Education versus money

Katie59

“The argument then follows if you are the paying customer (even if it's funded by loans) then you should be able to choose what you are paying for.”

Not when the whole education system pressures them into university being the ultimate goal, in any other field that would be high pressure marketing.

I agree it is high pressure marketing. Youngsters being brainwashed into thinking it's their only option. Our young people really do need better careers guidance.

I bet I will get slammed for saying this but I sometimes think that the educational system can, at times, suffer from a degree of academic snobbery whereby apprenticeships and the like are deemed as somehow less "worthy".

Anyhoo I'm hungry, time for brunch.

DerbyshireLass

That is very true GSM. I wonder how much student debt will never be repaid.

The government expects a shortfall of £11bn this year, but never is a long time and the repayment threshold remains as you earn more.

Over the years only 27% have been repaid in full, that could mean 10% or 90% so is not meaningful.

Thanks. For that info. No 1 son gas repaid his loan in full, no 2 son still has some way to go.

The word loan is actually the wrong terminology. It is technically a graduate tax. I guess people hate paying taxes so much that the word loan is deemed more palatable. 😉.

DerbyshireLass

Katie59

“The argument then follows if you are the paying customer (even if it's funded by loans) then you should be able to choose what you are paying for.”

Not when the whole education system pressures them into university being the ultimate goal, in any other field that would be high pressure marketing.

I agree it is high pressure marketing. Youngsters being brainwashed into thinking it's their only option. Our young people really do need better careers guidance.

I bet I will get slammed for saying this but I sometimes think that the educational system can, at times, suffer from a degree of academic snobbery whereby apprenticeships and the like are deemed as somehow less "worthy".

Anyhoo I'm hungry, time for brunch.

I'm sure that's the case. I'll wait until Jacob Rees-Mogg or Rishi Sunak advise their offspring to do apprenticeships rather than a degree at a prestigious university.

Germanshepherdsmum

Trouble is, growstuff and DerbyshireLass, the students aren’t going to pay for their education if they can’t land a suitably well-paid job - as growstuff said with regard to the receptionist and the part-time worker.

Your friend would have had to sit professional exams in order to become - and remain - a financial advisor, growstuff. A law degree simply proves that you have the intelligence to obtain the degree and the analytical skills to satisfy the examiner in law. However even a law degree doesn’t qualify one to practise law - professional exams are needed. Your friend might have studied finance and accounting, an entry into banking, anccoun or practising finance law.

She did sit and pass professional exams.

So did the law degree, as opposed to say A&F, really help?

I don't think that the educational system is responsible for academic snobbery. It is endemic. So many posters on here boast about the 'excellent grammar schools' they attended, or their grandchildren's 'top universities', and this is just one site.
The very fact that apprenticeships are held up as alternatives to degrees speaks volumes, and as I said upthread, people are usually advocating apprenticeships for other people's children.

Modern apprenticeships are very different from traditional ones anyway. Some are akin to foundation degrees, whilst others are more like the old YTS schemes - a way of making unemployment look less widespread by exploiting young people who are paid a pittance for a year or so and then cast off before they qualify for basic employment rights.

I'm not sure what the real question is here - is it how to make life fair? If that's the case, then letting anyone who wants to go to university do so is the answer - you can't pass if you don't enter. There would need to be conversations about mixed ability teaching and how to deal with both failure and a possible surfeit of qualified people, but it would be 'fair'.

If the question is about how to ensure that you get a well-paid job for life, the answer is a lot more elusive, and conversations then need to be had about whether a rounded education should be the preserve of those who don't need to work for a living.

The current way of 'grading' degrees based on graduate salaries after 18 months is a nonsense, but threatens to cut courses that don't lead directly into a related line of work. Virtually nobody taking degrees in the Arts will earn even average salary as artists within 18 months, but they know that before they sign up. Most go into other work to pay the bills and plug away writing poetry or painting when they get the chance. some will succeed, and others will use their skills in research, balancing arguments, time management and so on in other sectors. Their education is not wasted, and they will very probably pass on their love of their subject to other people.

Keeping the Arts for students for whom earning a living would not only be extremely unfair, it would skew the output of authors, artists, scriptwriters and so on to the world view of the privileged, so we would all suffer from a lack of diversity in what we can read, watch, and look at for our own cultural enjoyment.

University education can be achieved in later life. It's not a one off chance just after school. I did a doctorate in my 50s while still working full time. There are all sorts of ways of accessing further and higher education.

I think the threat of AI is grossly exagerated. Every other new technology, elctricity etc have killed some jobs and led to many new jobs in fields we had never thought of. Think of how many jobs electric has engendered.

Everything from electricians to heart transplants to computers to AI.

On a different point entirely, just because someone does a fairly menial job when they first graduate, to think that the degree is wasted is, again, nonsense. Many young people take 5 or 6 years to find they work they really want to do and find an opportunity. Even in the 1960s, when I graduated I had graduate friends who washed dishes and served in shops for several years before settling on a career, often doing something they had never thought about or which did not even exist when they started university.

DD has had a varied career after first getting a degree in acting and later in STEM subjects. Most of the jobs she has had did not even exist when she got the relevant degree. Everything from designing and editing websites, audio describing, sub titling (at a tv wide requirment), writing research proposals as a profession in itself, to now working as a business resilience manager Business resilience or conntinuity is the ability of an organization to quickly adapt to disruptions while maintaining continuous business operations and safeguarding .

I am sure if she changes jobs again, it will be into a career that doesn't currently exist.

Germanshepherdsmum

So did the law degree, as opposed to say A&F, really help?

Yes because top universities don't offer accounting and finance degrees. She ended up with a first from a prestigious university, found herself a job with a City lawyer, but decided she didn't want to be a lawyer. After a few months, she walked into an agency and said she wanted a job in finance and was offered a position. She had a great time at university, networked, used her knowledge of law, became a director of the company and retired when she was 55.

I beg to disagree - Oxford, Cambridge, LSE for starters.

If you get a law degree you have many options and a good knowledge of law is pretty essential for company finance.

Also Newcastle, Duham and most of the Russell Group universities. Remember Economics degrees usually include the full range of finance and accounting.

Germanshepherdsmum

Some degrees are a waste of the students’ time and money.

I would agree and was going to say it depends on what the degree is and what grade the student got in their degree.
Also, some people without any degree are more entrepreneurial than the ones with degrees.

I don’t have a degree, having decided to get married rather than take up the place at Cambridge I had been offered. Yes, I know … my parents couldn’t stop me but insisted I took a good secretarial course, thank goodness. It took me longer to qualify when I decided I wanted to be a solicitor, as I had to study alongside working full time as a secretary, but apart from the difficulty in obtaining articles as a woman without a degree in the 70s, it hasn’t held me back. Probably the reverse as I could prove I was no stranger to hard graft and had been able to pass my exams, with a good clutch of distinctions, without tuition. I have when interviewing and working come across so many ex-public school and Oxbridge boys who seemed incapable of independent thought and research.

Bella23

Germanshepherdsmum

Some degrees are a waste of the students’ time and money.

I would agree and was going to say it depends on what the degree is and what grade the student got in their degree.
Also, some people without any degree are more entrepreneurial than the ones with degrees.

Also, some people without any degree are more entrepreneurial than the ones with degrees.

Indeed.

Less risk averse, more driven, able try again as needed.

Thank you gransnetters for replying with varied opinions. It's not always the case that a university degree is the better option to obtain work. I do think though that you should like the work that you do.

Germanshepherdsmum

I beg to disagree - Oxford, Cambridge, LSE for starters.

If that's addressed to me, you're wrong. They don't offer accounting and finance, which isn't the same as economics.

growstuff but they both have highly regarded business schools

Accounting is just a fancy word for book keeping and can be learnt at any further education college. Accountancy is a much wider subject that covers finance and economics. In the same way that you cannot study economics without studying finance and business.

The overlap between economics and finance is enormous, many years ago I obtained a degree in economics, the overlap was sufficient for me to have the shortest in-work training period and exampted me from all but the final exams of the Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Germanshepherdsmum

Some degrees are a waste of the students’ time and money.

Which ones?

Really I should add, who decides If something is a waste of time and money? Only the student can do this in my opinion. It is their time and their money after all...

Absolutely, NotSpaghetti. The student might be more than happy to have spent three years studying the subject he or she loves, and with the graduate training scheme or graduate entry career he got as a result. Another might work in Tesco stacking shelves whilst working on the novel she wrote after taking a degree in Creative Writing, but be delighted with the lack of responsibility of the shelf-stacking, as it gives her headspace to concentrate on the plot.

Not everyone sees a university education as simply training for a job in the subject area they have studied. It’s not for others to presume to judge on whether or not they have wasted their time or money.

NotSpaghetti

Germanshepherdsmum

Some degrees are a waste of the students’ time and money.

Which ones?

Those with a very loose course content, low entry qualification and no career path following. Media studies, Art, Drama, Fashion, Animal Care, many more, you are highly unlikely to get graduate work in any of those. Art in particular you need talent which you won’t learn at university, avoiding starvation will be a challenge.

M0nica

growstuff but they both have highly regarded business schools

Accounting is just a fancy word for book keeping and can be learnt at any further education college. Accountancy is a much wider subject that covers finance and economics. In the same way that you cannot study economics without studying finance and business.

The overlap between economics and finance is enormous, many years ago I obtained a degree in economics, the overlap was sufficient for me to have the shortest in-work training period and exampted me from all but the final exams of the Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Hmmm ... my daughter has a joint degree with economics from a good university as a major component. It was nothing like accounting. At one stage, she looked into studying as an accountant, but her degree exempted her from nothing. The most useful thing for her would have been her A in A level maths.

Katie59

NotSpaghetti

Germanshepherdsmum

Some degrees are a waste of the students’ time and money.

Which ones?

Those with a very loose course content, low entry qualification and no career path following. Media studies, Art, Drama, Fashion, Animal Care, many more, you are highly unlikely to get graduate work in any of those. Art in particular you need talent which you won’t learn at university, avoiding starvation will be a challenge.

Not true. I know of at least three ex-pupils with fashion degrees who work either for major fashion houses or fashion buying for a top retailer. I also know of somebody with an animal care degree who works in Newmarket with racing horses. Media studies graduates are actually highly employable: www.managementtoday.co.uk/media-studies-the-uks-second-most-employable-degree/article/1221489.