Yes the entire University sector is oversized and needs scaling back, while apprenticeship/vocational-style education is lacking. If the only feasible Universities were the Russell Group ones (totalling 24 institutions), maybe fees for these could be lower and/or able to achieve better grants for less well-off, but academically gifted, students.‘University tuition fees in England expected to rise for first time in eight years’
Maybe if universities went back to being centres of learning and not businesses that would be for the better.
University tuition fees rising to £9,535 in England
Maintenance loans are also going up to help students manage the cost of living.www.bbc.co.uk
Fairly sure this is a result if previous Labour government who had expectation that 50% of people would go to University?
I tend to agree. It has simply uprated the entry level for many jobs that a non-graduate could do perfectly well, while imposing costs on the people seeking those jobs and on the wider economy.
Yes, back when the percentage going to university was in single digits then central funding could pay for it all including grants for living costs. Spread over much larger numbers that isn't possible.
... there would be a lot fewer science and engineering graduates, and a lot less world-class research.
One of the few things I agree with Rishi Sunak on, is that there should be incentivisation to study subjects that contribute more to national prosperity. But it's a very tricky area, with arts graduates making a big contribution to civilisation and other issues such as scientists and engineers taking advantage of the incentives then moving abroad.
It was under 15% when I went to university in 1980. So a big change, and the funding approach then - an encouragement to the middle classes through free tuition and a means-tested grant - couldn’t be sustained.
The best suggestion I've seen to combat this, is waiving debt repayment for graduates in critical sectors who stay in the UK for at least 10 years after graduating. They don't pay back anything while working in the UK, regardless of salary, and if after 10 years they've stayed in the UK throughout, their student debt is wiped completely. How much this would cost the Exchequer is debatable, but the assumption is at least some of the cost would be reimbursed by the graduates paying UK taxes and contributing to the wider economy.
The problem is most STEM jobs are poorly paid in the UK and they are difficult to get hold of
If that was the case I would not have gone to university, got a degree or the first career I had. This sounds like what it always is: University for the toffs, trades for the scum. Way to limit advancement or aspiration? This kind of thing really boils my urine. In 2024 (and not 1924) we should be demanding better prospects for all rather than trying to limit them and determine peoples future worth by dint of thier parental wealth or class.
I don't think it has to be that way. Our current system imposes extra costs to enter many professions, because of the expectation of having certain qualifications that incur fees and take them out (or largely out) of the paid jobs market for several years. Those from poorer backgrounds are less able to bear those costs.
no - you are saying people like me shouldn't study a degree to allow entrance to one of the "professions". I wouldn't have got into a "good" university so I wouldn't have had my first career, which I was more than decent at.
my degree and qualifications didn't cost me anymore than anyone else & my employer ( like everyone else I know in similar positions) paid my subscriptions and certification fees.
I would love it to be free of charge to all but that doesn't look practical in the real world. It absolutely is open to everyone as long as you are prepared to take the loans to cover it. You don't have to have the funds upfront ( or more accurately parental funds) to do that. The pay off for taking that loan is to get a better paying career and the prospect of better long term wealth and security.
my "beef" is that people from my social stratus and wealth are the ones those higher up the scale would like to stop going to university and bettering themselves.
that seems sensible as long as it isn't watering down opportunity and preventing people from wanting to go to university to study and improve themselves.
Not sure where you get this from. Starting salary for engineers where I work is £32k and there are real skills shortages.
Partly because it costs half as much to provide a degree to an arts student and the fees are the same, so there is very little benefit in a market-led system to teaching lots of science. Partly also because we devalued the word university by applying it to dozens of second-tier institutions, making name recognition harder for the science-oriented universities we did create.
The concept is not new. In the early 1980s, I did a four year 'thin sandwich' degree course, with company sponsorship. I, and may of my peers, went straight into degree-relevant well paid jobs with their sponsor company.
i found when doing my university research ( admittedly some time ago now!) there were good sandwich courses for engineering type careers but not much in the "professional" world. That may have changed
What a load of nonsense, I went to university years ago to do engineering and there were no toffs there but a wide variety of people from all sorts of backgrounds. University isn't the way to advance everyone's career, some jobs are better just getting on and doing it. I used to know a BBC cameraman and he was on about graduates coming to do the job and his question was why had they gone to university when they'd have been better off just getting on with the job and learning on the job.
I completely agree that this is a valuable experience. It's just that you really don't need the expensive uni course to achieve it.
As I mentioned up thread this is what my son did started with an HND. However he did a bit better regarding A levels. He completed a BTEC Advanvced National Diploma which in his time was equivalent to three A levels
