* Were you still with your husband doodledog?*
Yes, we have been married for 40 years?
Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
Pre Warning re Tonight’s Eastenders
Sign up to Gransnet Daily
Our free daily newsletter full of hot threads, competitions and discounts
SubscribeNo, I didn't say that. It's the conclusion of a sociologist writing for 'Conservative Home' today.
According to Emeritus Professor Saunders:
There is huge political resistance to accepting this, yet we know that cognitive ability, measured by IQ testing, is at least 50 per cent heritable. Recent research also shows that propensity to work hard (measured, for example, by conscientiousness scores on psychometric tests) is quite highly heritable too.
Fifth, unequal educational achievement by children from different social class backgrounds is largely (though not entirely) explained by differences in average ability levels between them. Analyse all the factors that might affect children’s educational performance, and you’ll find that IQ test scores are far stronger predictors than all the social and environmental factors (parental class, parent’s education, parents’ income, parental encouragement, parental interest, enrolment in a private school, etc.) put together. On average, cognitive ability is higher among middle class children than working class children, and that is the main reason they tend to do better in school.
What have people been accusing Labour of? Talking down to the working classes?
But here are the tories being told that the working classes are thick and lazy and there's no point in trying to educate them to a higher standard or push to improve social mobility.
Contemptuous or what?
www.conservativehome.com/platform/2021/05/peter-saunders-the-myth-of-social-immobility-politicians-who-champion-meritocracy-are-pursuing-something-weve-basically-already-got.html
* Were you still with your husband doodledog?*
Yes, we have been married for 40 years?
Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
Doodledog
* Were you still with your husband doodledog?*
Yes, we have been married for 40 years?
Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
That's why your financial details were required. However, if the parents are divorce or separated, only the details of the resident parent are required. That's how some people worked the system.
My ex husband and I have never given our children any top up on the money available through the grants/loans system and both have managed to live on what was available. It can be done. My daughter always worked in the vacations and saved. My son is just naturally frugal. We couldn't have helped and in some ways I think it's been a good thing for them because they became independent and learnt to stand on their own feet, without thinking they could rely on family money.
Growstuff with the loan and grant my son was £600 short for rent for the year, nothing at all left for food. So we had to top it up. Presumably this depends on university. The only on site accommodation that would leave left over money for living expenses was a shared room. This is campus accommodation not private.
He is in very basic accommodation btw not the luxury stuff that is available
My son receives just over £9,000 as a maintenance loan, which is more than the Jobseekers' component of Universal Credit. His rent in a private studio flat takes up about half. He's discovered how to make soup and has always known how to cook pasta and eats raw veggies. He doesn't smoke or drink alcohol. His student debt is eye-watering, but it's unlikely he'll ever pay most of it back.
I don't think that finances are the main reason that so-called working class youngsters don't apply for degrees. There's something else holding them back.
I do think it allso depends where your DC is at Uni. Newcastle has a huge amount of student accommodation which tends to drive rents down, especially as just now the Asian students who make up a large proportion of the numbers aren't coming in the amounts they once did.
It is definitely the university wrt cost of accommodation.
I don't think finances are the main reason either fwiw but they definitely contribute. My Mum was a single Mum and I was expected to work after I left school. I started my A levels (at a college not school) but I was working so many hours I dropped out of 2 of them and only managed to finish one. Then I had a baby
Very true trisher but until my state pension started last month, my son's disposable income was higher than mine.
If I were 18 now with good A level results and unemployed with few prospects of finding decent employment, from a financial point of view (if nothing else) I'd try to get on a degree course.
Our two went to university when maintenance grants were still given. We did not apply for them because we thought DC were unlikely to get one, or the sum would be very small, we just paid them the full grant money monthly.
DD worked a couple of nights in the local Harvester for most of her degree course to supplement her income, but she was at a university close enough to work vacations as well. DS was much further away and had to do field work for most of the summer vacation, so was unable to earn at all, but he worked through a gap year before he went up so had built up some savings.
It annoys me a bit that people keep going on about how unaffordable degrees are. If a student comes from a low income household, the maintenance loan is over £9000. It's feasible to live on that with maybe some working during the holidays or part-time during part-time. OK, so students might look at their contemporaries, who might go out all the time, have a car, have designer clothes, etc. Most students can't afford all that. I also appreciate that university isn't for everybody. However, if somebody does think it is right for them and they would benefit, he/she shouldn't let finances put them off, nor should they let negative comments from others deter them.
I have just looked back at the OP. I don't think people being very bright or not has as much to do with political persuasion as the suggestion IQ or levels of education might imply.
What I do think that so many people's thinking is untrained so that their arguments are unreasonable, illogical, groundless, unfounded and all in all irrational and this does matter. It's no way to run a country after all.
I don't know if this is anything to do with the past educational methods - perhaps our education stopped people thinking for themselves - but employers use logical reasoning tests; perhaps education should say more about this and psephologists find a way of measuring it.
I think that's a good point, PippaZ.
growstuff It's good that people whose parents are on low incomes get decent grants, but why shouldn't those also go to those whose parents earn a bit more? The students will pay it back in the end, not the parents.
It's yet another case where people who finally improve things a little find that any extra they have is taken away by stealth. Means-testing mainly affects the JAM demographic that we have discussed before.
Even if they were taken out of the equation by a rise in the cut-off level for getting full grants, there would still be people who were trapped in the means-test maze. Get rid of it and tax at source (as I realise that I repeat to the point of tedium - sorry?).
This isn't a thread about the fairness of student grants. It's about the so-called working classes. My point is that nobody whose parents are on a low income and are possibly "working class" should be put off higher education by finances.
Actually, means-tested grants don't really affect the JAM demographic. I guess it depends what you mean by JAMs. Personally, I consider them to be people with a household income no higher than £20-30,000.
There isn't a steep cliff edge for the payment of student grants? How would you tax them at source? And whom would you tax - the parents or the students?
Registering is free, easy, and means you can join the discussion, watch threads and lots more.
Register now »Already registered? Log in with:
Gransnet »Get our top conversations, latest advice, fantastic competitions, and more, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter here.