University closures disproportionately impacting working class students

[mids2019]

Are we in danger of a situation where a lot of working class students who often have A levels that aren't all at A or A star level will be removed of opportunities for higher education?

We are looking at universities predominantly those that are attended by working class students facing departmental closures. Academic courses that possibly don't have high entrance tariffs are closing or will be closed.

One of the advantages of the newer universities was that entrenched inequality was challenged by allowing working class children to study the same academic courses as their middle class peers e.g. English, philosophy, physics, maths etc. Employers are encouraged to look at degree classification and not institution levelling the playing field and giving a lot students from deprived backgrounds access to professional they may not have had access to otherwise .

We now have degree apprenticeships flouted as the way forward but these simply aren't degrees in the academic sense but vocationally based tailors to employers needs not the students. Degree apprenticeships are mostly work based with blocks of academic learning of restricted length embedded in essentially a work environment. Isn't this pushing working class students down an essentially vocational path similar to the old grammar secondary modern divide but pushed on a few years to post level.

Are we going back to only the middle class being entitled to the advantages both professionally and personally of higher education?

Anecdotally I see plenty of middle class kids opening for degree apprenticeships in the hope of avoiding university debt. Working class children will generally have more debt than wealthier students because of the differing amounts that they can borrow. I know that repayments are capped but not having those repayments at all is freeing.

Im not sure how advice about apprenticeships differs in state vs private and comp vs grammar. There might be some careers advisers who can offer some insight.

Not all subjects have degree apprenticeships eg medicine and I suspect that private and grammar schools will be offering more pushy careers advice like the need for volunteering etc at a younger age.

It would be interesting to know if people who did degree apprenticeships still think that the pros outweigh the cons and if they would make the same decision again.

No, the post-92 universities are not the ones that are in the most financial trouble; these are not the ones that will collapse. I don't know why you assumed they would be.

It isn't to do with class.
It is to do with the most academic people being offered the opportunity to study at University, rather than those who are not so well suited to critical thinking and independent study that is needed for a degree.
That sounds right to me.

If you want to look at addressing inequalities from birth - I'd be fully on board with that. It was a crime that all the Surestart Centres were shut after all that investment. But sending people who don't have the academic ability for university study is not helping anyone.

To my mind degree apprenticeships though laudable in some respects are maybe akin to the vocational degrees offered by the old polytechnics. I think the concern would be studying something academic because of interest in the subject would become the preserve of the older universtities e.g Oxbridge and their predominantly middle class intake.

Major employers would still look at academic subjects but these would be taught by fewer universities leading to less diverse employees

Degree apprenticeships are a tiny fraction of all HE provision - and the problem is that numbers are dictated by employers, who set them up, rather than student demand.

It's certainly true that it's mostly universities at the lower end that are struggling and that these are more likely to have working class students. Most institutions actively try to recruit working class students but, frankly it isn't straightforward and they don't try hard enough.

I know 2 kids who did degree apprenticeships. Both are quite sad to have missed the typical university experience their peers had. They feel that now they have fewer friends and have definitely had less fun.

The richer of the two definitely wouldn't do it again if she had the choice. The one from the more modest background thinks on balance he probably would still do it, but still isn't that enthusiastic. The work they did often was quite repetitive and the quality of the university teaching and the institution they did the degree at wasn't always great, so whilst they have a degree it's not got a lot of cachet.

I think a lot of people are appreciating the benefits of a degree apprenticeship vs the traditional route now. Our local sixth form recently reported on A level results of some of their students. Those with straight A or A grades. Out of the six kids who had their results published, four were going on to degree apprenticeships. I don’t believe they are pushing the working class or lower grade students down a vocational path at all. They are extremely competitive to get on to and the A and A graders are choosing them. Depending on what you want to study, they make financial sense.

@NewName24

Good point but isn't it the case some students may not have performed spectacularly at A level due to a variety of social pressures including possibly disruptive school environs but then peform well at HE level?

Isn't the danger closure of some academic courses removed this option from some students that may have thrived?

I don’t know why A star isn’t on my post 😂, something weird happened.

I think that the cost of uni is so high now that working class students may be more conscious about employability after their degree compared to wealthier counterparts.

It sound like raising tuition fees will be necessary to keep the sector afloat but whether or not Labour will do it is another question as the policy would increase the debt of poorer students. Raising tuition fees also risks middle earner parents who are just above the cut off working less and paying less tax or pushing their kids into free options or studying degrees in Europe taught in English.

The thing is with degrees it depends on the area they work in whether it is a tick box e.g. they have a degree.

I know older people - well I'm related to one - who got their degrees as a tick box exercise so they could be promoted and to me that's what degree apprenticeships rightly or wrongly appear like.

It doesn't help that I've worked closely with young people while they are gaining them plus younger people who are already graduates. I've found those who do apprenticeships tend to have the better soft skills, whilst those who are graduates are better able to learn and change their attitude regardless of what it is they are learning.

Edited to say: I'm not disagreeing with your perspective.

A lot of the over expansion of many universities where due to aspirational middle class parents thinking their kids absolutely must go to university like the neighbours kids.

Equally lot of training that working class kids used to get for free and paid to do was turned into a degree (eg. nursing).

We need to rethink higher education completely instead of the degree cargo cult we have ended up with.

As much as people hate on the US system there is a lot more help for low income students and the community college system is much more accessible than what we have.

It is already indicated they are which is why there was a campaign before the A level results came out for young people to follow their passion in doing a degree. This is because the number of A level students doing Maths rose and those doing Arts, Humanities and Languages fell, with the corresponding knock on affects on degrees.

Higher tuition fees will definitely deter working class students especially those with middling A level grades as it will seem a large financial risk. However do we wish to really do this given graduates of newer universities and more niche subjection do very well in employment?

I think some courses may be of low quality but we need to be careful to not throw the baby out with the bathwater by taking out tranches of our HE system which were an important ring for many young people. I also an dubious whether the market ultimately should be the determined of HE as many courses are about enhancing the student from personal improvement level and not purely about economics.

Equally lot of training that working class kids used to get for free and paid to do was turned into a degree (eg. nursing).

@CraftyNavySeal I actually agree that some subjects like nursing should be degrees but I don't agree in the way it is structured.

So for example all nursing degrees should be done as degree apprenticeships rather than the person acquiring debt at university. This is because we ultimately want people like nurses with lots of soft skills which you are less likely to acquire in the classroom and more likely to have when you are older.

Yes it would mean that some people would never be a fully degree qualified nurse but back before nursing degrees some people never became a registered nurse and stayed at a lower level.

Weren't nursing degrees there to recognise the professional airlines of nurses? We would never envisage non graduate clinicians so should we view nurses as less than degree qualification worthiness. I note also that many clinicians are middle class and nurses more mixed in terms of background so wouldn't make nursing a non graduates discipline be divisive?

When you have more than one * symbol in your post, the symbols disappear and it is interpreted by the software as "make all text between these two symbols be bold"

If you need to use 2 then you can use a 💥 or other star emoji symbol instead.

But then you have the issue that they leave the NHS with no debit and a degree to do something completely different. Would it not be better to suspend repayment of loans whilst the graduate works for the government and wipe it after 30 years?

I enjoyed my degree but I would only encourage DS to go to uni if he needed it for his future career especially as you only get one set of funding so it might be too late to change your mind.

I do think the US system is a good idea with colleges where everyone can get a Bsc/BA then use MSc/PHD funding to specialise once you're older and more sure of yourself.

I'm not entirely sure regular student loans should be wiped or only repaid after earning X sum. Maybe something more generous when a student but with a higher repayment term or shorten the time at uni by removing breaks (yes I know that impacts research) or allowing those who want to juggle more modules over a shorter period of time with the breaks being untaught time for assignments

I just find it so unfair that nurses have to get into potentially £50k of debt to end up earning what they do, when someone with better off parents can go study fully funded by their folks, so no debt, to bag a job in investment banking/asset management.

Appreciate that the latter do end up paying a load more tax, but I fear for the healthcare system not being able to attract good people.

I have no issue with nurses studying at a degree level and being awarded a degree.

I disagree with how across the board the costs of training has been pushed onto students rather than employers.

Amazingly the US manages to charge nursing students less than we do but pay them double upon graduating, meaning we have managed to fuck up massively.

It seems all a bit topsy turvy.
The decent degree apprenticeships are demanding the type of A’level grades that top unis ask for. Can understand it in a way as working almost full time and studying for a degree at 18 must be pretty challenging.
Candidates from w/c backgrounds who don’t have those grades and would suit a good apprenticeship (not necessarily a degree one) I suspect are being pushed out and ironically end up at the lesser unis doing less useful degrees.
Our local uni is very much ‘bums on seats’ and entrance requirements are extremely low. Most students are local, African or from Pakistan. I know personally of several colleagues with non conventional qualifications who’ve started part time degrees and struggled/dropped out or found they were of absolutely no use whatsoever. One friends son started a CS course and every student apart from one other was from south east Asia.

But then you have the issue that they leave the NHS with no debit and a degree to do something completely different. Would it not be better to suspend repayment of loans whilst the graduate works for the government and wipe it after 30 years?

@sleepyscientist If you are doing a degree apprenticeship your degree takes longer than if you are studying full-time plus you are working all year round.

Depending on how the degree apprenticeship is structured if the person doesn't have sufficient work experience then they can't be awarded their degree.

Also in my area if your private employer pays for your qualification there is a period of time you have to work for them otherwise you have to pay the them back with interest. As I do some public sector work I was horrified to find some large government departments didn't do this properly in my area with young people. There as my SILs who are experienced when they looked into doing degrees so they could be promoted within the NHS (which some of them did) they had to pay the fees back if they left within a certain time period.

Tbh I think it's really stupid that a degree in a totally vocational qualification from the College of Nowhere (granted degree-awarding powers in 2005) that has entry standards of 100 UCAS points (BBD) qualifies you for a career track that will eventually hit a ceiling of around £30kpa after a few years experience - sentencing the holder to pay the extra graduate tax for their entire career never paying it off, costs exactly the same in initial fees as the prestigious degrees from top quality universities requiring A*AA to enter. The graduates of the latter will actually pay a lot less for their degrees that line them up for £100kpa careers because they will pay so much less interest and will be able to pay off their debt swiftly.

Degree apprenticeships are like gold dust and definitely aren't being pushed to the working classes. They are solidly for middleclass middle management.

I've no objection to degrees in nail technology or whatever but their fees should be half the fees of more strictly academic degrees

I’m not sure I follow. For example, my friend graduated from Cambridge. She’s a geography teacher now. I’m not sure what school you think is paying £100k for a geography teacher!