university, debt and an abundance of graduates

I also wonder which are the "Mickey Mouse" degrees?

I hope they are not going to get rid of media studies courses. The more of us that can understand how the media works makes for a better democracy all round.

But perhaps this Government would rather that less people understand media manipulation, and just believe what the mainstream media tells us with no questions asked.

Who decides which degrees are "Mickey Mouse"?

I would not consider my degrees to be Mickey Mouse.

Am I write in thinking that you don't have a Mickey Mouse degree JE?:

Micky Mouse degrees should have been scrapped years ago and I have no idea why they weren’t.

Why should the taxpayer support youngsters doing these pointless, hobby degrees?

Why is it such a controversial thing to suggest that students should think about their future career and then decide whether or not to do a degree according to whether it would be required for the particular area of work they want to do?

Someone else mentioned how we as a country will be short of tradesmen when the current generation retire and that is quite true

The builder we use for work here has had a hell of a job finding good reliable lads to train up as apprentices, so it’s potentially a big problem.

I think some young lads (and lasses) should read up about Charlie Mullins to see just what can be achieved by those who are less academic!!

3 or 4 years at university is now seen as a rite of passage by 18 year olds.

Up to 83% of loans will never be repaid in full.

Careers advice in schools needs to be geared more toward apprenticeships.

Our eldest did a degree in Marketing and graduated with a good job, she has used her degree and done well.

Number 2 wasted 2 years having a very good time and doing little work, he dropped out of education and got a good job in the finance industry, he has repaid his loan and is now a high earner.
His school careers advice had been appalling, we knew but he wouldn’t listen to us!!!
He should never have gone to university.

Number 3 worked abroad in India and Kyrgyzstan before committing to a degree, at 19 he applied to foreign universities, Prague, Maastricht and Bangalore.
He did 3 years in Prague at a fraction of the cost of a U.K. university although we had to fund him as loans are not available.
The education he received was outstanding.
Before graduating he had secured a very good job.
He now acts as an ambassador for the university and helps them recruit overseas students and talks at their careers days.

Australia has made a good decision in scrapping the “ Micky Mouse” degrees.
I hope we follow suit.

i think that happens a lot, esp with technical subjects.
really people, youngsters, have to research it for themselves.
they can obviously read pretty well by the time they are 15 or 16, so should be looking ahead, contacting companies and professional bodies etc and asking them the best route to get into the work they are interested in.
careers advisers should not be relied upon alone.

My DS was adamant that he didn't want to go to university and instead applied for, and got, an apprenticeship in aeronautical engineering. His best friend at school decided that he did want to go to university and he took the same degree course. DS is still employed in the same company, having worked his way up through the ranks - he had no student debt to worry about and apart from a mortgage, is debt free. His friend completed his degree course but could never get a job in that industry because it favours those who have been trained "in house" and he has taken a completely different route now. But he's resentful that, having followed advice from a careers adviser, he's never been able to work in an industry that interested him. And he's got a student debt, on a university course that he's never been able to use, to pay back too.

While I am generally an admirer of Martin Lewis I disagree with his methodology when applied to degree courses unlikely to lead to well paid job opportunities. Many graduates end up in jobs that do not require a degree to do them. The student loan system is very flawed in England and Wales. While I agree that students who take a degree course should pay back something, the interest rate being charged is too high, and those graduating with loans that earn a current salary of less than £42k per annum eventually end up with the highest charges, assuming those graduates remain in this country and don't emigrate. The loan repayment amount does affect the amount that can be borrowed to buy a house, as lenders use net pay and outgoings as part of an affordablity test for mortgages, which in turns leaves young adults only able to rent even if monthly rent is higher than monthly mortgage amount. We also need employers who require their employees to have degrees but don't pay high enough salaries to cover at least some off the loan costs to have degrees, to partially fund the system.

SpringyChicken

Does anyone actually know that most students pay won't pay off their loans? I hear people freely say it but is that true? Both my son and daughter are likely to pay off their loans. Ditto their friends from uni, all earning good money.

It depends which scheme they have. The vast majority of graduates who took out loans after 2012 (which is when the system changed) won't pay them back.

If your son and daughter are likely to pay them back it's because:

they took out the loans before 2012

or

they are earning significantly more than average

SpringyChicken
When my DD and DS took their degrees the threshold for paying the loan back started at £15,000. Now that fees have risen and loans are bigger the threshold has also been increased - to £21,000 I think. Paying back the loan is only calculated on the amount above those thresholds so payback takes a long time. Thos who don't achieve a 'graduate level job' may not pay anything back for some time. Also many women go on to have families and work part-time which reduces their earning capacity. That is why many loans are not repaisd as at some point they are cancelled. Those who do pay them back in full have probably benefitted financially from getting the degree, with a more highly paid job.

I agree with those who say a student loan is a “very real debt” that can and does stand in the way of future mortgage applications etc .

Dispite good A level grades including in Maths my son refused to go as he had seen his older cousins get good degrees but not find a graduate job and ending up on the checkout at Tesco and working in a bar. Instead he chose to do the HGV driving qualification and straight on to £32k per annum and with good employers pension contribution. His cousin wanted mortgage but her university debt prevented her from getting one.

If a degree leads to a good job fine but some degrees are not worth paper they are written on.

I'm not sure whether you are making a connection between the first two sentences of your post, GreenGran.

I agree that not everyone works in the same field as their degree. People with degrees in Classics, Literature or History, for instance, are quite unlikely to do so (unless you count teaching those subjects to a new generation). What I disagree with is that this means that their studies were a waste of time and money, as getting their degree has also taught them how to carry out research, to meet deadlines, to think critically, to collate information and synthesise it, and countless other transferable skills.

The also learn how to get along with people they probably would otherwise not have met, to live independently and all the other social benefits of the University experience.

I feel like I am repeating myself to the point of tedium, but I really don't think that people should go to University simply to 'buy' a degree. Maybe if they do, they risk being disappointed, however, as not everything comes down to a financial arrangement.

If people want to train for a job, as opposed to get an education, there are vocational courses in colleges that will do that, although it is fair to say that the FE sector has been sorely neglected over the past 15 years or so.

Many people who achieve a degree never actually work in the same field. Some find that it has been a waste of time and money.
There should be a lot more apprentices and hands-on training courses. As our tradesmen grow older and retire they aren’t being replaced at the same rate. There will be a big problem with finding someone with the skills to build and maintain our houses, in the years to come.
My GS wasn’t academic and wanted to train as either an electrician or a plumber. Although he’s a bright lad he couldn’t get in anywhere as an apprentice. He is now living in Australia with his father, happily learning plumbing.

My son paid off his, too.

I don’t know for sure, although it is regularly reported that most are not paid back. If they are, then it shows that the degrees have ‘paid off’ (if they are seen as financial investments), and if they are not, then graduates have still had the experience of being a student, as well as the knowledge that they wouldn’t otherwise have.

Sorry , ignore the first 'pay'

Does anyone actually know that most students pay won't pay off their loans? I hear people freely say it but is that true? Both my son and daughter are likely to pay off their loans. Ditto their friends from uni, all earning good money.

Your daughter has clearly got a highly paid job as a result of her degree, which shows that getting a good education is worthwhile.

She should be congratulated, and you should be very proud of her .

Sadly, my poor DD has done pretty well since leaving university with a first and her student loan payback is in no way negligible. She has just paid over a year’s average salary in stamp duty for her house too. This is not a society which encourages aspiration or success.

No doubt I will be flamed for saying this and people will suggest she should be tied to a Maypole and pelted for getting above herself.

Ilovecheese

I mean your post, not that you need to type faster!

Martin Lewis is constantly trying to get people to appreciate that young people are not leaving University with a 'massive debt'.

This explains it far better than I could

www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loans-tuition-fees-changes/

When I left school there were only four universities in Scotland. St Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen had all been founded in the fifteenth century and Edinburgh in the sixteenth century. I believe only around 3% of school-leavers went to university and many went to their local university and did not leave home.

Although we did not pay fees and had grants based on parents incomes, going away from home would have been quite expensive. Most courses, especially those in science or medicine, involved long hours, making part-time jobs hard to fit in. If you had gone to a bank and said "I'm a student - can I please have a loan?" they would have laughed at you and shown you the door.

Now there are fifteen universities in Scotland and the ancient universities have undergone huge expansion. In spite of the fact that Scottish students are not charged tuition fees, I imagine that most students do have loans.

I mean your post, not that you need to type faster!

Totally agree with you Doodledog

Sorry - my message was to Littlesuisei. I need to type faster!

But the fact that most students will never pay off their debt means that it is not like other debts. It is paid back over a very long time, so it is nothing like a bank loan.

IMO, it would be a shame if people only went to University to bet training for a job. That is the role of Further Education colleges - Universities provide Higher Education which is about learning to think critically, to carry out research and to read around the subject being studied, as well as having the experience of being a student, and growing up without parental supervision.

Yes, there are more graduates now, and maybe fewer 'graduate jobs', but as I said in my earlier post, I don't see that as a bad thing - the job market will always adapt to the profile of the candidates available. In the days when fewer people had degrees it was inevitable that unsuitable people would get management jobs, as the pool of graduates from which employers could choose was much smaller.

A better educated workforce can only be good for the country as a whole, as well as for the individuals concerned. How much pleasure and satisfaction have you gained from playing your violin, for example? Would you really deny that to the next generation in case their study didn't lead directly to a job?