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?

The employers love the intellect of the Oxford students, including the working class Oxford students, of which there are now many.

If employers have an "any degree" recruitment policy then, by definition, they don't care what subject has been studied - they are looking for intellect and work ethic. They make the first sift easier for themselves by focusing their recruitment on elite universities.

The graduate employment landscape has completely changed since I graduated in the early nineties. The companies that were taking on "any degree" graduates then, e.g. the big management consultancies, are the same ones who are now taking on apprentices. They know they will have to invest in training young people, so they are using the apprenticeship process to do that. In many cases they are positively biasing their recruitment towards disadvantaged groups. As a result, they now take far fewer graduates with "any degree" - they focus their graduate recruitment on key skills, often computing or maths related.

On this basis school teachers shouldn’t get paid for marking or lesson preparation. Just turn up, say what they like and go home.

You t shirt comment is a bizarre one! All Students Union reps had one of these in my college in the early 90s. Because, you know, maybe freshers need to know who they can ask for help in a sea of thousands of faces..?

Edited because I have fat typing fingers.

There is so much prejudice in your post. Not least, the idea that south-east = middle class and northern = working class.

Many of the young people you refer to with bile are probably like mine. I was born to a working-class family in a northern town that was devastated by the miners strikes, with mass-unemployment during my teenage years. I went to a northern Russell-Group uni, then my first graduate job was in London. That us where all the graduate jobs were in the nineties. I married someone from a similar background and I've lived in London ever since. Our children have been to state comprehensives, a selective sixth form, and are now at Russell Group unis in the south of England. We are now middle-class, so a target for your hate.

My point is that "working class" is not a permanent state. If a disadvantaged young person goes to uni, does a useful degree and gets a graduate-level job, they raise their economic status.

However, if they go to uni and then end up in a job they could have done without a degree, all they have gained is a degree and a debt. The op seems to want to champion this group and pour more Government funding into them.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1227272/share-of-people-with-tertiary-education-in-oecd-countries-by-country/

We are right up there at the moment and question is whether it is ok for a Labour Government to go backwards on tertiary education, globally speaking. I think not. Degree apprenticeships are degrees and tertiary education except that the cost is on the employer and a young working class student will be given an excellent post grad job in most cases. Better to focus there on widening access and working with employers productively.

Even in the late 90s the biggest issue for working class kids was getting a job in eg London or Manchester post uni and not being able to afford to live there. That’s where middle class kids get the real advantage - it’s the initial few months of being set up into employment post uni. Plus the CV with work experience. Degree apprenticeships fix all of that. We are in transition at the moment and numbers are too low and so the programs are not set up optimally yet but with scale that will change.

@Araminta1003 quote: "Even in the late 90s the biggest issue for working class kids was getting a job in eg London or Manchester post uni and not being able to afford to live there. That’s where middle class kids get the real advantage - it’s the initial few months of being set up into employment post uni."

In the nineties, a graduate job salary covered accommodation in London. Accommodation prices then went up because of demand - too many jobs concentrated in London. That situation is easing marginally post-covid, due to hybrid/remote working. My central-london employer now has remote workers from a wide geographical area. There is a long way to go but it's a trend that is unlikely to reverse.

However, you're wrong to suggest that the concentration of employment in London only benefits "middle class" kids. London has a full range of social groups.

Most of the kids on degree apprenticeships with prestigious finance or law companies or the CS will be middle class. It’s the new way of avoiding uni fees. Many of them are down in London and the south and the better ones up here are even more intensively competitive. If you think ordinary wc kids will get a look in beyond a tiny minority think again. It’s further skewed by apprenticeships being open to all ages.

You might want to take a closer look to see if Scotland really is the higher education funding utopia that you perceive it to be.

Do you have evidence of this?

Where is your evidence for this? You don't have any - it is based on your prejudice.

Evidence ? I guess the fact that some apprenticeships demand A’level grades as high as Russell group unis. And the 5 stage interviews. Kids from mc backgrounds will have more opportunity to fine tune those skills. It’s obvious. Not saying that a very clever determined wc candidate won’t be successful but it# will be infinitely harder.

https://www.cityam.com/as-the-middle-classes-rush-to-degree-apprenticeships-poorer-british-kids-miss-out/
https://feweek.co.uk/middle-class-grab-on-apprenticeships-confirmed-by-new-analysis/

@shyna - I was talking about working class kids from the regions who do not have a friend or family in a big City where they can stay whilst looking for a job and attending a lot of interviews. It is slightly better now with remote interviews/online tests but the biggest advantage children from advantaged backgrounds tend to have is a safe and supported place to live close to excellent jobs or a parent who can fund some accommodation up front in a place like that. It’s house prices that are the real issue in social mobility and it has only become worse in the last 20 years. It’s also why some working class kids will stay home and commute to a local uni rather than choose the best course at a better uni. Successive governments have failed to manage the housing situation and many ills in our society lie firmly in that court. Let’s take unis being desperate for rich overseas students to subsidise locals - they then push up accommodation costs in uni towns too.

The reason MN is useful sometimes is that anecdotal evidence on the ground, before someone has carried out some large scale study, which inevitably will then be based on historic data, is that anecdote can be more current. Degree apprenticeships are all the trendy rage in our local London grammars right now, the kids are talking about them and applying and many have straight A stars. They are talented and typically from an Asian type immigrant background because that is the local demographic in the grammars.

The solution is, and always has been, to make sure that there are high quality employment opportunities in all corners of the UK, that employers invest in training (either through apprenticeships or other means), that teachers/parents give teenagers high quality up-to-date advice (not purely based on their own past experience), and that the teenagers themselves are motivated to succeed.

Pouring more taxpayers' money into degree programmes that do not result in high-quality employment is definitely not the solution. Neither is advising young people that doing "any degree" will improve their life chances, or that university is just about gaining life-experience. Higher education needs to be purposeful - there will always be a place for pure academic subjects, but their supply should be limited by employers' demand for them.

All opening up university education to so many students has done is to create a two tier system whereby we have some universities that issue degrees which are pretty worthless and others which are held on a pedestal above them.

The removal of free tuition has totally created a toxic and screwed up, twisted system which is going to be very difficult to fix.

The only way forward I can see is to limit places to the truly academic, make them free and improve vocational routes into employment for those who are less academic.

What do you mean by ‘working class students’? And how do you know the demographics of the intake for each institution?
Far too many universities have offered pointless degrees and for far too long teens have been sold the lie that to be a success they should go to Uni, get a degree and then fall into a high salary job. The reality is, many students can’t manage in Uni, they get a pretty pointless degree and end up working in a job they could have got without being lumbered with £50k debt - which will be written off and paid for by the tax payer! There are better ways for teens to get qualifications and a decent career.

@shyna - I agree to the extent that young people should be properly advised to study something that will lead to lucrative employment for them personally, but I disagree that society should be enslaved to what employers want. Corporates already have way too much power.

My DC is just starting a degree apprenticeship in London. You need a LOT of money to get these IMO. Most landlords are asking for six months rent plus deposit because of her age. Train tickets and hotels for interviews were over £600 - paid back but not for three months. Plus train into London each time to view the office or houses is £200 plus a hotel.

This is out of reach of anyone who doesn't have money behind them.

BUT yes, in the long term, they will be paying 10% less tax over the course of their working life.

Where do you draw the line OP?

Someone has crap A levels, went to a crap uni where they barely had to show up to get their 2.1, got into a decent job because of “blind recruiting” (so far this is what you’re championing), and then they perform badly at their job… should they still get promoted?

I think your desire for social mobility is clouding the realities of needing a functioning society where resources are spent in efficient ways and people are competent at their jobs.

We cannot afford to give the benefit of the doubt to everyone and assume they could be a hidden genius despite zero evidence.

This is a good thing, because it means they are now being accepted as a high quality alternative to degrees.

Apprenticeships are government funded (via the apprenticeship levy) and therefore the government gathers and publishes transparency stats, so there is no excuse for not backing up claims with data: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/apprenticeships

The Government's own self-assessment is that more needs to be done to help disadvantaged groups benefit from apprenticeships: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5ef1bb3dd3bf7f6c053a28a4/Apprenticeships_and_social_mobility_report.pdf

It's hardly surprising though, is it? Young people are the product of their backgrounds. If they have been brought up by parents with a professional mindset (no matter what their actual job or salary) they are more likely to have the soft skills that employers regard as a requirement for entry-level jobs. Employers can train young people in hard skills such as coding or book-keeping, but only if they have the emotional intelligence and motivation to succeed. Those qualities come from good parenting.

It’s difficult to get around the fact that nurses need degrees and most nurses see this as a vocation or they wouldn’t sign up for something that isn’t particularly well-paid.

there is data galore on the demographics of each university. Statistics about Higher Education. Where might one find that? How about the Higher Education Statistics Agency. Who’d have thought. www.HESA.ac.uk

to be fair the House of Commons Library provide a range of good briefing papers. Then there’s the Higher Education Policy Institute www.HEPI.ac.uk and of course WonkHE www.wonkhe.com The IFS have a whole higher education related section www.ifs.org

You need to type A star and a ⭐️ will appear, asterisks don’t seem to work.

“The solution is, and always has been, to make sure that there are high quality employment opportunities in all corners of the UK, that employers invest in training (either through apprenticeships or other means), that teachers/parents give teenagers high quality up-to-date advice (not purely based on their own past experience), and that the teenagers themselves are motivated to succeed.“

There has to be a close partnership between Central and Local Governments AND employers. You cannot expect, in a capitalist society, for employers to go invest in a terrible place without infrastructure or full on investment by Central Government to properly level up. They have been talking about levelling up for 20 years plus and it has failed to materialise properly. In fact, Brexit stripped lots of places of investment that Central Government then failed to replicate in those places. It is unacceptable and does not help richer regions either as they then pay through their noses in taxes and have to contend with ever increasing house prices too. Levelling up poorer regions so that young people want to go and live and work there is the single most important thing this new Government should tackle but the problem is that infrastructure investment is a long game, you can magic that up in a couple of years and this trend we have of Tory/Labour switch and cancelling everything the former party did invest in is totally unacceptable!

I’m a civil engineer. I qualified via university route through an BSc (which I then followed with an MSc but that isn’t truly necessary). Most folk tend to do the MEng courses but it all gets you to the same place. Anyway, I work along with people who qualified via degree apprenticeship through our employer. Yes, it takes longer. But it’s a very economic solution, it gives great hands on learning, far superior to my ‘theoretical’ learning in terms of getting up to speed when qualified fully. I work with young people who have come from the non-uni background who were in a position to buy their home before me - not through parental donations to the cause, since that sort of hand out isn’t feasible for many, but just through earning as they learned, staying with parents and saving hard. It can be a great start on the career/life ladder. Not everything needs to be done through uni and degrees for the sake of degrees is getting to be a bit of a joke. Granted, it’s become needed since everyone and their granny has a degree so employers want a degree. It needs to turn back to where a degree - if applicable - is good, but it shouldn’t be a prerequisite for all jobs!