new gov policy of restricting student numbers in some degree courses

[justanotherdaduser]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66216005

Wondering how people feel about it?

I am unsure - in one hand, it feels needlessly prescriptive. People should be free to study what interests them without government's guiding hand

But also, not everyone signing up to such courses fully understand the degree outcomes.

Or, why should tax payers fund courses that are not good value for money? But by that logic, over time, we can lose many other valuable courses (IMO!)

Confused!

This is going to end up as the usual uni-bashing thread isn't it?

I used to teach post 16 students, we had to sign post them all to university higher education. Quite frankly I felt I was doing many a disservice, especially the ones who’d had offers for management training schemes arising from their Saturday jobs. And those with educational difficulties.

my DD dropped out of uni early on, it was the best thing she did, she managed to pay back student loan for the one term she completed.Then she got an office job where she recently became the senior to a graduate who’d had spent five years trying to get an office job.

I'm assuming they'll drop medicine as a degree, as earning £14.09 as a graduate isn't much 🤓. Definitely not worth 5 years of education as could earn more as a cleaner.

Assuming you mean information advice and guidance, I wholeheartedly agree.

Pity the Gov did away with careers services...
I totally agree. The lack of CIAG in places is awful and I do think too much emphasis has been on university over other routes.

I do think it's reasonable to consider some courses and how admissions are done, but in my opinion it needs to go hand in hand with a proper review of technical and vocational routes post-18 and better CIAG that's accessible for all

Unfortunately there is a growing culture of utility in HE. Lots of my students won't do anything that isn't going to be assessed. They aren't interested in enrichment, further reading etc. Just pay the fee, do what they have to to pass their assessments and go with their bit of paper. They quite openly ask "will this be on the exam/assignment?" It's not necessarily their fault, just the inevitable outcome of commodifying education. The government are now using this to further their agenda which may result in decreased opportunities for the non traditional student.

I wonder if degrees like 'uniformed and public services' are necessary. Just join the military, police or fire service and learn on the job as a cadet. The Police went through a phase of needing a degree so lots of young people spent 50k on criminology degrees. Now they have the apprentice route that works towards a degree in Professional Policing Practice. Why the need to have degrees and all this debt?

Can't help feeling that this is another nail in the coffin of humanities.

I heard Sunak say this morning on LBC that the 'most crucial' factor in deciding whether a course should be culled / capped was the projected salary.

'Sunak’s plans will require the Office for Students – the higher education regulator for England – to “ensure that courses which fail to deliver good earnings are subject to stricter controls”, according to the announcement' (from today's Guardian)

I don't disagree at all with the broad principle of increasing the availability and value of apprenticeships and of course students should be going into any course with their eyes open about what it will actually lead to. But there is more to life - and education - than just making money at the end of it all.

So basically the government wants to get rid of creative arts degrees.

Now they have the apprentice route that works towards a degree in Professional Policing Practice. Why the need to have degrees and all this debt?

Is that the only route into the police now? Are the students to fund their own degrees in these apprenticeships?

I'd be interested to know why a degree is needed.

I know of people doing dance or theatre arts degrees with minimal talent. I've no idea where that's going to take them in the end. Places like Wilkes offering them.

It just devalues degrees I think. I think we could definitely lose degrees in areas like the above.

I notice social care looks pretty bad on that graph. Surely that means we should be giving care workers a pay rise?

Yep we should definitely be valuing social care more

I think we should to back to when I graduated when only about 15% went to university. If this is a step there then that is a good thing. At present most people do not pay back student loans so the educaton is a gift from tax payers to them.

@titchy This is from The Guardian. They will look at drop out rates.

I went to a poly. It offered brilliant job related courses. It did not offer history, English or geography. Neither did my local HE college. We do need to rein back on some courses which have limited merit at some universities.

The government apprentice levy has failed for most 18 year olds. They barely get a look in on degree apprenticeships. The vast majority are taken by adult employees. I agree with Sunak: more apprenticeships and fewer full time at uni. Ws pay for what we need. That could be niche. It could be culling some of the 18,000 places for law. Some of which promise the earth and definitely do not deliver!

@TizerorFizz the problem is the local industries that each poly relied on have gone in lots if cases.

I know that the former polys around me have cut their engineering and practical science based courses as the employers they used for the vocational parts no longer exist. Some thanks to privatisation and others due to merging then going abroad.

Sounds a good idea to me

The debt is so high

It will be the course one of your children wants to do....

Lol. That's like saying 'houses are so expensive to buy' and the Gov saying 'you're right, let's limit the availability of houses'!!!

Which course are you referring to?

Not really. Given other people don’t pick up house buying debt when it can’t be paid off

Not many reach the threshold

I’m surprised at people wanting zero change. It doesn’t have to be that brutal. Some switching to apprenticeships for example could be useful.

That is such an elitist view.
Statistics tells us exactly which 15% of the population would end up with a university education.

Society as a whole benefits from a more educated population.

If there were enough apprenticeships and they were fit for purpose then I would agree. However, the drop out rate from apprenticeships is incredibly highly and satisfaction is low.

I'd far rather cut a few mickey mouse degrees and train a few more doctors, but I doubt it's that simple.
But in principle degrees with poor outcomes (judged by how many people obtain graduate level jobs in that field and pay back their tax payer funded load) should be restricted. This would in theory force the universities to be more selective and produce better outcomes.

I am not so sure society benefits from quite a lot of people being able to sit around at tax payer expense drinking and worse for 3 years who may never pay back the debt. My mother taught 5 and 6 year olds very well and she did a 2 year residential teacher training course. I don't think the quality of her teaching of maths, English etc to those primary school children was worse for not doing a degree, just a Cert Ed and she had the 2 years residential a bit like university to make a break from home, friends for life etc.