Student fees

The Govt are going to have a look at the whole Uni system and one of the ideas is to charge less for Arts degrees.
I can see that Science and Engineering degrees cost more to provide but should those students be paying more than other students? - which subjects are more needed by the Country?

The rules are chaotic.

No, they shouldn't be paying more. We need a balance but I understood that we do need more Engineering and Science graduates - plus those with non-degree qualifications.

When there was no university fees far fewer went to university , will this happen again if free ?

Colleges of Technology, Polytechnics became universities so would that mean they revert back to more practical-based centres of learning?

Perhaps we do need more apprenticeships resulting in more technically qualified people, not necessarily with degrees.

Engineering degrees have always been practically based.
How else do you think robots have developed?

The pressure of horrendous debt sadly discourages students from applying to Uni, as some posters have experienced.

Under the guise of "austerity" many rights and benefits have been withdrawn. If Cuba and Chile can provide free University education then so can we. The money is in the Bahamas and we need to get it back!

To the increasing financial inequality we now add educational inequality and housing inequality. Time to put our feet down!

I heard on the radio that there is concern about the number of universities now offering uncondional degrees. So many kids aren’t bothering about getting their final grades and are often jumping into the wrong course at the wrong place. It doesn’t matter to the university as when they drop out the university has already got the fees paid for the complete course. The place can be refilled and more money claimed. The young person is then left with lower A level grades than s/he should have got and having to start over again. This cannot be right.

Welshwife I thought that the proposal was that degrees in medicine, engineering, teaching would be subsidised as they were the ‘useful’ ones we need.

Not all degrees need to be in ‘worthwhile subjects’ that lead to ‘proper jibs’. We need all sorts and that includes academics and those who study fir the sake to simply learning.

Nfk one of my neighbour’s children has been offered an unconditional place to study music at a London College. Her only instrument is keyboard/piano and she’s only passed exams up to Grade 3 in theory and practical. She is studying ‘Music’ at ‘A’ Level, but what kind of course it is I cannot imagine as when we had a bit of a bash at Christmas someone asked her to play some carols. The only carol book we had was one I use to teach my 8-year old GD. She couldn’t sight read it.

If this is typical of the standard of some of those entering some of these dodgy university colleges, which seem to have proliferated since fees were introduced then I’m astounded.

Nfk the report I saw mentioned the reduction being for arts degrees and also contained the info that Science and Engineering degrees cost more to provide.

Engineering degrees have always been practically based.
I didn't say they weren't.

But not all engineering requires a degree.

Would you go to work for 3 years, training for a job which, even though you paid your employer £15k year, they don't even offer you at the end?

Thousands do - it's called University. It's ludicrous.

I wonder, now that we are all living longer and so have longer working lives, coupled with the rise of AI and robots, it might be the best idea to keep young people in education for as long as possible.
We don't need them to leave school at 12 any more, perhaps a good idea to keep them there until 21?
Education is never wasted.

You said revert back, Jalima.
If they didn't change their courses, they couldn't revert back to more practically based ones, could they?

"I understood that we do need more Engineering and Science graduates - plus those with non-degree qualifications."

Perhaps in the future, we should all be entitled to, say twenty years of free education, at any appropriate level, over our hundred year's lifetime. We could have some of our entitlement as children, some during our working years and some in retirement.

It used to take seven years to become an architect. I don't know if it still does.
An architect couldn't afford to wait until old age, same as a doctor.

But I do think it is good to come up with new ideas like varian. Also a doctor or an architect could probably afford to undertake some more education in retirement, if they chose.

It still takes seven years to become an architect, dj, usually five years at university and two years in practice. During the fourth and seventh years students have go to work fulltime, but also study. They are paid for their work but also pay fees to their university during these years.

In spite of this UK architects have to compete for work with unqualified people as anyone can design a building in this country, although it is illegal to call yourself an architect unless your name is on the architects register.

Most architects never earn anything like as much as other professionals like doctors, lawyers or chartered accountants, even though they have undergone such a long training.

NemosMum .....excellent posts from you.??

Thanks, varian.
My husband used to earn the same as I did when he was an architect and I was a teacher.
It didn't matter whether he worked for private companies or for councils. But he trained for longer than I did.

It seems the Tories are finally looking at what the population wants. Well educated young people are of benefit to us all and I too think student fees were a backward step.

I do notice that the news programmes are all saying that May is going to talk about student fees but she has actually said she will talk about tertiary education in the round. I sincerely hope this is true. FE has been stripped to the bone; monies are coming in from the apprenticeship levy but the numbers of apprenticeships has halved since it was introduced. The Conservatives keep coming up with ideas that fit the far right ethos - hence our fees moving in the direction of the US - but they don't seem to do practical solutions. All our services are on the edge of breaking down and this includes all levels of education.

www.independent.co.uk/voices/student-loan-interest-rates-tuition-fee-freeze-disabled-prisons-tories-cares-when-has-to-a8216541.html

Matthew Norman agrees with you, GracesGran.