Graduates 'could pay back double their student loans'

Dolph said:
So do I, especially if you're dumbing down the early years as has happened over the last 15 years or so.

Unless you measure education by attained, locally set qualifications rather than against global metrics...
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Well .. we'll agree to disagree.

I take it that if the school leaving age was currently 11 years old, you'd pish-pish any idea of shifting it to 16, as it wouldn't result in your population achieving a greater level of education?


Just .. wow.
 
britboy4321 said:
If you think that adding 4 years to the education of our population 'does not alter the population's educational level' surely you must think that removing 4 years of the education of our population 'does not alter the population's education level'?? Hence a 12 year old 'leave school' age ...?

Otherwise - er - does not compute!
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I have no idea how you have managed to work that out. Can you provide your workings?

You're right, it does not compute.

britboy4321 said:
I think you're just arguing 16/18 is the best leaving age for our population to aid for and should be encouraged more - just basically because you're used to it. Which is a bit naff!
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No, not in the least bit. I think those people that are going to go to University for worthwhile degrees should be encouraged, and those going for the lifestyle, ****-up and to extend the time they spend out of full time working should be discouraged.

britboy4321 said:
ps. Would a 'gardening' degree be useful for someone going into gardening? You still haven't given your examples of 'bull****' courses that should be scrapped. Do you have any examples?
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The bull-***** courses are the ones that got the hype during the stupid phase. A wine degree stuck in the mind, alternative therapies, alternative medicines...

However, lumped in with that are the degrees that won't be any use in the vocation the student ends up in. Art students working in a restaurant. Psychology students working in a call centre.

britboy4321 said:
Well .. we'll agree to disagree.

I take it that if the school leaving age was currently 11 years old, you'd pish-pish any idea of shifting it to 16, as it wouldn't result in your population achieving a greater level of education?


Just .. wow.
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What the hell? How can you miss such a simple point so wildly?
 
Gilly said:
No, not in the least bit. I think those people that are going to go to University for worthwhile degrees should be encouraged, and those going for the lifestyle, ****-up and to extend the time they spend out of full time working should be discouraged.
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I know a friend who got a degree in brewing and now he runs a brewery. At the time the government paid for him to go on the course he didn't know whether he would end up running a brewery, or working in a restaurant. Should the government ban the funding of the course? Yes or No?.

I know people who did maths at university that now work in a restaurant. Should the government ban the funding of the course? Yes or No?

You see the point?


OK, anyway, I'm thinking of ways in which you could weed out the people that are going to uni just 'for the lifestyle' and make it so they can't.

Let's see - they certainly won't tell you, as they will know the consequences of their actions. And you don't know how well they are going to do in advance - so that's no good.

So let's see your system: Stop the 'mickey mouse' courses.

Well - it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out they're just going for the lols, so they won't care .. they'll just choose Maths or Latin or History instead. Indeed, think about it, it's ONLY the people who REALLY, REALLY NEEDED the 'wine' course for their winery - that you make suffer. It EXACTLY, PERFECTLY hits only the WRONG people, the people who can not choose something else as they're only going 'for the giggles' ...

Sorry - but practically in real life, your suggestion is exactly wrong :/
 
britboy4321 said:
Sorry - but practically in real life, your suggestion is exactly wrong :/
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No, it is exactly right.

Make the courses that are left worthwhile no matter what they are. Either that or weight them in their worth to society.

You want to study brewing? Will be £20k a year. Maths? Medicine? £5k a year.

I don't care that your friend runs a brewing company. He didn't need to go to University to do so. Nor does anyone REALLY REALLY NEED a wine course to set up a winery. It doesn't matter that you need to resort to putting them in caps, it doesn't make them any more necessary.
 
Gilly said:
Why? It was a fair point.
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Possibly yeh. For the record, I said in response to Britboy's earlier comment:

britboy4321 said:
OK, anyway, I'm thinking of ways in which you could weed out the people that are going to uni just 'for the lifestyle' and make it so they can't.
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"We're doing it already: making it more expensive"

I edited because I'm not actually sure which side of the debate I'm on atm! :p I'm very undecided, and all I can conclude is that there isn't enough drive to get people onto worthwhile vocational courses. We (UK) seem to lack in this field. So much push by the last government to get people into higher education, and so many forgot about vocational, skill-based courses. I think we probably have a skill gap now.
 
Gilly said:
No, it is exactly right.

Make the courses that are left worthwhile no matter what they are. Either that or weight them in their worth to society.

You want to study brewing? Will be £20k a year. Maths? Medicine? £5k a year.

I don't care that your friend runs a brewing company. He didn't need to go to University to do so. Nor does anyone REALLY REALLY NEED a wine course to set up a winery. It doesn't matter that you need to resort to putting them in caps, it doesn't make them any more necessary.
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You don't need a degree to do anything unless society decides you do. If you stop people going to degrees all that happens is the people doing the job without the 4 years of extrra training end up not doing it as well.

We could state tomorrow that we don't need our future doctors to have a doctorate - and just get 'GCSE' bods to do it straight after leaving school.

1) We'd save a load of money
2) The quality of the doctors would be worse.

However, you are saying that for some reason a 'Brewery' degree doesn't alter the capability of the students of that course to perform brewing (!!!!) - but what you declare a 'sensible' degree like medicine DOES somehow magically make our doctors better.

Thats not true. No matter how mickey-mouse you think a course is - it will make the person better at performing that vocation. It's a bit high-and-mighty for some civil servants to sit with a pen and paper and say 'er .. engineering - yup - good solid British old school job .. I like it. Mechanical engineering? Er .. messing with cars .. well, with 4 YEARS training they wouldn't learn as much as if they were learning about something like maths I reckon (!!!!) so let's not let them get to degree level at all eh?'.
 
Sundance said:
"We're doing it already: making it more expensive"
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Naah. Making Ferrari cars more expensive hasn't meant the only people who buy them will get it serviced and not lose control and dump it into the first ditch they come across because they're rubbish drivers ...


Rich people are jerks too. Making a degree the preserve of the rich does not = making it so only the 'worthwhile' people go there ..
 
britboy4321 said:
You don't need a degree to do anything unless society decides you do. If you stop people going to degrees all that happens is the people doing the job without the 4 years of extrra training end up not doing it as well.

We could state tomorrow that we don't need our future doctors to have a doctorate - and just get 'GCSE' bods to do it straight after leaving school.

1) We'd save a load of money
2) The quality of the doctors would be worse.

However, you are saying that for some reason a 'Brewery' degree doesn't alter the capability of the students of that course to perform brewing (!!!!) - but what you declare a 'sensible' degree like medicine DOES somehow magically make our doctors better.

Thats not true. No matter how mickey-mouse you think a course is - it will make the person better at performing that vocation. It's a bit high-and-mighty for some civil servants to sit with a pen and paper and say 'er .. engineering - yup - good solid British old school job .. I like it. Mechanical engineering? Er .. messing with cars .. well, with 4 YEARS training they wouldn't learn as much as if they were learning about something like maths I reckon (!!!!) so let's not let them get to degree level at all eh?'.
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We don't need brewers. We need doctors.

Simples.
 
The difficulty is where to draw the line on "mickey mouse degrees". Most people would agree that they're useless to the country and probably cost the taxpayer a fortune in the long run. But unless every single course is somehow accredited by the relevant professional body (like medicine, engineering etc) then it'd be pretty difficult.

Attaching a higher price tag to degrees might make people think twice about doing stupid courses, but then again it might not. If you graduate in golf course media David Beckham studies and end up working in a restaurant earning £10k, you're still not going to pay off your loan now it costs 3 times as much, and you've still had 3 years of fun.
 
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britboy4321 said:
Rich people are jerks too. Making a degree the preserve of the rich does not = making it so only the 'worthwhile' people go there ..
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True, but on average it will force people to consider their options more. That doesn't mean I don't think we should have grants for worthwhile students who can't afford it - because we should.

Making alcohol more expensive reduces binge drinking and related crimes. Yes it may be unfair on those of us who are reasonably sensible, but it still changes people on average.
 
Without wading intot he debate on the relative utility and merit of particular courses/degrees and the sues to which they're put - the issue of students having massive debt is easily addressed by those same students getting a job whilst they study and during the summer holidays etc, earning as much as they can during those breaks and saving in order to offset the costs incurred. They could even bung those savings into an ISA for some tax free return.

It may not meet the cost entirely, but it can go a significant way towards solving the problem.
 
Sundance said:
True, but on average it will force people to consider their options more. That doesn't mean I don't think we should have grants for worthwhile students who can't afford it - because we should.

Making alcohol more expensive reduces binge drinking and related crimes. Yes it may be unfair on those of us who are reasonably sensible, but it still changes people on average.
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On average, making every student consider whether they want an additional £30K debt upon graduation or not will have the effect of persuading many to skip uni - meaning those people will not end up as good at their job as otherwise they would have (on average) - meaning the companies they work for don't do as well, meaning England does not do as well.

Extra grating - the people who are most likely to suffer from this are the people that are currently poor. It will probably barely register on Johnny Rich's radar at all - more than likely 'mumsy' will pay it off anyway.

This goes against one of the fundamental pillarstones of our society. The opportunities afforded by education should be given to all equally as much as is reasonably practical. Not just (moreso) the rich .. theoretically that's not how we roll. Much to the dislike of the tories :/
 
britboy4321 said:
Extra grating - the people who are most likely to suffer from this are the people that are currently poor. It will probably barely register on Johnny Rich's radar at all - more than likely 'mumsy' will pay it off anyway.

This goes against one of the fundamental pillarstones of our society. The opportunities afforded by education should be given to all equally as much as is reasonably practical. Not just (moreso) the rich .. theoretically that's not how we roll. Much to the dislike of the tories :/
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This is nonsense. It's already been mentioned that everyone gets the full tuition fee loan, regardless of how "rich" they are.
 
p4radox said:
This is nonsense. It's already been mentioned that everyone gets the full tuition fee loan, regardless of how "rich" they are.
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Thats obvious. Only the rich people will get it paid or partially paid for by mumsy.

Which is precisely why the government started paying for it in the first place - to stop uni being the preserve of the rich.
 
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britboy4321 said:
yes, but only the rich people will get it paid by mumsy.
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So what's new? What would/should we do about this?

No one will "suffer" from the new higher tuition fees. You get a full loan, and the repayments are light and spread over many years. It's hardly even a burden.

/edit: I'll start paying off my large debt this year when I graduate, and I'm genuinely not concerned by it. In fact I'd do it all again even if it cost 3x the price. And no, "mumsy" isn't paying for it.
 
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