Southampton publishes Clearing grade requirements

[HPFA]

I think this is the first time I've seen an RG Uni publishing Clearing grade requirements before Results Day.

It's not for all courses but a lot of popular subjects nonetheless

https://www.southampton.ac.uk/clearing/course-vacancies?subject=All+Subjects&filter=&studentType=uk&availableOnly=true

Not sure what it means for those students holding offers at Southampton - does it indicate how far they can drop grades and still get in?

To be blunt - what is wrong with contributing to a pension? Just a bizarre comment! Early payments could result in a much better pension in the end. We need a strong dose of realism in this country!

The PP didn’t mean an individual’s private pension @TizerorFizz - they meant a 20 year old’s contribution to taxes and the state pension pot.

TBF nothing wrong with that either, @SheilaFentiman , especially if you could pause contributions during a later work sabbatical, possibly to do a degree. No reason why not as it is total years that matter.

@tizerorfizz I think we've spoken about this before and broadly agree. However they're are still technical colleges, fe colleges and HE colleges that offer HNC'S etc ( I agree many of the colleges of HE should never have been allowed to take University status. It should have been restricted to the best polys who were already offering degree courses, had research facilities and links to industry)
The problem is that they are underfunded and poorly supported. Staff aren't paid enough and they have long been a hugely overlooked sector. Governments over decades have talked the talk but not walked the walk re FE. My local FE college has had to shut down a construction course because of staff shortages. It's the same problem with computer science teachers. If you can earn £100 an hour then retire to Spain at 50 you aren't young to bother teaching kids constructing or IT. They're is a lack of respect generally for teachers in this country that makes it an unappealing choice for many.

I once saw a whole Twitter thread from pensioners complaining that the sate pension should be at the level of the national minimum wage.

Entitlement off the scale.

@RainbowBagelsI think a lot of us looking in from the outside agree we need to think about how we deliver a different style of HE. My local HE college became one of the Post92 universities. There is no college of HE here. Everything was converted to degrees. DD grades at A level might get you on to one: £9,450 pa. It’s not acceptable. This type of young person needs very much enhanced FE or a better route to a degree.

I completely agree that FE is the very very poor relation. Has been for decades - since 1992. Most polys deserved to be universities but getting rid of the HE colleges was utterly stupid. They offered the bridge to degrees. I never did see what was wrong with that model. Here, there is no technical college. Computing is just T levels for example. T level civil engineering. These are not preparing for entry to degree level in a meaningful way. Dc are forced into a university. It isn’t good enough.

Especially when it's unlikely today's 18 year olds will be getting a state pension before the age of 70 and certainly won't be getting a triple locked one. I agree with @HPFA young people have had so much taken off them taking va University education from them when they will likely be paying it off at 7% interest ( far higher than a bank rate) seems just seems like another thing they can't have. This is a country for the old it seems.

Trade apprenticeships are very hard to get. Even with a level 2 qualification (or whatever it's called). So it's all very well saying "be a plumber! Be a sparky!" but getting the training is hard to impossible in some circumstances.

And who wants to work in adult personal/social care?

I'm starting to wonder if things are going to be very different next year. The course that my DD is starting in September at Lancaster (and was in clearing this year) isn't even being offered next year. In fact at a brief glance, Lancaster are axing a lot of the 'subject' + 'language' options and streamlining courses. I know they were aiming to cut a fair number of jobs, maybe this is the result?

@HPFA I think some older people don’t have much money. The same as younger people. Lots of these people will have worked in care homes! Or certainly done non degree work because they won’t have degrees! I’m an OAP and in my day 10% went to university. Of course some people have great pensions but others don’t but they still did valuable work. Of course the triple lock is not sustainable but neither is the debt of students. It’s not unusual to hear students say they should get everything they want too.

Students still won’t pay their loans back in the future. However they cannot have a free ride. It’s not fair on those who don’t go. The important thing to do is make sure they get value for money. The degrees have to allow them to access higher earnings. If the degrees are not about that, then too bad they have to pay really. Why should everyone pay for them growing up?

Liverpool now closed to UK applicants so clearly got their Clearing strategy right.

Actually I think unis having to reveal what grades they're taking is great if over time it means employers need to look more closely at individual graduates. On social media I've seen two students with AAB heading off to Aber and one heading to York with CCD. Employers cant assume any more that the brightest graduates are at RGs and thats a good thing.

Employers also can't assume that the brightest graduates get the highest grades.🙂 Getting the highest grades mean students have a combo of good brains, good exam technique, good teaching (which includes tutoring for some), a lot of hard work, and some luck. There are many who have the brains but none/fewer of the other factors. Even if they do have all the factors, and get the grades, it doesn't automatically mean they will make the best employees. Grades are an easy filter, but many employers choose to use other filters instead.

Agree. I would say that being determined got me a lot further than my degree in English. Learning to sell yourself on an application form and at interview is also key.

@fluffythecat1 If you get an interview of course. Very msny applicants don’t. They often don’t even have applications acknowledged.

Article in the times now addressing some of the issues for the sector as a whole of the higher tariff increased intake
Rapid Russell Group expansion ‘puts smaller universities at risk’

https://www.thetimes.com/article/8496da76-0247-4ba1-ae92-d5b24eae4307?shareToken=3f36870a77176871ed2c42985cbb6f5c

Thank you for posting that - very interesting.

Undoubtedly there's going to be political pressure to introduce some form of gap.

Thank you for that, very interesting. Did anyone also read the linked article about degrees that lead to jobs which are most vulnerable to becoming obsolete due to AI?

Fraser Nelson’s comment column in The Times is far more illuminating. The government knows how much graduates earn from what courses at universities. He thinks this data should be available to dc. I agree.

This data is available: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/13-06-2024/sb268-higher-education-graduate-outcomes-statistics/salary

I'm not sure those statistics are relevant necessarily to 18 year old choosing degrees though. Computer science for example is a broad and dynamic area. Not so long ago coding was the area everyone was told was going to be what we need but it's being decimated by outsourcing and AI. Architecture apparently is also vulnerable to AI. MFL is being rendered obsolete, in the time it's taken for yp to apply and complete their degrees. Would we say no one should bother studying MFL? No one knows what the jobs market is going to be like in 5 or 10 years time when we see what AI has been able to do in just a couple of years. I think we need to be looking more at advising people to do more generalised degrees rather than looking at what is currently high earning for people who graduated 10 years ago and have the skills that will not be available to yp to get because the entry level jobs where grads 10 years ago started out are gone- being done by AI. They need to be looking at transferable skills which can be gained from any degree really. Probably fewer if you were doing a specific job related degree.

@RainbowBagels "Computer science for example is a broad and dynamic area. Not so long ago coding was the area everyone was told was going to be what we need but it's being decimated by outsourcing and AI."

Non-technical parents are reading about "coding" being "replaced" by AI without understanding what that means. As I said up-thread, Computer Scientists do a heck of a lot more than mere "coding". They are the graduates who will be at the forefront of using AI in whatever direction it develops. It would be incredibly ignorant to steer a bright young person away from Computer Science on the misconception that they will be redundant - those are exactly the skills that are needed for the future!

@pumpkinjooceSo you think prospective students know any of this? They definitely don’t. The aim was to be far more precise and attach the data to each course.

The precision depends on the available data - they rely on graduate surveys and need a minimum number of responses before the data is statistically significant. That's why the results are often aggregated at department level rather than at course level.

I expect it will eventually be published on UCAS when the data is sufficiently available and mature. Historical entry grades have recently been added.

The limitation in the quality/quantity of data will be in how they incentivise graduates to respond to a survey 15 months after graduating.

Btw, @TizerorFizz UCAS does already have a "Student Outcomes" section for each course, with employment rates from the 15 month Graduate Outcomes Survey and a link to the 'Discover Uni' site for further contextual information.

@pumpkinjooceI read the article as not being a survey. That tells you something of course but it’s not detailed earnings or lack of.

How do you expect them to get the graduate earnings data without a survey?

In principle, they might be able to use National Insurance numbers to cross reference between graduate HMRC data and UCAS IDs, but afaik that isn't currently specified as a permitted data processing "purpose" in UCAS's GDPR-compliant privacy statement.