Education, Education and a skills based market economy

[Deleted]

Spin off thread from 'Housing' which started going down a rabbit hole worthy of its own 'issue Specific' thread (IMO). Perhaps not a very important issue for most folks and not sure it will be into next GE but whatever UKPR2 discussion there is can now be in one place.

I've tweaked Blair's famous phrase to broaden the discussion to
1/ Education (u18s)
2/ Education options for 18+ (Unis, etc) and
3/ the broader issue of ensuring people have the skills they need to find 'good' jobs in a skills based market economy (either via the opportunities available and decisions made before they join the jobs market or by the opportunities of 'life long' learning and 'on the job' acquisition of skills).

I'll kick it off with my quick view that 'Universities' (like Housing) is a 'broken market' and more HMG intervention is required to fix it. I wouldn't agree with everything in attached piece but it does cover a lot of the issues of why the 'market' model hasn't worked. It was broken before Covid IMO but don't let the title put you off:

The free-market gamble: has Covid broken UK universities?

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/17/free-market-gamble-has-covid-broken-uk-universities

[Deleted]

Feb 9, 2022 13:22:37 GMT @tw said:

Spin off thread from 'Housing' which started going down a rabbit hole worthy of its own 'issue Specific' thread (IMO). Perhaps not a very important issue for most folks and not sure it will be into next GE but whatever UKPR2 discussion there is can now be in one place.

I've tweaked Blair's famous phrase to broaden the discussion to
1/ Education (u18s)
2/ Education options for 18+ (Unis, etc) and
3/ the broader issue of ensuring people have the skills they need to find 'good' jobs in a skills based market economy (either via the opportunities available and decisions made before they join the jobs market or by the opportunities of 'life long' learning and 'on the job' acquisition of skills).

I'll kick it off with my quick view that 'Universities' (like Housing) is a 'broken market' and more HMG intervention is required to fix it. I wouldn't agree with everything in attached piece but it does cover a lot of the issues of why the 'market' model hasn't worked. It was broken before Covid IMO but don't let the title put you off:

The free-market gamble: has Covid broken UK universities?

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/17/free-market-gamble-has-covid-broken-uk-universities

Oh, so you want the German model (Blair took those points from Hutton)? You can't have it without a massive institutional reform, leading to cultural.change.

Most Russell universities made more profits last year than before Covid (the figures are released under FoI requests, so you have to go to the universities' websites. One of the largest ones  ( it's UoM as the article you linked is about them) almost doubled its profits.

Oh, and while there are some really bad aspects of university education in both content (it is pretty much Fordist) and delivery (fixed and zero hour contracts, for example), it has moved to a kind of mix of European and US systems (the spread of the Danish method of teaching business and management at Masters level is very striking, for example).

[Deleted]

Further to the previous. Most of our large universities (excluding Oxbridge) get about a seventh of the profits from their business school.

International.students are important (as per your link), but for at least four years or so, most Russell universities have changed their recruitment policies (there is an implicit nationality target - Brexit makes it very difficult).

On the other hand in a non-Russell university I was asked (before Covid) if I could be on a panel of a case study competition. 87% of the class was from the PRC.

[Deleted]

Feb 9, 2022 15:21:48 GMT @laszlo said:

Feb 9, 2022 13:22:37 GMT @tw said:

Oh, so you want the German model (Blair took those points from Hutton)? 

?!?!

However, since you brought Germany up then note they only have 31.3% of folks with 'tertiary' education v UK at 49.4% (using the map for 2022, or lower %s if you use the 2018 'league table' lower down)

worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-educated-countries

PS As per my polite request to 'others' then if you're going to makes claims or state data then please provide a source rather than rely on what 'you' think. 

[Deleted]

Feb 9, 2022 16:12:26 GMT @tw said:

Feb 9, 2022 15:21:48 GMT @laszlo said:

Oh, so you want the German model (Blair took those points from Hutton)? 

?!?!

However, since you brought Germany up then note they only have 31.3% of folks with 'tertiary' education v UK at 49.4% (using the map for 2022, or lower %s if you use the 2018 'league table' lower down)

worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-educated-countries

PS As per my polite request to 'others' then if you're going to makes claims or state data then please provide a source rather than rely on what 'you' think. 

I pointed it out that you have to go to the universities' websites, because financial figures are only published under the FoI requests... That Guardian opinion piece is truly awful.

You talked about skills and education. The German dualist education.system matches your desire that you often expressed (and above too) the best. England attempted to introduce it at least 6 times since the war, all failed because of the lack of institutional support.

[Deleted]

Feb 9, 2022 16:21:55 GMT @laszlo said:

Feb 9, 2022 16:12:26 GMT @tw said:

1. I pointed it out that you have to go to the universities' websites, because financial figures are only published under the FoI requests...

2. That Guardian opinion piece is truly awful.

1. zzz ZZZ. So I'm supposed to do your research for you. How about instead I quote from your two posts:

- Most Russell universities made more profits last year (post Brexit) than before Covid
- most Russell universities have changed their recruitment policies (there is an implicit nationality target - Brexit makes it very difficult)

Care to explain that without showing racism? OK, I know you lazyslo so here's a source for international students

In 2019/20 the total number of non-EU students grew by 15.5% whilst EU student number decreased by 0.03%.

www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/universities-uk-international/explore-uuki/international-student-recruitment/international-student-recruitment-data

I have no issue with UK universities enrolling more rWorld students but your going down a rabbit hole.

2. Agreed and note my comments about it. It touched on some of the issues was all. If you have a better article or data or thoughts then by all means post them.

PS As part of 'Global Britain' then I'm glad to see UK educating the World (and foreign students bringing in ££ to help fund universities - I certainly would encourage that and would like to see 'tweaks' to our points based immigration system and enhanced visa access in trade deals to retain more foreign talent in UK post graduation). This link displays countries in an 'Olympic' style format with UK 2nd:
www.webometrics.info/en/distribution_by_country

[Deleted]

Feb 9, 2022 16:33:30 GMT @tw said:

Feb 9, 2022 16:21:55 GMT @laszlo said:

1. zzz ZZZ. So I'm supposed to do your research for you. How about instead I quote from your two posts:

- Most Russell universities made more profits last year (post Brexit) than before Covid
- most Russell universities have changed their recruitment policies (there is an implicit nationality target - Brexit makes it very difficult)

Care to explain that without showing racism? OK, I know you lazyslo so here's a source for international students

In 2019/20 the total number of non-EU students grew by 15.5% whilst EU student number decreased by 0.03%.

www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/universities-uk-international/explore-uuki/international-student-recruitment/international-student-recruitment-data

I have no issue with UK universities enrolling more rWorld students but your going down a rabbit hole.

2. Agreed and note my comments about it. It touched on some of the issues was all. If you have a better article or data or thoughts then by all means post them.

PS As part of 'Global Britain' then I'm glad to see UK educating the World (and foreign students bringing in ££ to help fund universities - I certainly would encourage that and would like to see 'tweaks' to our points based immigration system and enhanced visa access in trade deals to retain more foreign talent in UK post graduation). This link displays countries in an 'Olympic' style format with UK 2nd:
www.webometrics.info/en/distribution_by_country

I try 
Until formal Brexit, EU students paid the same tuition fee as UK students, now they pay overseas student fee. I don't know what is the difference at UG level, but at Masters it is about 5-8 thousand for the year. That knocked down EU applications.

Because of ethical rules, universities are not allowed to differentiate between applicants by nationality. However, at around 2017 it resulted in an enormous nationality composition bias (by Chinese students - a similar existed in the early 2000s for Indian students, but it flattened out). So what universities do now (taking the example of a Southern one): they release the offer letters in phases. Chinese applicants make their applications early, but now they have to wait, and there are no offers until January, when they are in competition with other international.students, and even more so in April when the next round of offers are made.

In addition, in India (at least some of the) British universities stopped using independent agents only, and they have their own agents (one of the Scottish universities has a whole network of Indians who used to study in the UK and act exclusively for them). Furthermore, (at least some of) the British universities moved quite strongly to recruit from Latin America and South and West Africa (they were in both, but now they do it systematically).

Furthermore, many of the English universities now give a kind of automatic acceptance to Master levels to their own UG students with a 20-25% reduction in tuition fees (and made agreements with some foreign governments on government grants).

You are right - the visa (Tier 2, Tier 4) regulation changes helped a lot (it existed before the Great Recession, by the way, so it was brought back rather than introduced), especially as there are labour shortages in some professional labour market segments. I don't think that statistics exist, but I guess for many it would turn to a permanent residency).

I don't need the data, but I did look up UoM (then Leeds, Liverpool, Essex, etc) because of the article. So in 2017 UoM made a profit of around 37 million, last year around 64 million. It has a reserve of 1.5 billion (the original FoI request was made because of the sectors/companies that were invested in). It also has massive real estate invest!ent partially from public sources (the Council of GM has some rather interesting considerations, but I will leave those alone - these have nothing to do with the university or the reputation of Manchester). Some of the smaller universities also play in the real estate market and I would be more anxious about these than the student market.(some could go bankrupt as a result of real estate speculation).

Universities are now run more like a company - more focus on cost than on revenue - unfortunately.

[Deleted]

OK, seriously regretting posting that Guardian article so I'll briefly explain why I didn't lead with some areas that are IMO more interesting that funding from foreign students and somewhat relevant to voting and sampling issues

1/ 'Graduate Premium': term used to express the higher salaries that graduates receive v non-graduates. Issues:
a/ '5yrs after graduation' + 3-4yrs degree course + application period means the data is 10yrs old WRT to the decision making process (and the 'trend' shows a shrinking premium)
b/ Sampling. Graduate v non-graduate is not a random sample so the analysis is flawed. For women there is an additional flaw. IMO that significantly biases the 'result' to show graduates have higher lifetime earning potential as it is not 'just' the piece of paper you get that is making the main difference in outcome.
c/ It's not just about the money. A young person can possibly learn some life skills through a University experience but might also lose some of their 'work ethic' (not trying to be divisive, simply saying non-monetary factors have relevance to the decision)

Sources for above available upon request (since others don't bother then I'll wait for a request if anyone wants to challenge those IMOs). Plenty of articles that can make the case 'for' (University) but seems to be an increasingly number at least expressing 'caution' and 'caveats' and highlighting the importance of it being very much on an individual case by case basis. A modestly biased article (name of website gives it away, 'self-select' polling as well ) being:
www.savethestudent.org/student-finance/is-university-worth-money.html

2/ Covid distortions or a 'realisation' trend?
For which I expect to regret posting another Guardian link that does have some tracker polling:

Half of UK university students think degree is poor value for money

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jun/24/half-of-uk-university-students-think-degree-is-poor-value-for-money

[Deleted]

An article from the Chair of the Education Select Committee covering some v.important issues for the u18s part of 'Education'

Robert Halfon: The Government’s education recovery funding has created another North-South divide

www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2022/02/robert-halfon-the-governments-education-recovery-funding-has-created-another-north-south-divide.html

I appreciate the unions have objected (as they always do) and Wales has devolved powers, run by a LAB govt (with PC support FWIU), but IMO their 'trial' should be part of the solution and I commend them for “think(ing) outside the box” and taking on the unions in their polity. 

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/plans-bring-longer-school-day-22950966

[Deleted]

Feb 9, 2022 19:55:41 GMT @tw said:

OK, seriously regretting posting that Guardian article so I'll briefly explain why I didn't lead with some areas that are IMO more interesting that funding from foreign students and somewhat relevant to voting and sampling issues

1/ 'Graduate Premium': term used to express the higher salaries that graduates receive v non-graduates. Issues:
a/ '5yrs after graduation' + 3-4yrs degree course + application period means the data is 10yrs old WRT to the decision making process (and the 'trend' shows a shrinking premium)
b/ Sampling. Graduate v non-graduate is not a random sample so the analysis is flawed. For women there is an additional flaw. IMO that significantly biases the 'result' to show graduates have higher lifetime earning potential as it is not 'just' the piece of paper you get that is making the main difference in outcome.
c/ It's not just about the money. A young person can possibly learn some life skills through a University experience but might also lose some of their 'work ethic' (not trying to be divisive, simply saying non-monetary factors have relevance to the decision)

Sources for above available upon request (since others don't bother then I'll wait for a request if anyone wants to challenge those IMOs). Plenty of articles that can make the case 'for' (University) but seems to be an increasingly number at least expressing 'caution' and 'caveats' and highlighting the importance of it being very much on an individual case by case basis. A modestly biased article (name of website gives it away, 'self-select' polling as well ) being:
www.savethestudent.org/student-finance/is-university-worth-money.html

2/ Covid distortions or a 'realisation' trend?
For which I expect to regret posting another Guardian link that does have some tracker polling:

Half of UK university students think degree is poor value for money

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jun/24/half-of-uk-university-students-think-degree-is-poor-value-for-money

Largely agree with this. Graduate starting wages (up to 3 years) don't justify the tuition fees and efforts (not to mention that many would do jobs that use.to be non-graduate jobs. It is a bit different for masters students (business and management, but not MBA) where around £32,000 a year job is pretty common (and London around £40,000).
And there is something else a friend of mine from the local university told me that in his UG class of about 80, there are at least three students do full time job, and probably around 7-8 part-time (20 hours a week) jobs. He knows this informally.

[Deleted]

There is something else. The government's apprenticeship programme (which I highly appreciate) is extensively utilised by the universities. There is even an MBA programme I know of where the funding for participants come from the programme. I think that one is wrong.

[Deleted]

laszlo Avatar
Feb 11, 2022 10:22:47 GMT @laszlo said:

1. Largely agree with this. Graduate starting wages (up to 3 years) don't justify the tuition fees and efforts...

2. And there is something else a friend of mine from the local university told me that in his UG class of about 80, there are at least three students do full time job, and probably around 7-8 part-time (20 hours a week) jobs. He knows this informally.
------------------------

1. It varies massively by the type of the degree of you (and also where you do it). Lots of 'league table' info on starting salaries etc on the www, eg
www.milkround.com/advice/what-are-the-highest-paying-degrees-in-the-uk

Finance – £43,800–£100,000+
Medicine – £38,500–£110,600
etc

Those degrees (some of which require Master's level) would be a very good ROI. I'm not sure why you state 3yrs as the 'return' should be considered over the whole period of ones intended career. That return should be considered by the individual but also by the govt policy (ie we should 'encourage' degrees with a high ROI and discourage those with a -ve RoI, in the latter case a lot of the money borrowed from taxpayers is never repaid)

Less info on 'worst' but the following are hardly surprising and anyone taking those 'bad' courses (especially at 'bad' graduate farm Unis) should know that in advance (given I can find it within 30secs on google)

Worst
Music
Philosophy
History
Psychology
English
Rest of Humanities

www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3549473

2. Yes, given the very low timetabled study hours of many courses then a very easy way to ensure one doesn't leave Uni with a massive debt that charges a high rate of interest is to not borrow so much in the first place (ie 'get a job' while at Uni).
Anecdote alert: I studied Engineering (35hrs-ish per week of 'timetabled' study) and had a full-time job during term-time from my 2nd year (and worked for my sponsoring company in the Summers as well as doing the full-time other job). So I left Uni with enough saved for a deposit on a house. I appreciate 'times have changed' but it is certainly possible to leave Uni with less debt by working and there are loads of jobs around at the moment.

One issue, hard to prove, is that some folks (notably those taking a 'bad' course at a 'bad' graduate farm Uni) might never intend to pay back the money they borrow from other taxpayers. Also at a later point then the repayment threshold creates a disincentive to be promoted/increase earnings.

The 'collective' answer to that would be a 'cap' on 'bad' courses and/or lower ability to borrow from taxpayers for 'bad' courses (but with some help on finding part/full-time job to fund the studies if that person really wants to do said course - if you're likely to end up working in a pub coz you chose a 'bad' degree then why not start that career part-time at age 18 rather than be allowed to borrow so much money from taxpayers?)

PS WRT to 'apprenticeships' then that is worth discussing but quite a complex issue. The current system doesn't seem to be working as intended. Some companies that should be using it are not and some that are using it are exploiting it for 'cheap' labour. So 'in theory' it's a good policy and approach but some 'tweaking' is required on how it works in practise. IMO of course but I think that is a 'consensus' view.

[Deleted]

Feb 11, 2022 14:07:06 GMT @tw said:

laszlo Avatar
Feb 11, 2022 10:22:47 GMT @laszlo  said:

1. Largely agree with this. Graduate starting wages (up to 3 years) don't justify the tuition fees and efforts...

2. And there is something else a friend of mine from the local university told me that in his UG class of about 80, there are at least three students do full time job, and probably around 7-8 part-time (20 hours a week) jobs. He knows this informally.
------------------------

1. It varies massively by the type of the degree of you (and also where you do it). Lots of 'league table' info on starting salaries etc on the www, eg
www.milkround.com/advice/what-are-the-highest-paying-degrees-in-the-uk

Finance – £43,800–£100,000+
Medicine – £38,500–£110,600
etc

Those degrees (some of which require Master's level) would be a very good ROI. I'm not sure why you state 3yrs as the 'return' should be considered over the whole period of ones intended career. That return should be considered by the individual but also by the govt policy (ie we should 'encourage' degrees with a high ROI and discourage those with a -ve RoI, in the latter case a lot of the money borrowed from taxpayers is never repaid)

Less info on 'worst' but the following are hardly surprising and anyone taking those 'bad' courses (especially at 'bad' graduate farm Unis) should know that in advance (given I can find it within 30secs on google)

Worst
Music
Philosophy
History
Psychology
English
Rest of Humanities

www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3549473

2. Yes, given the very low timetabled study hours of many courses then a very easy way to ensure one doesn't leave Uni with a massive debt that charges a high rate of interest is to not borrow so much in the first place (ie 'get a job' while at Uni).
Anecdote alert: I studied Engineering (35hrs-ish per week of 'timetabled' study) and had a full-time job during term-time from my 2nd year (and worked for my sponsoring company in the Summers as well as doing the full-time other job). So I left Uni with enough saved for a deposit on a house. I appreciate 'times have changed' but it is certainly possible to leave Uni with less debt by working and there are loads of jobs around at the moment.

One issue, hard to prove, is that some folks (notably those taking a 'bad' course at a 'bad' graduate farm Uni) might never intend to pay back the money they borrow from other taxpayers. Also at a later point then the repayment threshold creates a disincentive to be promoted/increase earnings.

The 'collective' answer to that would be a 'cap' on 'bad' courses and/or lower ability to borrow from taxpayers for 'bad' courses (but with some help on finding part/full-time job to fund the studies if that person really wants to do said course - if you're likely to end up working in a pub coz you chose a 'bad' degree then why not start that career part-time at age 18 rather than be allowed to borrow so much money from taxpayers?)

PS WRT to 'apprenticeships' then that is worth discussing but quite a complex issue. The current system doesn't seem to be working as intended. Some companies that should be using it are not and some that are using it are exploiting it for 'cheap' labour. So 'in theory' it's a good policy and approach but some 'tweaking' is required on how it works in practise. IMO of course but I think that is a 'consensus' view.

Just very briefly.

I used the three years period because it is roughly before promotion or changing jobs.

In accounting and finance jobs the distribution of wages for graduates is actually not a normal.distribution, but a three-thong one (it is really a weird labour market segment - you can get for a kind of low skilled job one for about 28,000 in the NW, but anything above can go as far as 52,000 within 3 years).

I agree on the label (which university) and its effects.

Some sectors (transportation and construction for example) use the apprentice scheme excellently (for highly skilled upstream jobs), but some (like the NHS, but it could be down to Covid) not at all (in one region the dropout rate is something like 48% - sorry, I cannot give the details).

We need a whole education (including HE) reform, but I genuinely don't think that the government has the power (it is not merely money, the non-power elements could be handled from a rather limited budget - e.g. employing technology).

[birdseye]

Feb 9, 2022 16:12:26 GMT @tw said:

Feb 9, 2022 15:21:48 GMT @laszlo said:

Oh, so you want the German model (Blair took those points from Hutton)? 

PS As per my polite request to 'others' then if you're going to makes claims or state data then please provide a source rather than rely on what 'you' think. 

Why? Is this a forum for debate or an academic institution? The country is run on opinion rather than peer reviewed academic research and given our experience of listening to the legions of Professors during the pandemic, it is perhaps as well. So my polite request would be to let us hear what you really thing and why you thinkik what you do.

For myself I am not aware of any key workplace skill that is acquired in university. By that I mean that professions such as law, medicine, engineering, business even politics all have to learn the real world job skills they will use in the early stages of their working careers. There is a big difference between education and skills training and to my mind not recognising this was the big error in the Blair reforms.

Its always dangerous to generalise from one example, but I think my own case is not completely unrepresentive. I read Physics and Maths with 9 other people in my year at my college. Not a single one of us ended up using that expensive education. Most went into the City, I went into management, one went into politics and one became an Ambassador and got a gong. Were those 3 years wasted? No clear answer. You could say that they were a part of growing up, but certainly the academic part had little or no relevance to careers.

There is of course one other issue. The economy needs drones, unskilled workers to do menial jobs, and for that matter those without academic skills need to be provided with worthwhile employment. Right now we have marked shortages of skilled workers in areas like IT but at the same time we have an even bigger shortage of the sort of skilled manual jobs that used to be in industries like coal and steel. Our economy is out of balance and the focus on university and education make the issue worse.

[leftieliberal]

Feb 20, 2022 17:33:19 GMT birdseye said:

Feb 9, 2022 16:12:26 GMT @tw said:

PS As per my polite request to 'others' then if you're going to makes claims or state data then please provide a source rather than rely on what 'you' think. 

Its always dangerous to generalise from one example, but I think my own case is not completely unrepresentive. I read Physics and Maths with 9 other people in my year at my college. Not a single one of us ended up using that expensive education. Most went into the City, I went into management, one went into politics and one became an Ambassador and got a gong. Were those 3 years wasted? No clear answer. You could say that they were a part of growing up, but certainly the academic part had little or no relevance to careers.

The Royal Society produced a document just over a decade ago (2010) called "The Scientific Century" royalsociety.org/topics-policy/publications/2010/scientific-century/ which included a Figure on where people with a PhD in a science subject went: 50% left science entirely after their PhD; 16% (of which I was one) went into government/industrial research after their PhD; 3.5% had a career in academia and just 0.45% reached full professor. There were also people who left science or went into government/industrial research after one or more post-doc positions but they didn't quantify these. 

[birdseye]

I doubt that has changed much except possibly that far more now become professor - the days when you had one Professor in a subject and the rest were lecturers went some time ago. Professors breed like fruit flies.

[leftieliberal]

Feb 21, 2022 19:47:26 GMT birdseye said:

I doubt that has changed much except possibly that far more now become professor - the days when you had one Professor in a subject and the rest were lecturers went some time ago. Professors breed like fruit flies.

It was why I used the term 'full professor', the new vogue for 'assistant professor' and 'associate professor' in place of 'lecturer' and 'senior lecturer' is an Americanism that we could have done without.

[Deleted]

Feb 24, 2022 12:42:37 GMT jimjam said:

Yes the Student loan changes will benefit higher earners who would pay their loan off at the expense of lower earners.

More people will pay off their load and those that don't will pay more of their loan off.

Two additional points

1/ The longer period might work as disincentive to go to Uni if the young adult doesn't think the degree they intend to take will result in them being able to quickly repay the money they borrow from taxpayers

2/ More tricky. At 30yrs then the debt was previously going to be written off at age 51 (assuming a 3yr course started at age 18). It is possible that some folks then stayed below the thresholds for repayment (ie declined promotions for higher pay or worked longer hours). Moving to 40yrs takes you quite close to retirement age (I'd personally have matched it to retirement age) and hence perhaps the 'barrier' effect has reduced??

NB We need a much broader overhaul of the 'graduate farm' and market based approach to post secondary education but I'm glad to see measures that perhaps deter folks from borrowing money from tax payers if they are unlikely to repay it (#1).

PS If you/anyone sees the ££ numbers (based on 'assumptions') of how much additional money they expect to claw back then please post. However, #1 is IMO the more important issue.  

[Deleted]

Quite the partisan bias on this one (CON 54%, net 26% support where as LAB 61% net 38% oppose)

Not sure that is necessarily the right approach but we do need to something to tackle the 'graduate farms' that result in lots of young adults £50k in debt with a worthless piece of paper and no 'marketable skills'. The current system is not working and perhaps its an RoC thing but I don't support taxpayers lending (which is 'giving' if they don't pay it back) money when the result is someone wasting 3yrs of their life when other options would suit them better.

Academia is not for everyone but there are many very good careers that don't need academic qualifications and taxpayers paying for square pegs to fit into round holes needs to change (IMO of course). Mix of carrot and stick approach beyond a bit of tinkering around the edges but we do need to start somewhere with somethings soon.

[birdseye]

Feb 25, 2022 12:03:51 GMT @tw said:

Quite the partisan bias on this one (CON 54%, net 26% support where as LAB 61% net 38% oppose)

Not sure that is necessarily the right approach but we do need to something to tackle the 'graduate farms' that result in lots of young adults £50k in debt with a worthless piece of paper and no 'marketable skills'. The current system is not working and perhaps its an RoC thing but I don't support taxpayers lending (which is 'giving' if they don't pay it back) money when the result is someone wasting 3yrs of their life when other options would suit them better.

Academia is not for everyone but there are many very good careers that don't need academic qualifications and taxpayers paying for square pegs to fit into round holes needs to change (IMO of course). Mix of carrot and stick approach beyond a bit of tinkering around the edges but we do need to start somewhere with somethings soon.

I agree. We need to restore and expand vocational training turning the "new" universities back into technical colleges. Perhaps even reducing the size of the traditional universities and their courses - how many people with a PhD in say Geography do we need? Or for that matter in Archeology or Egyptology, or ancient Chinese history. All interesting academic areas but of no real value to the nation. Maybe no fees for courses like engineering or chemistry or medicine or business where we need people. But finance yourself if you want to do media studies?

Right now, University is almost a right of passage for kids, putting off the dark day when they have to work for a living.

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

David Goodhart’s (founder of Prospect Magazine) take on the education changes…


“ But from under-providing higher education in the 1980s we are now oversupplying it and the consequences are economic, social and political.

The labour market is flooded with academic-generalists when their professional-managerial jobs have, with some exceptions, stopped growing. One third of graduates are not in graduate jobs 10 years after graduating while we have a chronic shortage of “missing middle” technical skills, and a recruitment crisis in care.”

…

“Social mobility academics say mass higher education has, if anything, slowed mobility because universities are monopolised by the middle and upper-middle classes. And because of our mainly residential system, many of the brightest kids from declining areas leave home and never return. This graduate/non-graduate schism contributed to Brexit.

What has been called “elite over-production” produces two sets of losers: those who didn’t go to university in the first place who see all the prizes reserved for graduates, and the bottom part of the graduate class who aren’t getting the high-status jobs they expected. Educated people tend to be more extreme and more ideological in their thinking: mass higher education plus social media equals a more intolerant political culture.”

[Mr Poppy]

Since Starmer has brought back up 'student loans' then I'm just popping the Education thread back to the top of the 'recent posts' list in case anyone wants to comment.

Maybe he copies LDEM's 'Graduate Tax' which even Nick Clegg admitted was worse* than Student Loans. A 'graduate tax' would encourage 'graduate farms' to offer 'Mickey Mouse' degrees that give the young adult few job opportunities once they get their worthless piece of paper and be a deterrent to people taking 'proper' degrees where a degree is actually needed (eg Engineering - although an apprenticeship could achieve the same outcome).

Of course the 'Student Loan' scheme didn't stop the 'graduate farm' business model so some tinkering to stop 'Mickey Mouse' degrees being offered to home students would be a good idea but the penny does seem to be slowly dropping that a degree is something that should choice be seen as an 'investment' in for oneself and for many people it is/would be the wrong choice. IMO we should not be encouraging people to make wrong choices and hence I prefer tweaks to the current system (deterring 'Mickey Mouse' degrees); increasing non-Uni options; and in some cases removing the need for a degree (eg Nurses).

Not a smart scab for Starmer to pick IMO but if he's about to do an 'O'-turn on 'Continuity CON' or copy LDEM's (worse) policy then IMO that is one for the Issue Specific thread as a/ I doubt he'll have a notably different policy to CON; b/ it can get quite detailed if we get into the details.

* www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/nick-cleggs-bid-to-quell-student-fees-protests