field.

So every banker who did no work ever in their degree field would have the same debt as an academic who did 9 years of research and then went on to a different job, or spent a year on maternity leave?

I am a little baffled by the assertion that every banker’s degree is ‘worth it’ because they go into a well-paying field, whereas the degrees of every English student who goes on to teach; every musician who studies music and performs/ teaches; every dancer who performs / teaches and maintains a third job to fund both; every vicar who studies theology and goes into the priesthood; every scientist who works in the insecure field of basic research are not worth it, just because their degree-related fields of work are publicly funded ir less well paid.

But we'd soon run out of money if we subsidised (use tax payers money to pay for) degrees that cost us more more than they benefitted society.

This comes back to the original op - are all degrees equal? No, not only the subject but also the quality of the teaching/institution matters.

But what do you mean by benefitting society????

You seem to imply that a job only benefits society through the taxes the person pays, and that is obviously not true.

What about the ‘benefit to society’ a teacher - much less well paid than a banker - delivers to their pupils, so they in turn take up decently paid employment?

What about the benefit a nurse brings to their patients?

What about the tourist income an actor brings through the people who come to see a play or musical?

What about the benefit to society an academic brings to future generations through as yet unknown applications of their badic research?

What about the benefit to society of unpaid carers - many graduates of my age have been unpaid sahms and unpaid elderly carers over their lifetime - who save the country millions?

To understand the ‘value’ of someone’s degree, you have to use a much wider definition than ‘the individual taxes they pay in their initial graduate employment’

Sadly few actors get jobs!!! The few who do are of great benefit to us. The 90% plus of engineers that get jobs are, overall, of more benefit to society. However I suspect most unemployed actors snd musicians couldn’t be Engineers but I’m sure many of them could be encouraged to retrain for something!

As for city lawyers not studying law! @cantkeepawayforever - sadly you have no idea. They either have law degrees, or done the concession course and then their professional qualifications in double quick time. Quite a few will do MLaw too. DDs friends did that at Cambridge. They are simply not comparable to an out of work actor.

There is no way this country can fund what it wants without the highly paid. I would like to go further. I would like to see philanthropy developed to a much greater extent. As in the USA. The idea of giving back should be encouraged.

So how do you propose to identify the actors / musicians who WILL end up being successful (in the terms you define - money making) and offer them - and only them - training, even though that can only be given in an institution with an economically-viable number of students?

Fundamentally, we are not going to agree.

I believe that a civilised society values education for its own sake, and has a vibrant, innovative and varied cultural life incorporating the arts and sciences in all their forms.

You don’t, and believe in a utilitarian society where everything that does not gave a visible monetary payback should be stopped.

We are not going to agree. Our world views are fundamentally different.

Lots of very successful pop stars didn't have degrees and many didn't even have any formal education in music - there are often interviews with top stars who admit they can't even read music!

I believe that a civilised society values education for its own sake, and has a vibrant, innovative and varied cultural life incorporating the arts and sciences in all their forms.

I agree that a civilised society should have a varied cultured life including arts and science.

But I also see the need to be able to afford it too. We have limited resources. And without ensuring that we create enough value by growing our economy and raising taxes, we simply cannot afford to spend billions subsidising students to spend 3 years at University to only 'enjoy themselves'.

I like the idea suggested earlier about targeting the University funding towards areas of society that need extra staff/support.

I like the idea suggested earlier about targeting the University funding towards areas of society that need extra staff/support.

We are educating young people for a working life of nearly 50 years. How do we know what areas of society will need staff and support over that time?

Yes, had we known that my father would spend the final 30 years of his working life in educational charity work, he might have ‘needed’ different education from if he had remained in his initial 20 year career in construction management. As it was, his degree level education - technically irrelevant to both - has equipped him with the basic attitudes, values and learning approaches for either.

@cantkeepawayforever
He could never have done the former by studying dance. Or musical theatre. That’s the point, isn’t it? Some degrees are versatile and can be used for several careers. Others don’t lead far if the initial target isn’t realised. We do need arts grads but we don’t need over production of them.

You’d be surprised….

Though tbh that wasn’t my point. A pp had suggested that uni funding should be directed to areas of society currently needing extra support. I was just pointing out that it is impossible to predict what future needs might be, and thus valuing degree level education per se, regardless if specific subject, is possibly a better approach.

We don’t want graduates trained to fill today’s shortages, we want graduates with the habits of study, thought, curiosity and hard work that equip them for the next 50 years of challenges.

For example, composing might have seemed to be the ultimate ‘luxury, pointless’ degree 20 years ago - writing music for computer games has turned out to be a big niche employer for those skills.

@cantkeepawayforever
But these are minority careers! Few end up doing this work. We do need creative people who enrich our lives but they don’t all need degrees. There are too many. I have always proposed a resetting of qualifications where you go back to certain courses being diplomas. Many courses are too long and over taught. Buckingham university does degrees in 2 years. I think they languish near the bottom of league tables but you could look at this model and see what could be done in 2 years and not 3. It possibly should t be a degree but it should cost less and be attractive to employers. We need to move away from degree is everything. For some it is. For other careers - absolutely not. Some skills will always be more transferable than others!

Oh, and if your skills need refreshing, there’s always apprenticeships. They take far more adults onto degree apprenticeships than 18 year olds. Change is always possible if you can get the job in the first place.

As I said, we have fundamentally different world views and value systems, and have I think pretty much exhausted our repetition of them on this thread - we are not going to agree and I think we are now just re-stating and going round in circles!

I agree that, in pretty much every sphere, there is a ranking of particular courses based on quality of teaching and teachers, amount of contact, value to employers in that specific area, specific course content etc, and this is reflected in admissions criteria - grades or interviews or auditions or all 3.

I disagree that there us a simple ranking of ‘worthwhile’ and ‘non-worthwhile’ degrees based on subject. A really high quality degree in a subject you would regard as ‘not worthwhile’ may in fact much better equip its graduates to work in any field - related ir not - than a low quality degree in an apparently ‘worthwhile’ subject.

Equally, some people are driven by vocation, not money, and thus aspire to and seek out the best courses for that vocation that they can find, not a course they are less interested in because it could earn them more money. Wouldn’t life be boring if we were all the same?

@cantkeepawayforever - you can predict much of need - healthcare, social care, teachers as a minimum. Engineering - highly likely. It would be better to do adult education (re-training or degrees after 18) if there were unpredicted need - the skills learnt would be more relevant if taught when/if needed.

Scotland is an interesting example - so they have free uni - but effectively end up capping the number of students (because there is a finite pot for the unis). Whilst I think this is more efficient - I think it is a bit unfair to non grads and kids who don’t go to good schools.

I don’t think it is a bad thing to have unis which which are more academic and ones which are more vocational. But I guess it’s just the balance I question - I agree with @TizerorFizz - that we should look at whether courses which are towards the bottom of both quality (eg dropout rate) and employability ratings should exist as 3 year full time degrees.

If you're looking at applications for the same job at a competitive firm in an area which requires intellect then no, those degrees are far from equal.