Education versus money

Is anyone else thinking of the John Cleese, Ronnie Corbett & Ronnie Barker sketch?

As I have made entirely clear, Doodledog, my experience is entirely within the legal profession. Do you expect someone with a poor degree from an ex-poly to be offered a training contract with a big City firm? A trainee has to be of financial value from day one.

Neither I nor my son had a private education or a tutor. We both had Saturday jobs. We both scored 3 As, in the days before A*s. In fact, as I have already said, those who are ex-public school and Oxbridge are not favoured because they tend to lack sufficient capacity for independent thought and research.

Doodledog

I disagree, for all the reasons I've given, but I'm not going to repeat them. The fact that life's not fair is not, IMO a good excuse for not trying to make it fairer, but I don't think people are ever going to agree about this, and as long as we have a Conservative government there is not going to be a political will to do anything that doesn't advantage those who have money.

I don't think it's conservative government being questioned here.

The notion the government on the way into recession should treat people to schooling without having a solid loan repayment schedule is ludicrous. If my husband ran his business that way we'd starve!

No life is decidedly not fair.

Some people come from money, have legacies, bank of mum, government throwing money to the wind won't make life fairer for others.

Doodledog I so agree with you about higher education. I was thinking of all the remarkable talent that came through in the 60s because grants were available. The actors, the artists, the writers who because they were properly funded managed to move from very working class backgrounds to be top in their field. And I wonder how much of that talent is lost now. As students try desperately to make ends meet, working through their degree, then taking any job just to pay back the huge loan they've acquired.

Equally important were those in the 1960s, who often without grants attained professional qualifications and success because there were so many different ways into every profession. You dd not have to go to unversity to be a lawyer or a Chartered Accountant or Chartered Engineer or many, now entirely graduate professions.

Comparison with the 60s is very apt because less than 10% of school leavers went to university whether they had grants or not and practically all found graduate jobs.

Now that 50% of leavers go to university many/most find it very difficult to get a position, because there are only graduate jobs for half of them.

Katie59

Comparison with the 60s is very apt because less than 10% of school leavers went to university whether they had grants or not and practically all found graduate jobs.

Now that 50% of leavers go to university many/most find it very difficult to get a position, because there are only graduate jobs for half of them.

I know quite a few women who left school with few qualifications in the 60s, usually because of family pressure, who went on in the 80s after having a job and a family to do a degree. They got a full grant as well. There were loads of them in social work and the teaching profession. As my friend says she couldn't have done it now. The grant meant she was getting some money, almost as much as a part time low paid job would have given her.

Katie59

Comparison with the 60s is very apt because less than 10% of school leavers went to university whether they had grants or not and practically all found graduate jobs.

Now that 50% of leavers go to university many/most find it very difficult to get a position, because there are only graduate jobs for half of them.

Exactly my point. The question is whether we revert to a system that ‘selected’ 10% if the population for well-paid jobs for life, or open the system up to give everyone a chance, and let people compete.

If someone doesn’t get a so-called ‘graduate job’ they will get another one, just as they would have before, but at least they had the chance to compete, and will leave university with a good education, having spent three years growing up, usually away from parents, and mixing with a range of people they may well not have met had they not gone.

As a matter of interest - did the children of the people posting against the idea of widening participation go to university?

Doodledog As a matter of interest - did the children of the people posting against the idea of widening participation go to university?

I object to loans not paid back, not widening participation.

Ours went to University, no loans.

Don’t answer unless you are happy to do so, obviously, but did your children go into work that related directly to the subjects they studied, and stay in that line of work long enough to pay back the cost of their education via general taxation?

Well Doodledog, you know that I believe far too many go to university now, and that I didn’t - by choice.

I know. I wasn’t asking that though . What I am interested to find out is whether what we are seeing is what I have observed in ‘real life’, which is the phenomenon of ‘other people’s children’ being better suited to non-university pathways, when the children of those arguing for that studied for degrees, with or without loans.

In other words, are people (as I suspect) arguing for the elitism of old, which denied most people the chance to go to university and consequently to even apply for the jobs that were ring-fenced as ‘graduate’.

I was replying to your post of 9.49 Doodledog.

I know. I was replying to your reply to my post of 9.49.

Doodledog

Don’t answer unless you are happy to do so, obviously, but did your children go into work that related directly to the subjects they studied, and stay in that line of work long enough to pay back the cost of their education via general taxation?

Interesting question.

I'm not sure how to answer - I don't know the cost of our daughters' educations compared to taxes they paid when working. I assume general taxation pays for much more than just education or unpaid student loans - no? I looked at PESA, unclear to me is the amount of taxation directed to University.

We should be able to recognise whether our children are bright enough to benefit in career terms from a degree or would do better going straight into work, maybe taking up an apprenticeship.

I don't think all apprenticeships are the sort of jobs now they once were GSM. In fact many require qualifications which would. get you into a top university, and they are very much oversubscribed. They offer a fully funded degree course.

Germanshepherdsmum

We should be able to recognise whether our children are bright enough to benefit in career terms from a degree or would do better going straight into work, maybe taking up an apprenticeship.

Are parents necessarily the best judge of the academic ability of their children? What about all the women who were told by their parents that going to grammar school or spending money on their education was a waste of time because they would only marry and have children?
It was my school that opened my eyes to the fact that I could go to university and I am eternally grateful for the career and life opportunities that it gave me.
Oh and in terms of degree subjects and career pathways, my husband studied philosophy and logic and ended up as a systems analyst and designer, having gone straight into computer programming from university in 1970.

My son got good results and reports at school. I think I would have known if he wasn’t academically inclined and might have been better off being a manual worker.

Germanshepherdsmum

We should be able to recognise whether our children are bright enough to benefit in career terms from a degree or would do better going straight into work, maybe taking up an apprenticeship.

So apprenticeships are for the non-bright? That’s at odds with the usual mantra about how we need to value trades as much as professions, and admits to the elitism that underpins the desire to limit the number of people who have access to higher education.

Also - who on here has ever said that their children are not bright? Everyone on GN had an excellent education, their children were brilliant scholars and their grandchildren have wonderful careers in which they are at the top of the tree. I disagree that most people can recognise limitations in the people they love.

What is undeniable though, is that pretty much everyone will ‘benefit from a degree’. They don’t hold people back, so why not let more people study for them? If they are genuinely the most talented of their generation they will get the best jobs on merit, instead of ring-fencing them so that getting the best jobs is a guarantee for a few people, without the need to compete.

Debt may be an issue for some, so IMO the answer is to get rid of the fees, and go back to the days when they were paid for by general taxation.

Norah, I agree that it’s difficult to know whether an individual will have paid back tuition fees in tax - maybe a way of measuring that might be to count the years they pay at higher rate tax? I know that’s not 100% accurate but it’s a reasonable estimate.

Yes, imo the trades are best suited to those who don’t have the academic ability to get a good degree which leads to a good career. It’s nothing to do with elitism, it’s pure common sense that not everyone’s talents lead to academic success, but they are talents we need nevertheless. You seem to think that the state should pay for everyone who wants it, and who can achieve very basic grades some universities will accept, should go to university and have a nice time for three years because it will benefit them as a person. Sorry, that’s a luxury we can’t afford when we read on here how little a great many older people have to manage on despite working all their lives.

Germanshepherdsmum

Yes, imo the trades are best suited to those who don’t have the academic ability to get a good degree which leads to a good career. It’s nothing to do with elitism, it’s pure common sense that not everyone’s talents lead to academic success, but they are talents we need nevertheless. You seem to think that the state should pay for everyone who wants it, and who can achieve very basic grades some universities will accept, should go to university and have a nice time for three years because it will benefit them as a person. Sorry, that’s a luxury we can’t afford when we read on here how little a great many older people have to manage on despite working all their lives.

I think you have a very narrow view of universities GSM. They are not just centres of learning, they are huge economic drivers which many places rely on. Much of this comes from overseas, but some from UK students especially the most affluent.
Student accommodation, shopping facilities, clubs and bars, cafes, pizza places all thrive on the student pound. Without them the city I live near would be run down and derelict.

Coming from Cambridge, I do have some knowledge of that Glorianny. I suppose I do have a narrow view of universities, knowing which ones landed a job application in my firm’s bin.

GSM, one minute you use your experience of binning CVs from non-elite applicants as evidence of your knowledge of the value of higher education and the next you claim that it’s nothing to do with elitism. Both cannot be true.

As Glorianny points out, universities add enormously to the economy of the areas where they are situated, and graduates do pay more tax over their lives than non-graduates, and did in the days before fees. Can you explain how this takes anything from the pockets of older people, as I don’t follow that, sympathy-gathering as the argument may be on here.

Yes, I do believe that, as in the past, we can afford to educate our population to the level they can achieve. Not everyone will be capable of HE. Not everyone will want to go to university, whether they are capable or not. I’m not suggesting that it should be compulsory, but that that we should, collectively, pay for education so that everyone can benefit from doing as well as they can, and the country gets to benefit from the brainpower and expertise of those who have got to the top on workplace merit, rather than a lucky set of A level results, or private tuition. Basically I would like to give current and future generations the same chances as we (and in some cases our children) were given.

Where have I said that the binning of applications from graduates of some universities is evidence of my knowledge of the value of higher education? It is evidence of the lack of value of some degrees from some institutions, and I have been careful to emphasise that my experience is solely of the legal profession.

You would have everyone go to university for the experience at the expense of the state, regardless of academic ability and the degree furthering their career. I have said this is pure luxury which we cannot afford when so many old folk live on so little. If we weren’t doling out student loans to all and sundry - or worse, in your world just giving them the money - don’t you think there might be more to spend on other things? Though in fact everyone attending university is doing so at the expense of the state until their loan is repaid (which will never happen in a large proportion of cases). Money down the proverbial drain. The local economy benefiting from the spending of the student population is a poor reason to argue that everyone should go to university if they want to, regardless of reason and ability.