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?

I support shutting down crappy universities but don't support forcibly equalising the values of degrees, even at the very highest levels of the Russell group.

An Oxford Classics degree will inevitably be regarded as superior (for politics) than a Durham Classics degree.

Similarly, a Cambridge mathematics degree will have slightly more value than a Oxford mathematics degree or a Warwick mathematics degree for the foreseeable future, even though Oxford and Warwick and Imperial have truly superb mathematics courses.

There is nothing wrong in that. If that means that more Cambridge mathematics graduates get firsts than Oxford mathematics graduates, what is the problem? They deserve it, because their average intake calibre is that slight bit better.

Oops ignore the "for politics" there - I was originally talking about PPE, but decided that was too close to the bone for the Politics thread - but then forgot to delete that bit!

Longfingernails: actually, it's not my money any more. I live OS. There are fees here too but they are at a manageable level. I don't consider 9K manageable.

I have less faith in rich people deciding where to spend money than governments. I suspect History of Art degrees at Oxbridge would get a few donations. Nursing in Carlisle far less.

WRT working through degrees, I agree it can be done and can be very good for students. BUT it can mean students have less time for those extra activities (being president of the student union, acting, volunteering) which make a job application stand out. And produce people like Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson. Again it puts poorer students at a disadvantage.

Longfingernails - OK then, standards don't have to all be the same but they should meet the same minimum standards if they are called "degrees" and those minimum standards should be pretty good e.g. something you could only get if you were capable of getting Bs at A Level.

thelittlestkiwi - real work experience is very highly valued by recruiters, I would even venture to suggest that the uni activities such as club secretary positions are mainly attractive to recruiters as representing pseudo-work experience.

Under the current proposals, the government will not prevent young people studying crappy degrees because it keeps them out of the unemployment statistics and potentially out of trouble / off the streets, largely at their own, rather than public, expense. Market forces also mean that the crappy universities keep employing people.

It is an economic / social bubble based on the individual student speculating that they will do better in their careers with a degree, no matter what subject or where it is from, than without any degree. It is the new equivalent of house prices.

If I were a proper capitalist I would be investing in private universities right now, speculating on this next bubble.

However, obviously I am not as I would rather students got real value out of their education!