So, what is the answer to the uni fees nightmare?

[FellatioNelson]

Any ideas? Obviously we are stuck with the £9k nightmare now, but what are/were the sensible alternatives, given almost 50% of young people are wanting to go?

Also, heard Vince Cable saying that the previous Labour plans were to slash the budget fro university education to the same extent, so where would they have made their savings without doing likewise?

Choude you are barking. Why not let ds pay his own fees?

If my dd goes to university I have every faith that she is smart and driven enough to pay back her own debt. She will get no handouts from me because she does not need them.

I think the top 10% should go to uni.

@ kaiserfootmuff

He might be eligible for a loan from the Dutch government.

Check out this link:

www.ib-groep.nl/studiepunt/nationaliteitenschema/natschema.asp?taal=en

The University of Maastricht runs its courses in English and has applied to join UCAS.

(Oops! Just seen previous post.)

Isn't 'philanthropy' in the US tax deductible? So basically rich people are choosing where their tax is spent.

thelittlestkiwi Repeat after me: it's not the government's money, it's ours.

I have much more faith in rich people deciding what good causes their money goes to than governments.

Let people keep more of their own money, and let them make their own decisions.

No not mad, just don't want him to be saddled with a massive debt when he is just starting out.

I don't doubt he is smart and intelligent but if I can afford to help him why shouldn't I. Rather have the pleasure of seeing him benefit from it rather than get it when I'm dead.

Of course you have the right to help your child out but I don't think you have the right to say that the state is forcing you to re mortgage your house ( which I don't think you did to be fair) because you are making the choice.

It is not one I would make, I hope that by paying for her further education dd will make sensible choices and value her education. I would see it an an investment in herself. Are you going to pay of your son's mortgage as well, as you don't want to see him start his life with a debt?

Education is not free, someone always has to pay for it.

This is an interesting perspective on the wider debate of education equality in the UK.

Why Education Fails the Poor

"And while the percentage of under-thirties attending university rose from 5 per cent to 35 per cent between 1960 and 2000....? it is still the preserve of relatively wealthy families....., this expansion actually widened the participation gap between richer and poorer children. (To oversimplify, only kids from well-off families go to university, but whereas it was once just the bright boys, now the girls and the dim boys also get to go.)

"In short, a university education is a valuable product, largely consumed by the sons and daughters of well-off families, which plays a major role in ensuring tha
t the sons and daughters are themselves well off ? and, helps them to marry each other. This is the perk that students demand that the taxpayer should provide."

The article then goes on to explain how the inequality in our education system result in University attendance being dominated by the middle and upper classes.

Choude - considering the terms its borrowed on, you would do much better paying for almost any other cost than the tuition loan.

Choude - According to currented estimates - up to 50% of students won't repay the full amount.

I think we need to relook at what subjects are taught to degree level with the constant thought - is there a better way? I am not convinced that many of the highly specialised & highly vocational courses which are on offer are of benefit to the students who take them.

The list posted up thread are cases in point. How many people does Britain need to be educated in Surf Studies in any given year? Does this subject actually need a degree or should it be vocational training offered on the job? If it is in fact a branch of geography or physics then it should be offered as an option within a more mainstream course. This way the student will be left at the end of the course with a valuable quailification which any employer can understand.

Too many of these courses encourage students to specialise far too early. What happens then is that they are restricted in their graduate job opportunities and become part of jackstarlight's 50% who will never earn enough to repay their student debt.

These courses encourage students into 'fun' courses which they think will result in interesting careers. This is far from the truth, a first degree in forensic science is unlikely to lead to a career as a forensic scientist. The best the student can probably hope for is a job as a lab rat. To become a forensic scientist a student will normally require mainstream science qualifications with the specialisation into forensic science coming much later.

Cut out the fun courses, give students more useful information on genuine career prospects, encourage far more part-time courses and we should be able to afford a higher education system which is much leaner and capable of delivering useful courses with lower fees.

interesting daphne thanks for the link

"Equestrian psychology"... is that Horse Whispering?!

Horse Shit, more like...

The beauty of a History of Art degree, of course, is that unless you happen to strike it very lucky in the job market you're unlikely to earn the requisite £21,000 p.a. to start paying back the loan. So the whole tutition fee problem becomes irrelevant

Good link, MumInBeds.

Out of interest, those who think that university should be limited to 1 in 10 (when was it last that low?) - would you have got in to uni yourself under those criteria? Would your children get in, do you think?

Just interested?

You first, desiderata - what A Levels did you get? What uni did you go to?

Would you be happy paying 9K/year in fees?

I know I wouldn't have been at all happy to pay that.

I think the governant should do more to encourage part time degrees. Instead they have slashed money to the OU horrifically.

I know a nursery nurse who is doing a Bed in early years education with an aspiration to become a reception school teacher. He is doing his degree part time while working as a nursery nurse. I am sure he will be a damm more useful when he starts working in a school than someone who has spent three years in an ivory tower.

Education should be a life time occupation as people's lives and the ecomony change all the time.

Many more uni courses could be delivered part time. Unis need to become more flexible on how they deliver courses. In the past unis were run for the benefit of staff and research rather than education.

reallytired What are you on about?

For the first time ever, part-time students will not have to pay tuition fees for their courses upfront. That, in itself, is a huge improvement in part-time accessibility.

I liked what Booandpops said on Friday at 18.13; also what MuminBeds said yesterday (11 Dec) at 10.19. I think I heard on the radio that Switzerland, not exactly the most third world of countries, takes in to university courses 20% of its school leavers every year. That sounds about right to me, as long as there are plenty of shorter vocational/training/less cerebral courses available for other students to achieve what they want/need, as well.
I don't actually think the world would fall apart if one term were lopped off three year degree courses, if needs must. The idea wouldn't be popular with students I suppose (I wouldn't have liked it, but then I was on a grant) - or maybe it WOULD be acceptable if there was some sort of accompanying guarantee that, as a trade-off, fees would be frozen at their level as at 8th December 2010, before tuition fees voting day. (Theoretically it would save more than 10% of the cost of a degree course, if I've got my maths right.)

Wonder what will happen next. At the moment it doesn't look as if fees hike kick in the teeth for future students is going to be accepted by the 'beneficiaries' who are expected to put up and shut up. It is just possible, I suppose, that the law will end up being repealed as was the poll tax. The students' anger is unlikely to fizzle out.

Doubt the coalition will get through another election, or the Tories unaided.

Almost certainly see Labour returning.

Same time as the other changes I think (so 2012?)

Granted I had straight A ( bar science in which I got a B) in my GCSEs and straight As in my A Levels and then a first from Oxford. I then have a second degree which I paid for myself also a first. I think I would get in.

As for my dd, she is only 10 but I suspect she would get in, if not she would have to do something else.

My husband would not have got into uni, although he studied as a mature student and also paid for his own degree.

Despite coming from a poor background I would have paid the 9K fees.

A lot of my relatives in the USA grew up in poor families and went to expensive universities. They worked their way through and had very little debt because they managed their money.

Every single day off I had from university over there I worked 16 hour days. And I lived frugally. I paid my way through school that way.

Expecting someone else to pay for it is a little [hmmm]

So seriously...what is the problem?

Maybe education overall in the US isn't the best. But when I transferred my kids from a UK to a US school they had a lot of catching up to do. It used to be the opposite.....

British education has taken a nose dive.

What I ponder is if a system like the below would be cheaper than our current one and work all right:

• Free tertiary education fees and books-wise for all who want it to the age of 21 where standards are of a certain level (see below)

• Free childcare also for young students with children.

• No public subsidy for accommodation, food or living expenses except for young people who were previously "looked after" children

• Student loans for (a) living expenses for those who choose to live away from home or (b) study up to age of 25 where courses meet required standards.

• Extra grant available for those studying at the OU or other highly rated home study provider courses

• Increase availability of part-time and home study courses generally (there are an awful lot of part time "evening" courses which actually require quite a lot of time out of work or start too early in the evening to finish work and commute to the study centre)

• Standards to be more closely regulated so

that a degree in Mathematics is broadly the same value whichever UK university you go to (and, in a subject like that students should not be allowed to get on the course if they can't get at least one B at A Level without resitting except in the case of clear extenuating circumstances).

• Where standards are not high enough then tuition fees should be paid by the student (without cap) e.g. for degrees in equine homeopathy etc. but such courses must come with a health warning that they do not meet regulator's standards.

• Better tuition at undergraduate level - tutors to be actually trained in teaching and not just valued for their research.

• Research to be publicly funded too but again only if standards are met.

I hope this will weed out the problem of students getting into debt for crap courses.

Of course, the problem in effectively shutting down all the crappy "universities" is that this will involve job losses - not sure how this could be helped.