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.

Personally, I would really prefer for my DC to be in universities with excellent research. And we would be happy for them to pay the extra. However, we cannot pretend it has no social mobility implications for poorer students.

Fact is unis and the jobs market need to work together more closely and poorer students require better advice from start to finish. UCAS needs to reflect the students’ social background far more accurately to and match them up with the best courses from an employability perspective.
I have said this on another thread - parental income and education status (up to PhD level) of the parents of a prospective student are most relevant.

We also need a thriving alternative to having to go to university. We are driving young talented people out of the country who do not have parental financial backing. That is a fact.

We also really need to value our university sector as a whole. It is a huge thing in the UK and creates loads of value for us as a country.

I firmly believe the education sector as a whole and the private sector need to work closely together.

I am not even sure anymore whether Central Government adds much value to anything these days?

Fact is unis and the jobs market need to work together more closely and poorer students require better advice from start to finish. UCAS needs to reflect the students’ social background far more accurately to and match them up with the best courses from an employability perspective.

All this would take would be properly funded careers guidance. Young people should have access to qualified, impartial careers advisers to give them tailored, individual advice and guidance.
Unfortunately the schools and colleges based careers provision was decimated by the coalition government and its yet to recover.

@ElaineMBenes - there is no point being partisan anymore. The main parties are imploding in their own culture wars.

The education sector has to work together. Companies have ESG requirements, some top private schools can help with careers advice , there are numerous charities and eg London livery companies helping state schools etc etc - there has to be more and more of this. It may have to be volunteer run and led via initiatives.
The uni sector needs to work in the best interests of the country and ignore the current political situation as much as possible. Why get too embroiled with the far left vs far right rhetoric? To what end?

We are at the forefront of a technological revolution and need to get our act together.

The education sector has to work together. Companies have ESG requirements, some top private schools can help with careers advice , there are numerous charities and eg London livery companies helping state schools etc etc - there has to be more and more of this. It may have to be volunteer run and led via initiatives.

I agree that the education sector needs to work together more and there is definitely potential for more links between education and employers.
However, in what way can private schools help with careers advice? Also, why should careers support be volunteer run?
A careers adviser is a professional, often with postgraduate level qualifications. They deserve to be paid for their work.

Impartial advice is really important, which is why it needs to be given by an impartial person not a university who is focussed on bums on seats. And i say that as someone who has been responsible for links between schools and universities and open days. They were recruitment exercises and not impartial advice and guidance.

@ElaineMBenes - what is your view on online careers aptitude tests for all?

They have their uses but shouldn't be done in isolation.
They work best if people have access to a professional who can help interpret the results and offer advice.

Also, some are better than others so people should be wary about which ones they use.

Good point. I fully agree.

Splitting out the current "one size fits all" into two different categories could really have benefits.

There are lots of "soft" subjects where I'm doubtful that "research" is useful at all, or even possible. Maybe restricted to public surveys, etc., which may or may not be genuinely ground breaking or useful.

But then, you have the likes of medicine, science, engineering, where there's massive scope for research.

We do seem to have polarised opinions as to what Uni is for. I'd say that the vast majority of the "extra" students who've gone to Uni in the past 25 years (since the 50% aim!), aren't there for research, and are either there for the social/party scene or to get a degree for a job. Whereas the kind of student who went 50 years ago was probably genuinely interested in their subject, keen to do research, etc., and "jobs" weren't the prime motivation, nor partying.

I'd love for some exploration of the two different "reasons" for Uni, and yes, maybe for the ones wanting a social life and a job, just change the Uni experience to a more intense 2 year course, basically, a degree factory. And then have three year degrees, for those genuinely interested in research etc., with more feeding into masters and PHD studies.

There are lots of "soft" subjects where I'm doubtful that "research" is useful at all, or even possible. Maybe restricted to public surveys, etc., which may or may not be genuinely ground breaking or useful.

What do you consider a 'soft 'subject?

But do they need "people" intensive personal one to one support though?

All the information they'd ever need is available via Google these days. You can pretty easily discover entry requirements etc for most professions, trades and jobs. Most firms advertise jobs on websites giving pretty clear requirements in terms of qualifications, work experience, and there are lots of pseudo career advice websites with online questionnaires as to personality, abilities, preferences, etc.

Personally, I find the idea of a teenager sitting down with a careers advisor a little bit antiquated.

We need to be teaching them how to be more proactive to find their own information, do their own research, etc.

I cringed when our niece, who was about 19 at the time, told us she wanted to be a vet. But she'd not done even the slightest bit of googling to discover the "journey" required in terms of school qualifications, NVQ or degree requirements, etc. 10 minutes on Google and she'd have had a really good idea of how to achieve it. But, she seemed to think she could just put a CV together and send it to a few local vet practices! And she's not a "thick" girl either, got a decent set of GCSEs, a few decent A levels and was doing a business degree at Uni! But hadn't a scooby do about researching careers etc. (In the event, she hadn't done the right A levels, so it was out of the question and was out of the question by the time her A level choices had been fixed!). She really shouldn't need a 1-2-1 personal session to be told things she could easily google for!

"2 different reasons for going to university"...sounds to me like you have swallowed the nonsense about two tier universities. There are countless reasons students have for going to university, which is why there are many different institutions and courses. And some go at 25 or 30 or 50 etc etc. The discourse on tertiary education is so poor in this country.
Also, the idea that only medicine, engineering etc do useful research? What about mental health improvement through memoirs, performance histories as stimulus for current work, media literacy, benefits or not etc Brexit, modest and effects of second language acquisition, changing attitudes to countryside, underrated composers or artists and their context, improving urban lives, community conflict and its amelioration, pedagogy and academic success....I mean these are just arbitrary ones that fell from my head in an instant as examples of what non STEM research is offering all the time.

But do they need "people" intensive personal one to one support though?

Not everyone does, but some do.

All the information they'd ever need is available via Google these days. You can pretty easily discover entry requirements etc for most professions, trades and jobs. Most firms advertise jobs on websites giving pretty clear requirements in terms of qualifications, work experience, and there are lots of pseudo career advice websites with online questionnaires as to personality, abilities, preferences, etc.

Great...if all you want is information and potentially a bit of advice. Google can't offer guidance.

Personally, I find the idea of a teenager sitting down with a careers advisor a little bit antiquated.

Why? I suspect it's because you are thinking career guidance is just someone telling you about jobs or entry requirements. Career guidance is so much more than talking about jobs

We need to be teaching them how to be more proactive to find their own information, do their own research, etc.

I agree, this is what careers advisers do!! Part of the role is to teach career management skills!

I cringed when our niece, who was about 19 at the time, told us she wanted to be a vet. But she'd not done even the slightest bit of googling to discover the "journey" required in terms of school qualifications, NVQ or degree requirements, etc. 10 minutes on Google and she'd have had a really good idea of how to achieve it. But, she seemed to think she could just put a CV together and send it to a few local vet practices! And she's not a "thick" girl either, got a decent set of GCSEs, a few decent A levels and was doing a business degree at Uni! But hadn't a scooby do about researching careers etc. (In the event, she hadn't done the right A levels, so it was out of the question and was out of the question by the time her A level choices had been fixed!). She really shouldn't need a 1-2-1 personal session to be told things she could easily google for!

Why do we employ history teachers when it can all be easily looked up on google?

You niece would have benefitted from a carers interview in so many ways. A good careers adviser would have helped her identify her interests and taught her how to research careers. They would have spent some time unpicking why she wanted to be a vet and if it wasn't achievable then they would have looked at what particular aspects of being a vet was attractive to her and helped her match those interests, her skills and qualifications to jobs that are similar/adjacent.
Google can't do that.
Not all young people are able to identify and articulate their interests and match them to jobs.

There maybe could be a debate about the value of some research!? Who does it benefit? Society or the uni? It’s hardly all vital! Most research is, of course, very important but how much is self serving?

Eh? You do know universities don't set themselves fun but useless things to research while they're on holiday? If a funder, be they RC, charity, industry, government, wants to pay for some research then it's clearly important to them. So universities bid to do it. Who is the bidder to judge whether it's important or not?

@taxguru - what jobs do your nieces parents do? To what level are they qualified? In terms of exact uni level or below.

I am really interested in this exact question. There is no chance my DC were going to do the “Wrong” A levels and we would have always given them and their friends excellent interview practice, signed them up to psychometric tests etc the lot. Nought to do with school. And all the neighbours etc will readily ask other parents for help if there DC is interested in eg. Law. Medicine, Banking, Veternary, Engineering.

We also need a thriving alternative to having to go to university. We are driving young talented people out of the country who do not have parental financial backing.

I completely agree with this although I don't think it's confined to people with no parental financial backing. DD is choosing a degree with a language and year abroad to widen her future options.

Apprenticeships for either 16 or 18 year olds seem to focus on practical career paths or STEM subjects, degree apprenticeships are like gold dust. What about the kids who are good at humanities, should we just as a country ditch those subjects oh wait... we need English teachers and the creative arts are some of the most lucrative money makers for the UK.

Someone upthread wrote that employers are less and less focussed on employing people with degrees. I disagree, I think that employers increasingly don't want to spend the money on training young people and then moan that the education system isn't producing people with the right skills. The company my DH works for used to take a few Civils students for year placements every year, they're ditching that to save money and (separately) planning to outsource a lot of their design work to India (again to save money) so no chance of new recruits learning from established employees.

@titchy Thst doesn’t mean the research is well targeted though does it? Its opinion. It’s almost certainly not the case that keeping lecturers employed doing some research is the best policy when there’s finite money that’s decreasing. Just because a body oversees funding it doesn’t mean it makes the right decisions any more than government does.

I am a little tired of the sinking uni ship
gobbling up money and pushing back on every suggestion, if unis were truly businesses they would be taking the tough decisions. As a real business
must. No customers? Offer a different product, or reduce output. Unis need to change tack. As @Araminta1003 says, work with business and develop a much stronger middle sector for young people. In many ways polys used to do this. They didn’t offer history, English and psychology in the 60s. It wasn’t necessary as the new plate glass unis and red bricks did that. Get back to doing what’s actually required. Do we need even more American studies, Women’s studies and other niche areas? I think not.

Thst doesn’t mean the research is well targeted though does it? Its opinion. It’s almost certainly not the case that keeping lecturers employed doing some research is the best policy when there’s finite money that’s decreasing. Just because a body oversees funding it doesn’t mean it makes the right decisions any more than government does.

Universities are getting paid to do research. That's the point that was being made. It's a source of income.
Also, the vast, vast majority of academics are not just being paid to carry out research. It is part of their job (and brings in income) but they are also teaching and doing teaching related activity such as marking, tutorials, moderating etc.

@TizerorFizz - I am afraid to say that in my opinion, judging by the way politics is going, we need social sciences research more than ever as well as sophisticed media studies and studies around manipulation of algorithms etc etc. If anything, we need to defend democracy whilst also working on social mobility. It is a tricky balance and division is not the answer, even if resources seem scarce. If anything we need to use technology in the right way to help each other across sectors.

https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2024/09/09/walking-down-the-road-to-kingdom-come-some-steps-away-from-a-higher-education-funding-crisis/

interesting blog post, and picture selection, by perhaps a sub-conscious metaphor for impending retirement as well. John Cater, vice-chancellor at Edge Hill.

"Someone upthread wrote that employers are less and less focused on employing people with degrees. I disagree, I think that employers increasingly don't want to spend the money on training young people and then moan that the education system isn't producing people with the right skills. The company my DH works for used to take a few Civils students for year placements every year, they're ditching that to save money and (separately) planning to outsource a lot of their design work to India (again to save money) so no chance of new recruits learning from established employees."

Agreed. I think this is where the issue is too. Well, both employers not being prepared to put cash into training our young people in the skills employers want, and also a lack of economic growth meaning there has not been an increase in graduate pay/enough high paid jobs created. In the USA, the amount of people going to University has also increased over a similar timeframe to ours but so have graduate jobs expanded at the same time.

The whole reason we as parents are so invested in this topic is because we have a situation of scarcity in this country. We know all our talented and driven young people are competing for not enough well paid jobs. And now we think to the answer is to reduce the amount of students but that does not sound like something we should want for a progressive forward thinking country that competes globally.

All I see is our young people suffering with a huge amount of anxiety/angst whether they go to University or not.

Big employers and the government need to pay more into the University system - of course a University educated population benefits our society. And there also need to be clearer career pathways at 18+ for those who don't want to go to University. I suspect some of the numbers going to Uni would go down if there was another option. A proper alternative option, not just the lottery of the even more scarce degree apprenticeships, (and not everyone wants to or is able to study at that level anyway)

Do we need even more American studies, Women’s studies and other niche areas? I think not.

But Women’s Studies as its own subject (usually an MA) was largely demolished in the U.K. by 2010…

Those courses that still do exist in some form have mostly been rebranded as Gender Studies.

@WriterOfWrongs I don’t care what they are called to be honest. Medical research yes, some of the rest could go. We have built up a uni industry that serves itself.

The government subsidies loans. £280 billion and counting at the moment! It is putting money in. It’s our money by the way. There’s no government pot that’s not paid for by companies or us. When unis became so vast, employers sought grads. The 18 year old who did day release at polys and HE colleges vanished. They became full time undergrads costing us a fortune. And their parents. Some do apprenticeships but they are too complex to run for many and often don’t offer the best degrees. They are also wildly competitive to get into at degree level.

@TizerorFizz it's not only medical and scientific research that benefits society.

Narrowing the scope of research is not the answer. In fact it would be detrimental to the university sector from a financial and an advancement of knowledge perspective. Both of those directly impact students and graduates.

We want the UK to have a world leading higher education system, reducing the amount and scope of research puts us at a disadvantage globally.

The HE system and its funding model needs to change but the answer isn't to stop doing research in all but a small selection of subjects.

We do need research and universities comparing data, knowledge like this brings in income from the business sector to start with. It's how we progress society in many ways. Technology, health, energy, etc.

And it progresses knowledge which then informs the teaching of the subject.
Unless people think we've learned all there is to know about history, society, child development, education, psychology, politics etc?