So tuition fees are increasing. Will this change your DC’s thoughts on university

[user7654263]

It’s much needed for the sector but with tuition fees increasing and accommodation being eye wateringly expensive will this change your DCs view on university? It’s so expensive and the interest in student loans starts from day one so racks up really quickly.

I feel grateful to have gone in the days of grants but have one at university and one in year 13 and it’s really something you need to evaluate carefully to see whether it’s worth it.

I still suspect it won’t be enough to save the universities that are on the brink of collapse unfortunately.

@EasternStandard it is there. If the richest in society started paying their way then maybe we'd have a functioning society.

It needs to be done, they should have always been linked to inflation as the problem that fixing them at one prices causes wasn’t rocket science to work out. Another example of a government thinking in only 5 year plans and ignoring the long term.

However, there needs to be a rebalancing at the employment level. Many jobs just don’t need a degree, and shouldn’t be allowed to demand one.

Whether my children go to uni will depend on what they want to do. I’ve already explained to the elder that it’ll be at least of £50k for the three years by the time she goes, so if she wants that much debt she needs to be clear on what the point is. And we, her parents say that with 4.5 degrees between us!

She’d like to go to Oxford, but I’ve also explained that it’s cheaper abroad, and since she’s bilingual she’ll have a number of countries’ HE systems open to her. She also knows about degree apprenticeships and quite likes the idea of earning cash while also getting the degree.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/university-degrees-impact-on-lifecycle-of-earnings

@Hatfullofwillow congratulations? Every job these days demands a degree. My law firm demands a degree for the receptionists, secretaries, central services. It's ridiculous.

My brother is a lecturer and he said the majority of his students are skipping a lot of their lectures because they're prioritising working to make ends meet.

He's not sure how a lot of them will be passing the course.

I can’t be bothered to read a 67 page report, but perhaps others will find your post helpful.

I didn't attend a single lecture during my final year. It was pointless. They weee all recorded to go online and it was easier to just catch up that way. Got a 2:1.

This is what makes me so mad. If the job doesn’t need a specific type of degree then there should be a ban on requiring one. I’ve seen jobs advertised that are asking for ‘any’ degree, it’s very wrong. It puts kids in an almost impossible Catch-22 situation.

My old job requires a degree now, utterly ridiculous. My friend is very high up in a job she’d never even get a foot in today, she left school at 16 so hasn’t even got A levels, it would be a grad job now.

FFS They have not announced anything.

Its all under consideration.

Its one proposal & in all honesty, it will make SFA difference as the interest rate fees on the actually loan are so high that few will ever pay back anything like the amount borrowed, its a ridiculous scheme.

My DD earns 37k, she checked her loan account, despite having paid loan back for 3 years, owes £8k MORE than she started with.

Loans need to go, no other country charges more than we do to educate our young people.

Yes of course they do..... just 36% of young people go to Uni, pretty much on par with the EU average.

@BunnyLake my dad was a solicitor without a degree! These days he's not even be fit to work on reception apparently.

This all started back in the 90s when it was decided university would be opened up and hundreds of new courses added. I'm sorry but I don't see the need for someone to get an art degree. Art is amazing, but we don't need to fund degrees for it b

Which is presumably why employers prefer employees with degrees. They have the skills to skim a 67 page report in a couple of minutes and grab the headline conclusions.

That’s an incredibly small minded view. There are plenty of British artists who pay huge amounts of tax. Not sure an entire industry should be deconstructed based on one receptionist’s aptitude.

@80smonster but how many of them have degrees?

How many people study an acting degree and then go on to star in films and TV shows? Savings need to be made in the university system just like every other area.

So where would the money come from to pay for the courses if loans were to go?

I'm sorry but I don't see the need for someone to get an art degree. Art is amazing, but we don't need to fund degrees for it

Define "Art".

Presumably the people doing dance, acting or art degrees want to be dancers, actors or artists.

It’s difficult to get taken seriously as an artist without some kind of formal training and good connections though.

@InWithThePlums I'm sure they do, but how does that degree actively help them?

Things like law, medicine, vet medicine etc etc have a defined value. Things like nursing didn't require degrees 30 years ago. We need to move away from university being the be all and end all

People attending University has risen from 10% to 38%. Someone has to pay and in theory being a graduate used to mean you earned far more over a lifetime. I remember we were given the figures to quote on open days and it was 250k, this is around 18 years ago. DH and I were young members of staff when tuition fees hit. I remember being very anti the move at the time. Blair messed up big time with his policy to broaden HE so much. It was just always going to have a funding issues with such a huge rise in numbers. Unintended consequences and all that. I think the actual target was 50% attending. I could see this day coming years ago.

It’s been kept on the down low how much HE is struggling. With the issues in the NHS at the forefront of the GE campaign and in the news. Almost all Universities are offering severance packages currently. There has been a bit of a rush as the USS pension scheme is changing. I personally have 5 friends who have taken severance deals in the last three years. One is DH who left his dept last week. The amount of experience lost since covid is huge. Obviously leavers are almost all people that can take early retirement so 55 onwards.

Our DS is doing a degree apprenticeship thankfully and I am delighted. @Werecat DS had PT jobs when at school and then worked for 18 months before his degree apprenticeship. It is far harder to get a place but also the workload is insane. What’s her work ethic like ?

But little of the money is actually repaid, interest charges and profit to the privatised loans company sees to that, then there are people who move abroad, the loans system actually encourages this!!

So we are funding this in real time already, those loans have to come from somewhere.

Its PFI on steroids!

A better question is why can Germany France Italy etc etc all provide either free or very cheap student loans?

We either want to invest in young people for the types of jobs we need in engineering, IT, health, education etc or we don't.

These jobs tend to pay more, so the student is paying back their course fees by paying more tax, often a lot more tax, so we are charging the student twice!!

Plus the creative sector adds a lot to the U.K. in GDP and soft power

Any gov would be mad to scrap that

I agree re Blair. There was this idea that university had to be open to absolutely everyone. I looked at one university handing out offers to people with three E grades

@itwasnevermine How do you define "art".