Some universities will go bust

[GinForBreakfast]

Reported in the Times today. It must be so worrying for students joining or returning in September/October.

My question is around the regulator, who knows where the issues are. What should they be telling students and when? It seems cruel, especially to young people, to withhold information. It has financial implications as well - people moving, paying deposits etc.

@BananaLambo and how are they supposed to deliver this high quality excellent teaching? Where is the money coming from?

A lot already do say that. Particularly in the post-92 sector. Fee income is still capped though, and recruitment largely focussed on local home students - so no overseas student fees to subsidise the home fee. And degree apprenticeship fees are less than FT home students pay and a bloody nightmare of bureaucracy

@titchy Most history grads never expect to be historians. Psychology is sold very differently, and very much as the start of training.Law is exactly the same and it’s wrong.

its not the subject that’s the issue, it’s far too many grads doing it. They will be competing against history/sociology/law/politics/English/film/
media studies/journalism/ philosophy/classics etc grads for jobs. I totally agree that we need scientists and a good supply of non science grads but we don’t need the large numbers we produce that have cost billions.

For the majority that have grad level jobs, that’s great. However too many are disappointed that this doesn’t happen for them. Is this really what we see as success? Or would getting a training role and doing day release be a lot better? I think the latter and that’s what we need to make available. Doing exactly what you want at a huge cost to others is losing traction and it certainly should lead to a cull at some unis. It’s simply not sustainable.

It’s always been assumed that grads got a salary premium. They still do but it’s rapidly diminishing. Parents might well wonder if it’s worth it if they are paying. If DC is studying English at a low tariff uni that’s inevitably questionable.

@BananaLambo It would really benefit many of these unis to have far more non degree students. It’s what the polys used to do. I know, it’s what I did. It was very beneficial. I didn’t need a degree to do my job. I needed professional qualifications and my poly enabled this. We are fixated on degrees instead of competence.

It’ll be a shame if some proper subjects go down with the social sciences.
Do you realise how insulting it is to use language like this? Social sciences are proper subjects and there are thousands of people around the world who have dedicate their lives to studying this discipline. You are coming across as incredibly narrow minded.

I confess I’d never heard of many of the universities mentioned on that web page.

And?

I'll be seriously pissed off if DC university goes tits up. We've already paid for three years and another three years to go 🙈

@justasking111, that sounds like Medicine or Dentistry or Veterinary Science. Whatever happens, I think we can absolutely guarantee that students on those courses would be assisted to transfer to other universities to complete their studies there. Fingers crossed it won't come to that, though.

@Rummly but presumably you've heard of UCL, Durham, Exeter, York, Nottingham, Cardiff, Newcastle, Sheffield the Open University etc etc? This isn't confined to a small number of less well known universities.

I have indeed. I’m sorry that those universities are in trouble.

But the fact remains that universities and academics are not on a guaranteed tenure at public expense.

Well this all depends if you think universities are part of Education and whether Education is a public service.

I’ve always seen Education as a public service. Something that simply cannot be moneytized and is essential to the functioning of the country.
And yes I do include universities for the simple reason that our employment landscape has changed a lot over the last 10~15 years. Assuming that not everyone needs to go to University will simply create a workforce that is less well trained and therefore less able to face the needs of employers.
The British workforce is already badly trained. We dint need a system that makes the situation worse.

For the majority that have grad level jobs, that’s great. However too many are disappointed that this doesn’t happen for them.

And that’s an issue with the British work market not with the number of graduates.

@Rummly so what are you suggesting? Do you think the £9k fees should be significantly increased? Are you worried that the gap between rich and poor will widen when degrees (and hence certain professions) are only accessible to some?

But the fact remains that universities and academics are not on a guaranteed tenure at public expense.

I don't think anyone is suggesting they should be. However, your suggestion of essentially erasing entire academic disciplines is ludicrous.

@DullFanFiction Canada has more uni grads. Is part of the UK issue the current employment landscape?More import based less export, fewer manual jobs, less manufacturing?
For many uni is a place to go because entry level jobs are not available. Uni allows a young person time to explore options and mature.

And the majority who are working ARE in graduate level employment a year after they graduate - 76%!

See what they're doing after two or three or five years - I bet we'd be looking at over 90% in graduate level employment.

It's hardly a large proportion leaving for a lifetime of minimum wage jobs.

And the majority who are working ARE in graduate level employment a year after they graduate - 76%!

Exactly!
This idea that there are too many graduates is a myth!!

You cannot get away with blaming employers. They need to make a profit to stay in business. Unis don’t. They are not all producing dc for the jobs available.They lean towards bums on seats and not what’s actually needed. It’s pointless and expensive to be churning out grads who cannot get grad jobs. Just telling dc to do any degree anywhere is poor advice.

It’s pointless and expensive to be churning out grads who cannot get grad jobs.

Except I've just pointed out that 76% are in grad jobs a mere one year after graduating.

Your other point about Law and Psych - is there any evidence to support your view that students on those degrees expect to be solicitors and Psychologists, while History students don't expect to become historians? Because I don't think every Law or Psych applicant is doing so because they want those specific occupations.

You cannot get away with blaming employers. They need to make a profit to stay in business. Unis don’t

At a minimum they need to break even.

Exactly! If they didn't there'd be no need for this thread!

What is now considered a 'graduate level' job though? It's certainly far more broad than it used to be. Nursing, teaching, policing, paramedic, animal care, professional cameraman or sound technician and hundreds of other jobs did not used to require a degree, and in many cases no degree specifically for those jobs even existed.

Those roles haven't suddenly become any more complicated, requiring higher levels of intelligence or more 'education' than they ever did, as far as I can tell. Yet the college based 2 year courses that were free, post 16, or the practical workplace training that you previously did while earning money, not paying it out, has been shifted to the university classroom. This 'education' has been adapted to make it last three years, often by padding it out with unnecessary, theory based flannel.

Also, when I left school, it was not only possible, but actually very common to leave school at 16 or 18 and get a job in a bank, or an advertising agency, or an oil company or whatever, on the lowest rung of the ladder and work up.

Whereas I imagine that most entrants going into corporate positions now, even at the most junior trainee level, are graduates. There are probably no more truly 'graduate level' jobs than there ever were. They haven't suddenly jumped from 5 or 7% of jobs for young people starting out in full time work, to around 35 or 40%.

It's just that the sort of young people who have the right suitability for those positions are now going to university first, then being recruited as graduates, 3 years older with a ton of student debt. The whole landscape for workplace entrants has shifted. As degrees become more ubiquitous among young people, so employers tend to assume that those who don't go to uni are either are not of the right calibre, or are more attracted/suited to vocational or trades based careers. So I suspect they are specifying graduate applicants when it's honesly not necessary to do so, and the same position (or its nearest equivalent) 25 years ago would have merely required some A levels or a year or two on a BTEC at most. Sometimes not even that.

Even then, if your figures are correct and these are genuine graduate level jobs, that still means 2.5 in 10 young people are leaving university and ending up in work that justifies neither the time and the money they spent doing it.

Good post @TwigletsAndRadishes

Nursing, teaching, policing, paramedic, animal care, professional cameraman or sound technician and hundreds of other jobs did not used to require a degree, and in many cases no degree specifically for those jobs even existed.

Those roles haven't suddenly become any more complicated, requiring higher levels of intelligence or more 'education' than they ever did, as far as I can tell. Yet the college based 2 year courses that were free, post 16, or the practical workplace training that you previously did while earning money, not paying it out, has been shifted to the university classroom. This 'education' has been adapted to make it last three years, often by padding it out with unnecessary, theory based flannel.

Sorry, but I don't ever want to live in a world where nursing doesn't require a degree or where midwifery isn't a postgrad qualification.

I am in the US where nursing takes four years, not three, with midwifery a few years extra, and having experienced nursing care before and after two operations and post op treatment, and during and after five deliveries, with one delivery under the care of a midwife, I can wholeheartedly support the argument for degree level and postgrad qualifications.

The roles of nurses and midwives have indeed become more complicated. Same applies to teachers.

They are not vocations where a heart brimming over with the milk of human kindness and good intentions will see you through.

You clearly don’t understand how HE funding works in the UK. Without research funding and the fees from overseas students there is no income since home students are loss making.

Oh if only there was another model to inspire university administrators...

Those roles haven't suddenly become any more complicated, requiring higher levels of intelligence or more 'education' than they ever did, as far as I can tell.

They absolutely have! The profession of paramedic didn't even exist until quite recently. If you watch any old TV programmes where an ambulance features, you'll see the driver and his mate (always male) turn up in an impractical uniform, run over to the casualty with their stretcher, load the patient on and into the ambulance, and off they go to the hospital where the medical care starts. The most you could expect in the ambulance was a bandage on a wound. Paramedics nowadays provide sophisticated diagnosis and treatment from the moment they arrive on scene. They are authorised to administer powerful drugs and they have to choose the right ones and monitor the patient's condition. Of course they need extensive training and that has to start with a good working knowledge of human anatomy and other relevant theory.

Teaching - my Mum did teacher training at a college back in the early 1950s. It took three years, not much different from now when it would probably be four years, and there was a lot of theory taught alongside practical placements. It wasn't a big step up for primary school teaching to become a degree rather than a certificate/diploma subject.

And so on.