Does the UK need fewer graduates?
The government target of getting 50% of people under 30 into higher education should be scrapped, the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) has said. What do you think?
The AGR also wants a phased increase in student top-up fees by 2020, with safeguards for disadvantaged families. AGR's chief executive Carl Gilleard said the proposals would help "reaffirm the value of a degree".
The lecturers' University and College Union said it was disappointed by the recommendations. Its general secretary Sally Hunt said: "The future for the UK is at the forefront of a high-skilled knowledge economy and we won't get there with less graduates."
Are you a lecturer, graduate or recruiter? Has having a degree helped or hindered you? What do you think of the association's proposals? Should the government target be scrapped?
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Quick, lets get 50% of people into higher education! Even if they're clueless about the proper academic subjects, we can make up silly new courses to put them on!
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Take it all back 20 years. About 5% of school leavers went to (proper) university. Those number of graduates were sustainable. Its not fair that some newer Universities build the hopes of young people up with false promises of a better life after they graduate. The reality is that some degrees are not worth the paper they are written on.
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According to the article, the AGR wants:
1) Fewer courses = less tax burden for its members.
2) Higher top-up fees, paid for by the student = less tax burden for its members.
3) Tax breaks for companies employing graduates = less tax burden for its members.
Hmm. I see a pattern here...
Why can't they just be honest and say "we want to pay less tax".
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"The future for the UK is at the forefront of a high-skilled knowledge economy and we won't get there with less graduates."
Sally Hunt is wrong. High skilled knowledge has to be acquired through study and hard graft, not given on a plate for turning up to study a no-subject at a former technical college specialising in performing farce. Degrees are now so dummed down that how can perspective employers guarantee their staff are adequately qualified to perform the tasks they require to be performed. I am sick of so called engineers being unable to do anything more than punch keys on a computer. Computers can't fix what is broken, they can only suggest a solution. It requires an analytical mind and dexterity to perform the tasks suggested. Even astronauats still have to space walk, computers can't fix.
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A bit of a no-brainer. All it's done is to water down degrees; if 50% of jobs had required graduates then there may have been some point to it.
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Yes, university should be for the academically elite, not for just anyone. It used to be that the top 10% went to university.
If 50% of school-leavers go to university, that means that only the average or better will go (by definition). In fact, it may be the 'less than average or better' since many intelligent people won't go to university.
Also, 50% of jobs don't need a degree. So, all the people who get an unnecessary degree are doing is starting their working life with a bundle of unnecessary debt.
Of course university & college lecturers will want more students to go - that will give them more jobs!
Also, if fewer go to university, then it will mean that the government has more chance of funding those who are unable to fund themselves. This will mean that university attendance is based more on ability to do the work, rather than ability to pay for it.
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Under Nu Labour and to a certain extent the previous Tory government, degrees have slowly become more and more meaningless, devalued and "Away" from what the country needs. The accent has been on giving the student a degree, almost as a must, whatever happens. Thus, successive governments claim wonderful success rates and assure us that the edcuatiion system is in fine fettle. It isn't. It is in the worst state it has ever been in. Would it not be sensible for the education system to cater for the countrys needs, present and future? All this arty stuff is fine and dandy (A degree in DANCING?) but we need to get back to manufacturing, inventing and innovating, all things we were once good at. And we need to do it very very soon
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The 50% target is yet another example of poorly thought out figures the government was trying to hit to prove they have been a success. In reality like many other targets instead of producing 50% of the population who are smart enough to pass a degree, the quality of a degree has reduced until it encompases 50%. The same is happening with GCSE's and A-Levels.
I look forward to a return to the situation of 10% of pupils get an A grade in exams and only the best go to University. This will reduce the amount students need to pay as they wont be helping to fund vocational courses which are masquerading as degrees.
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I would say that there is a yes and no answer to this question. Graduates in the traditional degrees which will be beneficial to the country should be encouraged but those taking the easier "Waffle" degrees in stupid minority interest subjects should be reduced.
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What's a degree for, anyway?
If you know exactly what you want to do in the world of work, other forms of training may be more appropriate. Of course, for some careers a degree is an appropriate starting point, or at least can be helpful.
However, unless you have a burning thirst for knowledge, a degree is not the best route. If you want to acquire vocational skills for your chosen career, look carefully for where to obtain them... and especially for routes where you can earn while training, or even get the training via an employer.
Yep, I got mine in the late 1970s, and to be honest all I had was that thirst for knowledge - no clue as to what I'd do with it... and I have ended up in a completely different profession to my degree subject. (If you are curious, the degree was in botany and I am now a Chartered Fellow of the British Computer Society!)
What I got from the degree was the ability to learn for myself, to research, to find out. Detailed information about plants nowadays is only useful on walks when my daughter asks me about something growing! She's freaked out when I'm driving and can still tell her what's growing in the hedgerow. But whatever the subject, I'm good at finding out what I want to know... skills I acquired back as an undergraduate.
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We need more graduates with degrees that are relevant to their careers, not just graduates who have taken a random course for the sake of having a degree.
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Not really, what the UK really 'needs' is an economy which can provide more graduate level employment! The question should be, how can our economy provide enough meaningful roles for an 'intelligent' population? As it is - our country has appox 29m 'jobs' most of which do not require any 'intelligence'at all. 8m of which are part-time 'opportunities' Over 6m are in the Public Sector (many mindless NON jobs there). Our population is now over 62m! You do the mathematical calculations!
What we actually 'need' is industry and innovation! It would be nice to see our Government and those lovely 'industry leaders' do something constructive for once and 'create' meaningful productive opportunities instead of relying on the destructive capabilities of global capitalism! They could at least, free the intelligence of the population to go out and create their own opportunities, give them the necessary freedoms to use their creative talents to build meaningful productive businesses! But - no - that will not happen - because those running the show - have no imagination, no wish to loose their control and no desire to set intelligence free!
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Quality not quantity!
We don't need armies of media studies, David Beckham Studies or film studies graduates. To get us out of this economic mess we need engineers, doctors and chemists.
If we insist on creating armies of graduates with lightweight degrees, we will only succeed in dumbing down the population, creating more none producive "management" posts and slipping further behind the developing world.
We have to get a grip and start investing in our intellectual seed corn or we'll all be working in garden centres and hedge funds before you know it.
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You often hear people say there are too many graduates but as an employer, I'm afraid the opposite is true. The more university trained people we have, the better.
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We need graduates with qualifications that actually mean something. Too many graduates obtain degrees without actually doing much which devalues the worth of the degree for those who actually deserve them.
We are now in the position where degrees are the required qualification, especially for the public services, for even rather menial jobs which the person holding the degree is ill prepared to carry out and may have expectations greater than their abilities.
The reduction by business of apprenticeships and in house training means that progression is stiffled so people who know the job don't progress whilst academically qualified but incompetent people are placed in charge which results in business suffering in the long term.
Academic qualifications are only useful if they are relevant to the workplace and are a mark of knowledge, ability and willingness to work hard.
So higher education should be open and available to all on the basis of mental or physical ability (depending on the sbject) not the ability to pay. The eventual qualification should then reflect their abilities not just their attendance at a particular establishment.
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This has always been a ridiculous initiative. There is a very simple question - how many jobs REQUIRE higher education before people can accomplish the tasks in the job? I'd be shocked if it's anywhere near 50%.
All this scheme has done is:
- Encourage mickey mouse courses such as David Beckham studies
- Put strain on higher education funds
- Reduced the quality of education available to everyone
- Wasted money on loans that will never be repaid (students are the new sub-prime!)
- Devalorised degrees that used to be worth something - not just in the UK, but abroad.
We should be driving towards a meritocracy where the only target is whether someone is GOOD ENOUGH.
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We need more physics, Maths, Geography, Engineering, Medical, Accounting, History, Languages - French, German, Dutch and any other relevant degree useful to the society.
However we do NOT need media studies, golf management, Lap dancing and any other less rigorous degree that is not useful to the society. It sounds harsh but it is the truth.
In short we need graduates/courses with academic rigour and a reasonable amount of intelligence to earn a degree and not the BOGOF degrees that some uninversities offers to boost their funding.
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50% of people gaining a university education is an aspiration and only truly achieveable (with a good standard of degree course) if our children are being properly educated at primary and secondary level. So, while I am trying to understand both sides of this argument, it seems falacious at present. Universities have "dumbed down" courses to meet targets and now employ more lecturers than ever - and of course these people don't want to be made redundant. If we got our act together at primary level, starting children a little later in age and really ensuring they understood the basics (like how to spell properly and how to add two numbers) then our children would be ready to enjoy a full and rounded secondary education that would then, for many, lead on to a challenging and worthwhile university career. But we need to start at the beginning and get that right, not set targets that sound good but achieve nothing.
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I studied law at University and graduated last July. The one thing I noticed was the amount of people who were only at University because they felt they 'should' be there. University is tough, if you don't want to be there you will struggle to get through. As a result there was a high number of drop-outs in my first and second year.
A-level students are made to feel like failures by their teachers if they do not apply. My brother is athletic and wanted to pursue a career in coaching rather than academia, but during his final year of A-levels he was constantly made to feel like he was stupid and had failed in school.
As a result of the stupidly number of high graduates and non-degrees, my partner (also a law graduate) has only just managed to find a job since graduating in July - which isn't even a graduate level post. 3 years, £20,000 and he was consistently told he didn't have enough experience - he would have been in a better position had he used those three years to gain experience!
Academia is not for everyone. Some people are book worms, others prefer a more practical approach. Unfortunately the latter are considered less valuable which is completely wrong. The government cannot force everyone down the same path, we are all different and the education system must support that. There is a difference between giving everyone equal opportunities and forcing them to be the same.
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What is wanted is a larger number of students capable of doing and achieving good quality worthwhile PhDs in science and technology and then for there to be a good supply of money and facilities for them to carry out further research, both pure and applied in both public and commercial facilities. Then we need a succession of governments ensuring that the rest of us get back to real work (not the bureaucratic stuff) making use of the results of all this new knowledge.
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I suggest it rather depends upon the quality and usefulness of the degree. This Labour Government inceased university places as a ploy to reduce unemployment statistics. The trouble is many of the newly created universities are offering 'worthless' courses and degrees that aren't worth the paper on which they are written. If this proposal means sorting out the wheat from the chaff, I am totally in favour.
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The targets should not be scapped.The problem is that organizations like the CBI fear an educated workforce that has the ability to question and not accept the "dikat" of so calle4d business leaders. Business in this country only sees the short term,a quick profit ,declare themselves insolvent and start up again afresh. When business begins to understand that an educated workforce is not a threat but an asset,then we will be able to go forward.
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I have mixed feelings about this one. First I teach in a University, so cutting the number of students would put my job at risk, however the simple truth is that in the past when the number of graduates was much smaller, getting a degree almost guaranteed a decent job. Now with so many getting to University it does not. Put simply there is nothing special about being a graduate now. The other problem with Government targets to increase the number of people with University education, is that this desire does not increase the number of people either intelligent enough or motivated enough to benefit from higher education. Sadly I see a worryingly high percentage of my students as being totally unsuited for a degree programme (and I teach Medical students). Government tampering with the A-Level system means it is almost impossible for Universities to detect which applicants are suitable and which are not. The year on year 'improvement' in both GCSE and A-Level results is a biological impossibility, school kids are not getting smarter, and teachers are not getting better. The exams are getting easier!
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Well considering there are already thousands without a job it either states that:
1. There is not enough jobs for the graduates that are coming out of University;
2. People are going to University and doing degrees of no use to industry and companies aren't interested in hiring any more people with degrees in a soft skills subjects and having to spend money to train them up and then realising they were useless in the first place.
It is sad but true, all companies now want usually at least a 2.1, if not a 1st.
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Having a degree these days is not worth the paper it is written on. The company I work for has staff with degrees stuffing envelopes in the post room. 3 years at Uni to basically start from the bottom and work your way. Exactly as did but without all the pointless qualifications. I also think that the exams have been made easier to ensure the governemnt targets are met.
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Yes scrap it. It is a ridiculous target.50% into "higher" education means, by definition degrees for all those with an IQ of 100 or over. How on earth can this be "higher" education. The best it is, is FURTHER education. "Graduates" with an IQ of 100 won't get and shouldn't think they deserve a premium salary in the job market. This ridiculous target was promulgated by the ridiculous Labour government under which we suffer. I by the way, am a graduate with a first class degree in the sciences, born of poor parents with NO academic qualifications, so feel I can make this comments quite freely without being accused of being one of the so called "privileged few"
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If you set targets - you start to influenec behaviour and it's normally for the worse. Look what happened at Stafordshire NHS Trust ! They pursued targets to the extent that people died !
Setting targets for people entering University will have the consequence of lowering the quality of University degrees simply because no University will want to admit to a lower precentage of admitted graduates achieving quality degrees.
What will happen is that the cost of the courses will rise until it is the same as quality Universities in America (and soon China as well), the quality will decrease, students will see this and prefer to study abroad (after all - the cost is will be the same) and British Universities will become second or third class instituions. At which point the Left will say 'What happened ?'
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If fewer means better, then presumably none at all will lead to Britain being the best educated country in the world. Why not take the idea to extremes and offer only Reading, Writing and Arithmetic in schools, with a tiny percentage, say 5%, being given anything more advanced. so as to keep up the value of a fuller education than can be obtained by the basics. This is hardly the way to keep up in an increasingly complex and competitive world. We may disagree as to how it is done, but there can be no doubt that education is essential, and educational goals are unlikely to be reached through denying full access to as high an educational level as possible.
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Of course they should.
This policy of a 50% target was doomed from the start, all it has done is lower the standards of students, make most degrees not worth the paper they are written on and undermine the education system.
Student numbers should be limited and take up should be based on results. To make it a level playing field this would require the funding of university places to be provided by central government not by individual students.
Scrap student loans.
Reduce the number of courses
Reduce the number of students
Make a degree something to be proud of again.
Make a degree a sign of excellence
If the government want to increase the school leaving age to 23 then they should do just that
Then have further education for the most eligible
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No, we need more quality jobs for graduates to fill instead of wasting their time working in shops and warehouses!
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Standards of literacy and numeracy are in steady decline in the U.K. GCSE's get easier by the year; how else could pass rates improve year-on-year, it is statisically impossible. More and more Universities are insisting on foundation courses for students lacking in basic skills. The bottom line is that the more people there are in full-time education, the fewer are officially unemployed. The bonus for the government is that they have produced a generation of poorly-educated wretches unable to think for themselves and less likely to question anything they are told.
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A degree is at best, a discipline, & a graduate is someone who has successfully applied himself/herself to a form of mental & intellectual exercise. That will stand them in good stead in whatever fields of endeavour they apply themselves. A degree is therefore something worth pursuing.
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It's not the number that is important - it's the quality. The suspicion is that there are two issues :-
1. In order to get more graduates, the entry criteria has been dumbed down.
2. The ability of the university system to provide the same high quality education and research facilities to such a high intake.
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It's good to know that having just spent 4 years(2 months to go) studying as a mature student, at great expense to my wife and children, that my Honours degree in Engineering is being talked worthless by business. By continously attacking students and their education they are affecting us all. Its true that some people should not be at University but whose fault is that? Who got rid of the apprentices ? Who demands higher qualifications than necessary for many jobs? AGR are hypocrites.
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There is no need to have targets, everyone who might benefit should go to university. We cannot afford to waste any potential talent.
University tuition should be free for all students who have been educated exclusively at state schools and bursaries, not loans, for living expenses should be provided for those students who need them. This is vital investment in the future for all of us.
Those children whose parents have opted for private education should continue to be private students at university and pay the full economic cost of their courses. It is not acceptable that students trained at private schools, should be allowed to take the lion's share of publicly funded places at universities.
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Who will benefit the country more another 100,000 Media Studies Graduates or another 100 plumbers? More to the point how many of those Media Studies Graduates with huge student loans they cannot repay will end up retraining as plumbers because there are no graduate jobs for them?
Labour may want to fight the old class wars by devaluing the University System to the point where it is a "Degree Mill" where qualifications have little meaning but it is not the "Upper Class" that get hurt, they simply go abroad to Universities that are still respected, it is the country as a whole that gets hurt. By making degrees too widely available and too easy to get they degrade our Universities to the level of 6th form colleges and degrees to an expensive but valueless scrap of paper/parchment.
Bring back rigorous academic testing for universities, bring back colleges for high level but none degree qualifications. Bring back Technical Colleges for the none academics among us.
Bring back an education system that is designed to benefit the students and the country as a whole rather than one that caters to the prejudices of the neaderthalic class warriors and the failed policies of the "one size fits all" fools and politicians.
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Scrapping the Government target of fifty per cent graduates is long overdue.
It is perfectly correct that the value of anything decreases with availability, hence a degree being a minimum requirement for many jobs that did not need one a generation ago.
In order to cram more people into the higher education system the various Universities and Colleges have generated huge numbers of ‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees. How many media studies graduates do we need? Taking three years to read the newspapers and watch TV and you are bound to be a much more useful member of society – assuming that you can get a job with the BBC, ITV, Ch4 or Sky.
We actually need to redress the balance in our society between those going into the academic arena and those learning practical skills, such as joinery and plumbing. If you need a plumber or electrician in this country, you will probably find that the tradesman that comes to your door is domiciled in Eastern Europe.
Plans to allow for increases in top-up fees are bound to be politically unpopular because they will be seen as a hindrance to the holy grail of social mobility. As we live in the 51st State, perhaps it is time to accept that the free market ideology of the other fifty States is the way to go.
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Targets should be scrapped altogether . This govt are great at setting targets, just look what targets have done to the NHS.
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"The future for the UK is at the forefront of a high-skilled knowledge economy and we won't get there with less graduates." Yes you will, what percentage of the population do you need with degrees to run this economy?
In any society there have to be a mixture of technical, artistic and intellectual skills, together with those who provide the unskilled labour - the classic "hewers of wood and drawers of water" (though not as cursed servants as in the original biblical context, Joshua 9:23). And there's nothing wrong with honest manual labour, someone has to fetch, carry, clean etc provided they are not exploited. There is even a lack of skilled tradesmen, as this is seen as not being as prestigious as a degree. It's one of the reasons we have so many eastern European immigrants / migrant workers beloved of the ranters on HYS.
It all stems from a disastrous decision made some 40-50 years ago to introduce comprehensive schools. Comprehensively mediocre, they superseded the 3 tier grammar, technical and secondary modern system that produced the mix of graduates, skills and trades a healthy society needs. Their introduction was coupled with the decline of the apprenticeship system, further weakening our skills base. The final nail in education's coffin is the PC idea that no-one should fail, so exams had to be dummied down so that everyone could pass them.
I'm sorry, but 50% graduates does not mean that you have raised the skills level of the population, it means that you have devalued the degree until it is meaningless. You do not need a degree to perform the vast majority of jobs, a good general education including literacy, numeracy and some specific training.
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I think that rather than acquiring graduate status at university it is better to serve a professional apprenticeship with a balance of work experience linked with a professional education program. Just imagine, an NVQ Level 4 or 5 and no student loan. This is what I did.
What we tend to forget is Labour's strategy. An electorate and workforce is better controlled through fear. Fear of not getting a degree and being cast aside in the rush for jobs. Forced to take out loans and the added fear of keeping a job to repay them.
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Fewer but better graduates (more rigerous courses in academically demanding subjects) are what we need. The present system where school leavers are conned into going to university to lose three years earnings and take on huge debts, only to be left with degrees that offer them no better prospects of getting a rewarding (financially and intellectually) job is unethical in the extreme.
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Stephen Hamblett wrote:
"The future for the UK is at the forefront of a high-skilled knowledge economy and we won't get there with less graduates."
Sally Hunt is wrong.
Indeed she is. She should have said "... with *fewer* graduates."
Maybe she 'as one of them fancy modern English degrees like wot other people ave ?
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Why do we need so many graduates? The thinking use to be that a degree qualified you for a job in management though it has never been clear why spending three years taking exams made you good at managing people.
Modern organisations with their “flat” management hierarchies need fewer managers than they needed years ago. So it’s hardly surprising that many graduates end up working in jobs that do not require a degree.
We are in danger of creating a generation that is overqualified for the jobs that are actually available and think they are above the jobs offered to them. How is that a good thing?
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We should encourage those capable of going onto University, regardless of their background and ensure they are financed with the places and a grant system to reduce student debt.
It may mean a reduction in the number of University places and mayble more spent on apprenticeships for school leavers at the other end of the spectrum as we need trades people as well as graduates.
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I want to see a more co-operative approach between government and students, rewarding diligence and success and recognising that a university education is an investment that will reap long-term rewards for both the student and the government. If you pass your course in 3 years, you get your loans and fees paid off. If not, the debt comes due. Exceptions for truely unforeseeable events (e.g. bereavement, illness, injury) but not alcoholism or other drug addiction (sorry, no way). No worse than now and a lot better for students who see university as a way to equip themselves for life, not a chance to avoid the real world for a few years.
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I went to university with people that now work in jobs that do not require a degree. They have left university in around £15,000 of debt and a degree that has not led them into a graduate job. If the government continue to push people into degrees, they will loose their value. There are not enough graduate jobs for all of the graduates and as a society we should not push every 18 year old into university. I work in a school where every student is expected to go on to university. Our attitudes need to change as not all degrees are equal but at the moment we are giving the next generation unrealistic expectations of their future.
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As a former University Lecturer, I'm confident in saying that a 50% target for University attendance is plain stupidity, in educational terms (although it does a very good job of keeping people off the unemployment lists, which is what the policy is _actually_ for).
Your BEST hope is that you are educating the top 50% of the population - so, by what possible insanity can anyone believe that a person with an IQ of 100 (the definition of the average intelligence) belongs at University? University education is - or should be - aimed at the brightest in the population to raise them to the highest standard.
The real madness of it is that it's NOT the top 50% who go to university - the intelligent poor at poor schools lose out to the below-average middle class at good schools.
The result is Universities that take in thousands of students and then lose up to 30% when they drop out in year 1. For those that do make it with a degree, many of them have to come to terms with the delusion that their 'degree' from the University of Nowhere is equal to, for example, an Oxbridge degree.
Government has to recognise that different people have different potentials and skill sets. Pretending that everyone can deal with a University education simply results in what we have now - worthless and shoddy degrees from shoddy establishments.
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We need students who apply for higher education who know there 3 R's. The standard of education has dropped over the last decade. Yes there appears to be more certificates earned. but for what. There are to few school leavers knowing basic facts or even know how to understand the basic principles of business in this country. We need Engineers, Designers, Students who will enhance this country, not dance or create a puppet show. REALITY is required.
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It should be down to the student to determine if they want to get into university. Targets are pointless, it just means those setting standards will bend them to meet their targets. If a student really wants to go to university, and is suitably qualified & motivated, they will work hard for it. Targets just make it easier for those who aren't that interested to "give it a try". When money & resources are tight, only those committed to it should be allowed in.
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Aiming to have less people be educated is a terrible idea for the future of the country.
Education is one of the main buffers of crime, those who have had a good education are less likely to commit crimes such as theft/robbery and GBH.
therefore instead of trying to stop people going to univercity we should encourage it further and enhance the education system to allow better education to combat the problem of anti-social youths.
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More students means less opportunity for poorer students because with so many out there companies have put even more emphasis on what institution you studied in, so its becoming even more important to go to the right place. And its the privately educated who overwhelmingly go to to good universities?
Even worse, with a swathe of degree qualified applicants, when you are 40 and looking for a job you will find the degree and similar experience no longer gets you an interview, you need the exact experience. Already you will be finding that if you didnt do the exact job in the last few years you are put to the bottom of the heap. Times are gone where having a degree made you a generally capable person in the eyes of the employer.
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What we need is more plumbers and trademen.
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As a non-graduate I currently employ several graduates in relatively junior positions within my organisation. These graduates bring no skills to the job that differ from other non-graduates that I employ in similar positions. The univeristy courses in recent years have been 'dumbed' down to make them more accessible to all, and the end result is that these youngsters have unrealistic expectations of private sector employment.
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Our government has made many school leaves feel that university is essential if they wish to sucees. We have reached a situation where we have so many graduates that employers are able to demand university leavers for jobs which previously would not have needed a degree. Where does that leave the 50% of students who were unable to go - worse off? Have we therefore not therefore reached a self fulfilling prophecy?
Personally I feel that universities should be reserved for academia. For the vast majority jobs where a specific skill set is needed, would specific training in the form of HNC/HNDs or apprenticeships be more appropriate? Is the added financial burden on the country, famillies and students really worth it?
We also need to consider the quality of the new places we are creating. Is a first from Oxford Brookes worth the same as a first from Oxford? At what point do we decide that we have created a two-tier system? Has the problem of social mobility really been addressed?
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I wonder if the problem is not the number of people going into University, but what then happens. I have to accept that it is comforting to a Government (of whatever political party) to mask the true level of unemployment, by having people at University rather than being seen as unemployed.
However, why are so many people "studying" the soft subjects like media studies and how are we to benefit? I would like a requirement for anybody looking to start at University to provide a clear plan of what they will try to achieve, and what they will do when they finish. That plan would have to include a measurable output of how the taxpayer will benefit. Then they can all go.
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Fewer Graduates of better quality is what is needed. A university degree has been degraded over the last 40 years along with the education system, a degree used to mean something back then not now. The move to module based examination is open to abuse and becoming a joke.
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I worked alongside a woman of a certain age who had a degree, she did administration, something a young person with several GCSE's could easily do.
If you make half of workers degree qualified they will end up doing mainstream jobs and demanding graduate wages. That leaves the rest on very low, not well regarded (but still necessary) jobs.
Don't forget, a degree only lasts for 5 years on average, after that it's what you have done since leaving university that counts.
I know of several friends of my daughters who took degrees as an alternative to working, they are now either married with kids and part-time working homemakers or are unemployable, over educated workshy.
I went to college after working in heavy engineering for five years. Which I would recommend to anyone, (just working for a year would suffice and I'm not talking about that freebie of the middle-classes the gap year).
Reading Bill Bryson he asked an old college friend who worked in a university town (in the USA) what were the students like, he replied that they were very shallow, knew nothing & motivated only by money, (sounds like the UK?).
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When the University and College Union's general secretary states "The future for the UK is at the forefront of a high-skilled knowledge economy and we won't get there with less graduates." it makes a very good point.
A high skilled knowledge economy should start with a good command of English and the word is 'fewer', not 'less'.
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Fewer graduates - smaller population....No Brainer!!
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The 50% target is completely random, and therefore meaningless. What matters is not that we have 50% graduates, but that we have 'sufficient' graduates - whatever that number might be.
It's not just a question of quantity though, it's quality - we need hi-tech scientists, engineers & researchers. It's a pity that these subjects are not promoted more - especially on TV. When is Eastenders for example, going to include someone that actually intends having a science/engineering career, instead of the usual low-aspiration, aggressive and generally depressing characters.
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The target of 50% of people under 30 in higher education would only work if there were no jobs for 50% of people under 30. How would this be funded?
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Not all people can benefit from a University degree. None can benefit from a poor standard of degree. Because a large proportion of people are allowed to study for a degree does not increase natural intelligence on iota.
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Yes of course the UK needs fewer graduates. Anybody who hasn't been to university and who therefore has brains, common sense and who has defied all odds to be financially successful can see that. Unfortunately though most people today have been to university and struggle to spell corecctly let alone understand the problems associated with having too large a population of graduates.
I personally did not choose to go to university because I have the ability to think for myself and I have been very successful and am now well off without any debt burden unlike all my graduate friends who not only lack common sense but also have massive financial debts. That is not to say that I do not value learning it is just that I prefer to learn through doing things, I prefer the University of Life to actual university. It is clear to me that we need fewer media studies students in former polytechnic universities and as a hard working taxpayer I would like to see my taxes funding proper courses like maths, physics and engineering in top universities like Oxford. Anyone else simply should not be there.
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This government has made a complete mess of education with their 50% target and upgrading every educational establishment to university status. They are failing both the workforce and industry.
This is not an issue of equality but need. Industry needs a workforce with mixed skills, some of which are practical rather than theoretical. In my industry (high tech), I can not recruit technicians other than those who have been in industry for more than 10 years - the system no longer produces them. The electronics engineers I see have no practical skills other than those they have taught themselves.
As a country we need the elite and should not erode those establishments which produce the elite by experiments in social engineering. We also need the practical.
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Some common sense for once.
The whole education system is a mess and needs reform from the bottom up.
Social engineering, tinkering with teaching on a regular basis have all played their part but when children are leaving primary school at the age of eleven unable to read or write then it doesn't take too much brain to realise that the system is rotten and children are being betrayed.
Children are not equal with learning skills and should be streamed according to ability as happened as recently as 1960. It worked and would work again.
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What the country needs is better graduates. The ones I have seen in the last 15 years have been illiterate, non-numerate, and without any understanding of either philosophy or science. I don't care if the actual degree is called 'African-style Hairdressing' or 'Atomic Physics', but I do expect them to be able to write, do long division, and most important: think!
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I agree with Megan when she says "What I got from the degree was the ability to learn for myself, to research, to find out." There is a lot ore to studying a degree then simply subject knowledge. I graduated in 1981 in Computer Science and have worked in the software industry ever since. I am also a tutor for the Open University in my spare time teaching two 3rd year Computer Science undergraduate courses. These courses are easily comparable in difficulty to those I studied back then. So my conclusion is there are a lot of people commenting who are doing so from a position of ignorance when they talk of dumbed down degrees.
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The number of comments here that reflect a purely utilitarian approach to education fills me with despair. Yes, education is about work skills, but it is also, very importantly, to do with wisdom, emotional intelligence and our ability to tap and use all aspects of our culture. Education is about the ability to ask the question, "Why?", and to look for the answer in an open-minded and skilful way.
Remember folk: a nation lives from its head down. The number of unthinking comments in HYS suggests that this nation is a headless chicken.
To answer the question - Yes we do need more university places, but only if World Literature and philosophy are a compulsory element to all courses.
Yes I am joking, but there is a serious point I am making.
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If we have fewer graduates, whose going to serve me in the morning at McDonalds?
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In addition to the percentage of school leavers going to university being brought into line with the percentage of jobs requireing degrees, the amounts of places available on each course should be directly influenced by the current or projected demand for people with those skills in the job market too (ie. don't run courses for 20,000 people to study media studies if only 2000 jobs are likely to become available). After all, university education is still effectively state funded through student loans etc, so taxpayers have a right to influence what courses are available.
Also, whilst I fully recognise the benefits of supporting people through university, the "risk" needs to be more fairly distributed between the taxpayer and the student. The present system allows individuals to waste 3 years at university, recieving their student loan every term, then they graduate and get a poorly paid job which could easily be done by a non-graduate, then they eventually get the loan written off if they never make use of the degree the taxpayer has funded! This, in my opinion, is wrong. I agree that student loan repayments should be proportionate to earnings, but graduates should be made to begin repaying their loan regardless of how much they are earning.
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"The future for the UK is at the forefront of a high-skilled knowledge economy and we won't get there with less graduates."
Arrrrrghhhhh!!!!!! FEWER, not LESS!!!!!. Clearly there is a lot of work to be done to improve the quality of education in this country.
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Far too many degrees in useless subjects, that's the trouble. Subjects such as film, journalism and tourism are far better learnt "on the job" with day release at college if appropriate. It won't be long before a university offers degrees in road sweeping or toilet cleaning at this rate.
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The root cause of the problem is that the Universities are being run on a for-profit basis. This is why we have huge amounts of irrelevant and unsubstantial courses, why below average students are encouraged to attend and first years are stupidly easy because the universities only see the tuition fees. There has been a drop in quality and a hike in cost. For profit education, as with health, is a despicable trait of our privatised society
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"To have a high skill work-force, you need high educated people? So fewer Graduates from this country ? Would need many more people from other countries'So many more {non british workers'} all types' will be required by the U.K.
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"The future for the UK is at the forefront of a high-skilled knowledge economy and we won't get there with less graduates."
Shouldn't that be 'fewer'graduates.
Mmmm. Education isn't what it used to be!
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We live in a culture that champions freedom of choice and equal rights. It is antithetic to assume we can simply remove young people's choice and opportunity to go to university. All those that talk about the nation being better off with fewer graduates should meet a young 18 year old and tell them they can't go to college because the UK has met their student quota for this year. We can't bastion access to opportunities as a telos then remove the deeply embedded cultural practice of attending university that acts as a means to achieve that goal.
I would suggest putting pressure on institutions to maintain high standards of tuition that will increase the education level of the general populace rather than limiting access to resources such as knowledge. I, for one, gained much analytical and personal knowledge from university. If you had told me I couldn't go when I was 18, I would of bought a rather heavy book and thrown it in your face.
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Yes, towns with Universities would have fewer targets for burglary and a longer life out of Trafic Light signals and traffic cones. A great deal more accomodation for it's indigenous population too.
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We all know what government (euphemism) targets are about.
Here we go aping the US system again. What the government (euphemism) is buying with fees and degrees is a compliant population of ex-students who have such serious debt problems they'll do anything.
Commercial, company interest will sort the wheat from the chaff as they will take people with senior management or expert chances from a certain 'stock'. They will not touch the majority, degree holders or not. A friend's son recently had an interview in which he was not offered the job. He was told, on the quiet after the interview, that he was what they were looking for but he had to go to a 'proper' university to get the SAME qualification. They know.
We are being grossly unfair to scholars who are being conned by Labour's 'Prizes for All' attitude.
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I believe that a lot of people going for degrees may serve themselves and the greater population by learning to be electricians, joiners, plumbers etc.
These jobs have as much if not more of a challenge than some of the "ologies" presently knocking around.
Their ambition may then be satisfied by starting their own companies.
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It seems the real point of university has long since been forgotten. University was never originally about getting a qualification for a job, it was a purely academic establishment dedicated to bettering the knowledge of oneself and mankind as a whole.
Since Liebour have come into power, they've turned all the technical colleges into universities (in name only) and it has become the automatic next rung on the education ladder.
With silly degrees in horse grooming or cosmetics it's long overdue cutting back and ensuring that the people who go to university are the best and brightest (regardless of background) and that they are offered proper subjects to study in sciences, engineering, medicine, maths or languages.
If this country wants to stem the tide of outsourcing we need a world class workforce that is educated to the highest standard. Not a system dumbed down to ensure as many people as possible have any old degree.
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The most irritating part of this is that they want to increase fees. Uni used to be free and for those who could do it. Now it is watered down and prices people out of education. By removing fees and restricting the places, the gov can pay for skilled workers and the unis can teach smaller classes to a more advanced level. This is again an excuse to raise fees. in the end the rich will have degrees and the smart will be trapped with everyone else.
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I agree with an earlier post - go back 20 years to when Universities provided good quality degrees to the top brains; Technology Colleged delivered vocational training to a high level; and get rid of 6th form colleges and put the 6th form back into schools....and, of course, bring back Grammar- and Direct Grant schools. That way, everyone's abilities will be catered for....
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Maybe industries should take a bit more responibility for training their own recruits?
Some of the more questionable degree subjects are those where real, practical experience will equip you far better than classroom learning.
Why not have structured internships where the employer has a duty to train students to a foundation degree level in the work that they do, offering jobs to interns who perform well. This passes the cost onto private firms (who could recieve tax-breaks in return) and also ensures that there aren't more people studying for a dgree than there are jobs available.
Note that there are more people studying photography in the UK than there are paid photographers in the whole of Europe.
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Yes. We need more plumbers not hundreds of media studies and surfing graduates.
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The sad fact is that most students see university as an opportunity to get drunk and take drugs and have sex for 3 or 4 years - so it is a litte sickening for the rest of us going to work and paying taxes so the drunken hoardes can have a great few years.
BUT
I would rather that be the situation than go back 20 years or so when only priveleged children got to go to university - if one council estate kid gets a fantastic degree and goes to the moon or cures cancer, then the whole thing is worth it in my opinion.
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"The future for the UK is at the forefront of a high-skilled knowledge economy and we won't get there with less graduates."
Ummm, perhaps we need more English courses, then the speaker would know that the expression is "fewer graduates"!
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The AGR is right to defend the value of a degree, a BSc Honours is very hard work unless one is a genius. The AGR also wants to enable the gifted poor by guaranteeing them access to Higher education, that again is good. It all seems fair.
However, does it not smack of a division, just another tool of discrimination, a way of keeping people down? E.G. When the Communists occupied Poland, even if there was an attempt to brainwash the population, most Poles made sure of a good education, Technically & Scientifically.
Isn't it everyone's right to have a good education, whether or not the country needs it?
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This country has a fixation with an academically-based higher education system and, unlike countries like Germany, has undervalued and neglected technology-based education.
Perhaps our industrial and manufacturing sector would not have collapsed as completely as it has done, had we invested in high quality technical secondary schools and university courses, instead of indulging mediocre students with Media Studies, Tourism and Performing Arts, then compounding the farce by letting them dress-up in a meaningless mortar board and gown.
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Let's go back to the Golden Age, when there were only 7 universities in the whole of the UK. University education was the province of the well off and working class students had to win scholarships to get there.
Educating people above their station leads to unhappiness.
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It's a difficult one. On one hand the more educated our populous the better it is for us internationally, however our definition of education is rather limited. What exactly is the point of having millions of media graduates?! The whole system needs an overhaul to cover the plethora of differing jobs and trades.
As someone who recently left university I can attest to how ridiculously dumbed down it has become, instead of encouraging independent higher thought it was more of the same A-level/GCSE opinion regurgitation. I had hoped to be stretched but was once again having to go at the speed of the slowest member (for whom Chaucer was what you rested a cup on).
This whole things reminds me of those new non-competitive sports days at schools in which 'Everyone's a Winner!'.
What I'm faced with now is competing in a stifled job market with a degree that might as well have come from a box of cereal. The only way to separate yourself is to go for a Masters and thanks to the fees structure I can barely cope as it is.
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We have a Government (and Opposition) with aspirations to redress social imbalances and make it possible for children to break out of deprivation and enjoy the benefits of a University education. Fine in principle, but implementation is doomed to failure unless:
1. parents bring up their children in such a way as to encourage a love of lifelong learning in its own right, and to prepare them to take full advantage of primary school
2. primary schools focus on basic skills in literacy, numeracy, IT, music, critical thinking, and healthy living, and open children's minds to the world outside of their family and community, so that they can begin to develop a sense of social responsibility and tolerance
3. secondary schools focus on building well-rounded individuals with well-developed core skills, a wide knowledge base across the sciences, arts and humanities, a maturity of view with regard to citizenship and the responsibilities of living in a free democracy
Individuals passing through this developmental process should then be offered three pathways:
1. for those that wish to pursue a profession which requires advanced study, or those who simply want to immerse themselves in a subject at the highest level and conduct their own research - they go to a proper academic university offering core subjects in science, technology, arts and humanities
2. for those that wish to pursue a career that requires a level of specialist knowledge and skill, but not advanced study, they go to a less academic institution - lets call it a Polytechnic - where a wide range of courses across all sectors of the workplace are available
3. for those who want to learn a skilled trade which is fundamentally hands-on, there are proper apprenticeships
Universities have become degree-factories which have to be run like businesses. Students are demoralised because of the debts they incurr and poor job prospects at the end of the process. Business and industry are disappointed in the final product.
We are seeing a generation of disaffected young people, saddled with debt, high drop-out rates amongst the very people the Government wish to encourage and industry recruiting from outside the UK to fill key posts.
I keep hearing the words "Education, education, education ..." echoing in the background, but it is too late - the country is bankrupt and there will never be enough money now to put things right. A very sad state of affairs.
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"14. At 10:03am on 09 Mar 2010, Scott bailey wrote:
You often hear people say there are too many graduates but as an employer, I'm afraid the opposite is true. The more university trained people we have, the better."
Is that because you can't be bothered to train your own workforce; something responsible employers used to do?
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The question is perhaps of secondary importance to the value of degrees and their classifications.
If we have many more graduates than ever before, which arguably is not a bad thing, from an employer's perspective it is more important to have gained a good degree; ie - in a subject which demands a high level of scholarship, and a bias towards graduates with 2:1 or First Class mark. Graduates with 'good degrees' are rarely unemployed for long.
But it is facile to suggest that Degrees are demeaned simply because more people study to that high level. It has, quite rightly become the new standard to achieve for many vocational professions. My only criticism is towards so-called Degree courses which offer little scope or skills beyond the immediate single career. These used to be called training courses or apprenticeships. Sadly many of the essential technical skills are now being ignored and we probably need more plumbers than leisure administrators.
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The vast number of graduates means that people must go further up the education scale in order to distinguish themselves. I am studying for a Masters degree (£4000) in the hope that employers will regard it in the same manner that they regarded Bachelors degrees 20 years ago; as proof of a determined, critical mind and a good indicator of reasonable intelligence.
Keep diluting the intake and in another 20 years people will be complaining about the MSc courses and students will need PhDs in order to get a job!
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As a relatively recent graduate from 2008 and also being a part of a young talent recruitment team where I work, I can see that the quality of graduates is in perilous decline. Most of this is down to the curriculum based schooling to get the best grades, and not the "everyday" schooling to prepare people for real life such being able to work in a professional manner at work.
My parents couldnt afford to support me to go to university unless I could get financial aid. I was constantly in the top 5% in my class during school - even top 0.01% in the country for Mathematics, but without this assistance I wouldnt have got to university to study and get one of the top graduate jobs after. I was grateful at the time to be able to rely on grants/student loans - it just needs to be targetted, as a lot of students are starting to think its sort of a "free ride". Attitudes have changed from elitism to going for the "uni experience"
However it's got to be a fair balance in that regard.
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I am inclined to agree with the majority of commenters so far - I think that a 50% target is ridiculous. I studied Mechanical Engineering, graduating in 2006, but already many of my peers were studying subjects which really haven't helped them get a job in any way. Many have had to rack up further debt to do another degree or further training to get somewhere.
I do think that courses should be pared back to the basics (English, History, Engineering, Law, Art and Science) and the remainder of courses should be taught in colleges or other further education institutes
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Yes, we need less graduates as there are not the jobs for them. My Daughter left University last year and is still unemployed, and her friends who are in work are doing temporary non graduate jobs. The only reason a lot of students go into further education is because of peer pressure and the fact that there are no alternatives.
I feel sorry for the current and future graduates as they are being saddled with enormous debts which they will struggle to pay. I have had three children go through the university system and they are all straddled with debts in excess of £20k.
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When I left school you needed 'O' levels to just get an interview. Then it was 'A' levels. Now you need a degree just to get an interview for any clerical or administrative job. Degrees by their ubiquity have become devalued and are no indication to employers of the applicants ability.
Nor do most degree courses equip a person for employment. We continue to fail to educate your young people on how the world works; what banks are, what insurance is, how the capitalist system in general works. They enter the world of work and adulthood completely untrained in the world of commerce and indeed in the basic skills to mange their business life.
And too often their speech is almost unintelligible and they are illiterate and innumerate. Their inability to communicate clearly in their own language is shocking - the more so compared to how much better many European young people can speak and write English.
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A classic example of labour's social engineering going horribly wrong.
The is hwy they must go at the next election, not because we want a Tory government, but because we have to stop labour's meddling and making things worse!
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I studied Geology at university and had no trouble finding work when I graduated. Whilst at uni I was surprised by the number of people studying Mickey Mouse degrees who will never find work in their fields. Many of them went to uni 'for the experience' and to avoid getting a job (not just my opinion, many are happy to discuss their mantra). I struggled financially through my degree and had to work full time throughout. In my opinion, funding should be limited on degrees such as Media Studies and Modern Dance and so on, and finding increased in more worthwhile degrees such as science, engineering, medicine, architecture.
Students who do not want to study disturb those who do (loud music played in the library, fire alarms set off in student halls at 3am every night because its funny?!?!). People who want to party 24/7 on tax payers money should be kept separate from those who want to learn. Let the people who do want to study, study in peace.
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We need more properly educated UK graduates who are studying for "proper" academic subjects. We need fewer income-generating foreign students and fewer esoteric courses.
The UK government - whichever one it is - should first and foremost think about UK citizens and how they will be employed after they have graduated. If it costs more money than is being spent now (highly probable), then stop wasting British lives and money on an illegal war, bring them home and put them on free degree courses.
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Some comments have argued that we need more Engineers and Scietists and less Media Studies students. Does anyone seriously beleive the argument that Media Studies Students would be more useful to society studying something they're not interested in and not proficient at?
My degree in a 'proper' subject (English Lit) from a 'proper' red brick University hasn't given me a well paid job - I earn half as much in a year as my partner who is an unskilled labourer. My sister with her History degree from Oxford isn't on very much more than me either. But that's not why I went to Univeristy. I work in the Arts now and it's an appropriate background for me to have come from.
At least a Media Studies degree could help more practically in a media role than my friend's PhD in Archaelogy could help her get a job - she's over qualified for anything other than a life in academia.
My 18 year old brother is currently applying for Univeristies with predicted grades of AAA*A* and has been rejected from the majority of them. He's a rounded guy with music and sporting talents, he's intelligent but he's having the same problem as many of his friends not being able to get in to the institutions he wants to go to. He's savvy enough to know that a degree with teh same name from Oxbridge or a red brick is worth much more than a former polytechnic but they're just not interested this year - is it because he's defering to do voluntary work for a year or because there are simply too many people applying this year?
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A friend of mine who used to work in Further Education told me a story about his ex-students who had gone to university to study Media Studies. They studied for three years but when they finished they could not get jobs. Their degrees weren't helping them because they were in a second-rate subject and from second-rate universities. The ending to the story is that most of them then trained to be Media Studies teachers, and lived happily ever after teaching the next generation of schoolchildren how to be proficient in a useless subject.
A downwards spiral?
These students would have been better off training to work in a skilled or semi-skilled profession that would have actually been useful to the economy. The sad thing is that there doesn't seem to be much support for these 'in-between' students who don't have the academic ability to study tough subjects at good universities but would find many jobs too menial or uninteresting. We should make it easier for middling students to do vocational courses and apprenticeships that would lead them to a good job and good prospects, instead of paying trainees a pittance while university students live the high life on their student loans. Young people need to know that that not going to university does not constitute failure, which sadly is what the current government's ludicrous targets and policies imply.
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No 4: "Degrees are now so dummed down. . . ." Please tell me that was meant ironically. Please.
The fact is that no-one, especially employers, thinks for one minute that a first in media studies from Blogsworth University shows the same kind of academic achievement as a first from, say, a Russell Group institution. Nor do they think that a 2(ii) from Blogsworth indicates much at all. Nor are they convinced that the huge increase in 1sts and 2(i)s from most institutions over the past 20 years means that students have actually improved as much as the raw figures suggest.
Successive governments, including the Tories who didn't understand Polytechnics because they hadn't been to them and who turned them from centres of vocational excellence into pseudo-universities and Labour, who wanted to reduce unemployment and so expanded the HE sector beyond a level that student ability could match, have done young people a great disservice. A 50% target sets an implicit threshold of an IQ of 100. A traditional university education is not appropriate for those people. So, university education has been watered down, with "retention" being a driving force.
It's never-never land. People in the second quartile of academic ability need training and education that meets their need, such as rigourous vocational training.
A 33% level for university intake would be a better target, if 25% is not attainable.
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All that's needed is a little bit of common sense.
People studying medicine / engineering / other highly desirable skills should be encouraged at all costs.
People studying flower arranging or the history of utube etc should have to pay full fees (and in part probably support the skills we DO need).
This should weed out some of the people who see university as something they need to do (for no particular reason), make the qualification more valuable, and encourage any skills shortages that (as a country) we may have...
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We don't need this many graduates, especially as the quality and relevance of the degrees they gain is not much. All that happens is that the market is swamped with debt-ridden graduates who can no longer command enough of a wage premium to pay off their fees. For the most part they don't have a degree that makes them worth more than someone who joined a company from school and has spent the past three or so years working for the company and learning on the job.
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We are now at the position where professions, such as teaching, require Masters Degrees and a good Honours Degree will not be enough. The logical progression will be the requirement to have a Doctorate. It is now time to call a halt and look at the whole Higher Education system in this Country.
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Of course....... the word Universities says " excellence" to me but all we have is dumbed down paper certificates.
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Political interference in education in Britain over the past 50 years has been disaster after disaster. The new Labour Party presided over the biggest increase in private education in history - no greater index of the failure of the state system is possible. Maybe Government should try simply pumping the money in where it is needed: in quality, not quantity, and keep out of telling teachers what or how to teach. Equality is a legitimate aim, but should not be pursued at the expense of all success, and certainly not at the epxense of children's education. A society that places equality over the existence of ability in its members has its priorities seriously wrong.
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Universities should be refined for natural 'thinkers', just as they used to be. It seems that many students have been sent to 'Universities' of all sorts to stop them appearing on unemployment lists, and that these mask the true state of the economy. The other postings are correct; we need lots of vocational training and a manufacturing economy that employs lots more people. Labour has turned its back on this and we are suffering economically as a result. We need a different future than the present we now have.
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Its general secretary Sally Hunt said: "The future for the UK is at the forefront of a high-skilled knowledge economy and we won't get there with less graduates."
...Shouldn't that be *fewer* graduates?
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I wish the older genration of this country would stop complaing about how most university degress are now worthless and how to many people are in university and also how they think the academic elite should only go like it was back in the day and so on.
Yes there is a possibilty of not getting employment and yes there are many worthless degrees for jobs etc out there, my answer to this is so what? You dont just get a degree from university you get so much more from it than just a degree.
Its a good thing that the country is aiming for 50% of students to be educaterd we are an evolving society of education and new technologies, if more people go to university then there will be more competition this overall will create heavy competition resulting in the creating of new busineses.
It is also not about the degreee its about having an educated society.
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It seems the targets for increasing graduates are being met by dumbing down the degrees.
Just like all the lower level qualifications.
What abbout vocational training. It's not just for manual work, accountants do it.
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'Does UK need fewer graduates'?
Interesting discussion in an election year with Conservatives chomping on their thoroughbred bits for cuts 'in all areas' with their own educational backgrounds?
The Labour targets to increase numbers of university entrants was the right thing to do. If you want to call it social engineering to encourage educational aspiration, then do so. Is that's so wrong?
University is tough going for most .. whether academic or not. Many drop out too, (for all kinds of reasons) but those figures are either not collated or not available?
I've met many doctors who should have been priests or musicians and met cleaners who should be journalists?
The point is, if you reduce the options, you reduce society?
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Yes, the 50% target is a nonsense. We should revert to about 10% going to university as that is all that is needed and the corresponding reduction in costs could then be used to restore free university education for those that reaaly should be going to university.
The current 50% is just a political smokescreen, and a very expensive one at that. Because though the figures may sound impressive they are meaningless as the quality of the graduate has decreased by a corresponding amount.
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There is absolutely no question that the country needs less graduates. It does nobody any good if thousands of students go to university to study for degrees that they won't be able to use in their careers. All the time they are there they accumulate debts that: a) they can't readily pay back, b) hampers their ability to support themselves, c) prevents them from acquiring a foothold in the houising market, and d) Stops them from investing in a pension to secure their future.
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There seems a complete misunderstanding of what is required of education. The UK no longer needs the manufacturing fodder of the past. There are no more jobs for life and all vocational skills will have to be relearned every 5 to 10 years for us to remain productive. Learning how to learn and adapt is the most important part of a University education regardless of the topic taken. We need more opportunities for University style education not less - especially for those in there 30's and 40's who missed out the first time around. And the only way to pay for that is through tax. We may end up with less disposable income - but we will be a lot happier.
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Haven't recently been through university (well, 5 years ago), I think as many people as possible should do it. I know it's not for everyone, but it is a life changing experience - I'm not saying you are there for a jolly, but you learn so much about yourself, but academically, and emotionally, I believe you are a much stronger, well rounded person at the end of it.
At 18 I don't really believe that you are ready to spend the next 47 years (at least) at work - if you have the opportunity to extend your learning skills for few years, you should.
People who say dumbing down - are just dumbing down this argument - all exams go through an exam board and have minimum standards, yes some subjects are not maths-english-science, but you know, we live in a diverse world, and people with broad skill sets are and advantage at a company.
The only thing I would say, is that university courses sometimes don't relate to "the real world", and I think uni's should work much closer to the industries in order to give some real world skills.
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We need the right number of the right kind of graduates. We need the right number of the right kind of skilled people.
Some have been given false hopes with degrees; the skills have been seriously neglected since the broken promises made when the apprenticeship schemes were dissolved.
The academics have had it too much their way! What a mess!
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What we need is proper jobs, and fill those with proper degrees from proper universities. We have lost the plot. We live in la la land, and it's doomed to fail.
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"The future for the UK is at the forefront of a high-skilled knowledge economy and we won't get there with less graduates."
High-skilled knowledge economy has little to do with university. There are many more ways to become highly skilled and knowledgable. More graduates won't put us at the forefront. At best a degree is only a potential qualification. Give everyone a degree and degrees will be devalued - that'll just make recruitment a headache and herald in the demand for an even "higher" certificate.
It does, however, prune the unemployment figures - always useful for a government in trouble.
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As a recent graduate (in Politics/Economics, I'll leave all of you to decide for yourselves whether those are useless subjects!) I second the idea that there are currently too many people being sent to university; this is bad for:
-High-quality graduates, whose degree is valued lower due to the mass of degrees in spurious subjects (I won't name any, but I can think of 9 or 10 that spring to mind)
-Students themselves, as it either places unattainable targets on those who should not have been sent to university in the first place, or limits resources available for those who have the skills needed to graduate productively.
-University towns - I still live in Oxford, where I studied; even as a student, I was very much aware of the aftermath of student nights around me, and I do regret my contribution to that. There is a further issue, in that places with significant student populations have issues with Council Tax funding of services (with students being exempt, which is something that should perhaps be reviewed).
-Companies - They're harmed by having vast pools of people with "degrees", and no clear way of distinguishing between them.
-Non-graduates; As the percentage of the population with degrees increases, the "percieved value" of members of society without degrees falls, below where it should be. I do not care (in fact, I would prefer that they didn't) whether the person repairing my car has a degree in astrophysics or media relations; I *do* care whether he has qualifications to repair my car. This does not require a degree, but the lack of degree does not make the person in question less valuable to society.
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I have worked for 20 years now in Further and Higher education, and I can assure HYS readers that standards on many degrees have plummetted in line with the massaged grades available in schools. Students with A* English grades are sub-literate; students with A* Mathematics struggle with simple equations.
Many of these 'graduates' flooding the job markets now have achieved degrees with levels of prior education that make the old hands like me hold their heads in despair.
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yes the UK does need fewer and higher quailty.
There are too many courses that are a complete and utter waste of time that people can get degrees in.
I belieive that Sir Dysons idea of paying the debts of people who do Math or Sceince is a great way of getting people onto these courses and can only benefit this country.
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Everyone has to make money and that's a fact. Student objective is to learn and once graduated earn a better income. The Universities are their to sell knowledge and techniques and give you a title and a piece of paper telling the world you are able. Some students don't make it and some Universities fail to produce top calibre students hence getting less people.
Why the fuss
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We certainly need far fewer graduates. The education system has been destroyed by lunatic policies based on assumptions and even idealism rather than reality - we even have teachers today who do not understand the need for excellence and who do not understand the need for all graduates to be able to spell and have good grammar. Universities must, from here on, select their students solely on the basis of prior secondary academic achievement which is relevant to the proposed course of further education.
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We need fewer graduates in subjects such as Celebrity Spotting and How To Write A Proper Tweet and more in useful skills such as engineering, science, medicine and similar vocational courses.
Also, please, a return to the days of Universities teaching more 'traditional' courses in Arts, Humanities and Sciences and Polytechnics or similar institutions offering the 'hands on' courses such as Fashion, Journalism and Fine Art.
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48. At 10:52am on 09 Mar 2010, Country Jane wrote:
We need students who apply for higher education who know there 3 R's. The standard of education has dropped over the last decade.
This statement is very ironic considering the wrong use of 'there'.
Fact is, school kids are getting smarter than the previous generation, as can be seen by the average contributor on HYS.
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We won't get there with less graduates? Obviously, our education system has a long way to go if people like Ms. Hunt can't speak English properly.
Anyway, lots of graduates are useful if they study useful things. For instance, this country has a shortage of power and railway signalling engineers. Also, engineering degrees equip people with lots of useful skills that are transferable. Classics degrees, on the other hand, have little use except when it comes to teaching the subject.
It's typical that the AGR wants to shift the financial burden for putting people through university onto someone else. As soon as people start looking out for someone's interests besides there own, we might actually come up with a reasonable solution.
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I am a recent mature graduate - I'm 39. This puts me in the unique position of having sat the old style O Levels, A Levels and then, some years later, going to university. Why is it, having been in Special Education up to the age of 12, that I can easily do mental arithmetic, and yet a large number of the (then) first year, having just apparently passed the newer A Levels, were unable to? Simple. A Levels are now easier - it's the only answer that makes sense.
The gulf between A Level and undergraduate study is getting steeper every year. Why has nobody compared the graph of university drop-outs to the alleged increase in high grade A Level passes? I'll bet that as the grades go up so do the drop-outs.
I don't think we need more or less graduates - what we need are better *quality* graduates, and that includes at GCSE and A level as well.
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A Degree should mean little if anything, they are two a penny, they stopped being a measure of real world ability a long time ago.
Of all the most able people I know, none have a degree, those I have employed with degrees have generaly been pretentious twits with ideas and expectations way above their real ability.
I very much favour a return to more learning through work and real activity.
Part of the UK's failure to produce good engineers in all diciplines is the result of poor early development (pre school), and the overall education system.
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Why work hard and skimp and save and land yourself with thousands of pounds worth of debt in order to get a degree?.
You may have a more interesting job but you will not necessarily earn more. An electrical engineering graduate will probably earn less than somebody who wires up houses (used to be called a `wireman` - now also called an electrical engineer).
If you are after money your best bet is to become a plumber - now also called a central heating engineer.
Anyway, if you work hard, save hard, buy yourself a house, you pay more tax, deprive yourself of any benefits and the Government will get it all off you in the end. Thank you Mr.Brown.
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Quality is more important.
Over the last 10 years quality has declined. Now I have no problem with graduates doing film studies as long as they leave university with the ability to think - I know of many people who took chemistry degrees and ended up accountants so it not necessary for the degree to be relevant to the job the graduate ends up with. University is to improve knowledge but also the practical skills of reasoning, research, planning etc. Based on the CVs that have passed my desk over the last week, including from "proper" universities, none of those skills seems to apply now.
I have long thought there is a complete lack of joined up thinking in our education system. There is no question that A levels have become easier in the nearly 30 years since I did them. I have no problem with ditching A levels and going to a Scottish higher or international bacc system where student study 5-7 subjects at 16-18 which results in a much better all round education as opposed to the specialist but deep knowledge that A levels are supposed to provide. But if we go down that route the inevitable result is that degree courses must get longer (as the Scottish system recognises). A point Lab is never willing to admit to
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Elitists in education should by default taught what it means to be a human being, a person who is able to relate to other human beings with respect, recognising the humanity of the other.
As it is they often appear to be encouraged by peer & social pressures to pump up themselves as lights to the rest of us, showing us the way.
This is not the case, many human societies have suffred much because of the ideas that come out of universities, especially when those ideas dehumanise the other. A nation is not made by intelligence or letters after one's name but by its ability to acknowledge the humanty of all its population, however poor, or simple, although of course, there are plenty of people around who do so.
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Education seems to be stuck in a runaway speeding bus! It's going to crash soon, but nobody is brave enough to take the pain that will be involved in stopping it. They are simply building more road in front of it. It started with the GCSEs and it was only a matter of time before universities were hit with the same problems that are facing schools. Ridiculous targets meant spurious grade inflation at GCSE level. As time went on, nobody was brave enough to peg back the runaway increase in GCSE grades. The kids loved geting A grades, the headmasters loved moving up the league table, and politicians pointed to the 'rise' as evidence of an improving education system. Anyone with half a brain could see that children weren't really getting smarter year on year, but nobody wanted to tell them. Better to make the exams easier so the % rose year on year. This of course led to grade inflation at 'A' level for exactly the same reasons. This is where the 'bus' should have been stopped. Peg back the exam grades to keep the standards high. Yes, it would result in a drop in the % passing, but better to take the pain now than let this runaway charabang pick up even more speed. But politicians don't like their graphs to go downwards, so they allowed the runaway bus even more road. Straight into the university campuses. Now the universities face the same problems as the schools. If universities refuse to admit these students, they are cutting off a potentially lucrative source of funding, and this could lead them into financial jeopardy. If the universities keep the degree standard too high, many of the students will drop out, and again they will lose money. They are effectively being 'forced' to dumb down degrees just as schools were forced to dumb down GCSEs and 'A' levels. Now the bus has picked up so much speed that nobody wants to stop it! Soon, of course, they will run out of road. This craven approach has meant an unsustainable and fragile enlargement of the tertiary education sector that will cause terrible attrition once it inevitably collapses. We need to stop the conveyor belt of students by capping GCSE and A level pass rates to a level that slows down the number going on to university. Divert some students on to apprentice schemes or vocational courses. This will feed through to a slowdown in university admissions, naturally, but the alternative is too awful to contemplate. Then universities can keep their standards and we can get some realism back into further education. I implore those in charge to stop this madness before it's too late.
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Top marks in sciences - did an Engineering degree
For 20 years I have listened to politicians harp on abt technology / engineering .. need them etc etc .. but they don't want to pay them
or help them .. the Chinese are queuing up to take over on this front and Mr Brown wants to do business with the Chinese ..
so why do a degree ? I should have left school and got a job in the city .. with 3As and S-level maths I'd have had no problem .. University ? big mistake.
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Yes,having left school at fourteen I believe the more you have of something the less it is worth, be it carrots or graduates, no offence intended.
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The UK needs fewer people full stop, so yes: fewer graduates. The ones we have left should follow the role model set by Dustin Hoffman in the film: "The Graduate", and mallarky about with Ann Bancroft and then Katherine Ross, rather than wasting their time studying pointless subjects like dentistry and engineering.
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As with so many other things, school exams have been dumbed down so that less students fail. In reality these results are not worth the paper they appear on. Previously graduates did have the benefit of a good, rounded education, but in the last 10-12 years standards have dropped alarmingly. The unfortunate thing is that many of the current crop of graduates seeking employment seem to think that a degree (eg media studies!)gives them a right to a position with higher than average pay, in return for what is in many cases only average educational standards. The answer is to raise standards across the board, sieve the wheat from the chaff, and ensure that only the best go to Uni. The 'new' Unis should revert to their original status of Tech Colleges and Polytechs with the aim of producing more technicians. In Uk now we have too many 'non jobs', particularly in civil service, seemingly created to find desks for out of work graduates to push pencils and paper around.
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Yes, we need less graduates, becauae, believe it or not, most jobs are not suitable for graduate expectations. Graduates don't do the majority of building, plumbing, electrician, engineering, mechanics or retail management jobs. And the Royal College of Nurses moving to an all-graduate nursing edict is ridiculous: How many graduates are going to want to wash down ill patients or respond to peoples' urgent needs in the wards of hospitals? But no, we don't want any increase in student fees; it's ridiculous now, that most students have debts of £15-20K the day they finish their degree. What we do need is a tripling of overseas fees and a corresponding reduction of 2/3rds of the permitted number of overseas students.
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I don't understand the fixation with 'engineering, science, maths' etc. I have a science degree and was unusual in moving into working in the same field, before changing careers. It doesn't mean the degree was wasted for me or anyone else--we all gained an ability to be flexible and think for ourselves. When jobs seem to last a maximum of three years these days, I reckon these qualities far outlast any technical knowledge. A course in media studies may have provided exactly the same challenges as my biology degree and so be just as useful in later life.
The point is not whether a subject appears to be 'relevant' (Oxbridge courses are often more academic than practical) but whether the course challenges its students enough. I think we should have more graduates -- but only if the courses are up to scratch. And that's part of the problem...
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It was crazy when nulabour introduced it and it is still crazy
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Re Comment 82:
In addition, make a degree worth having! I hold a 2:2 from a prestigious northern University, awarded in the early 90s. I received 55% in my Finals, this I know because my tutor told me.
Now, even retail outlets require 'minimum 2:1' qualifications for their managerial courses. Back when I was an undergraduate, a 2:1 was hard to come by, being a mark of around 70%, and most of us graduated with a 2:2, being a mark of 50%-65%. Firsts were for real swots who could have made Oxbridge but decided not to.
So how does that assist us older graduates now?
(By the way, another graduate in my year had received a public school education and scraped a Third. Go figure.)
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To be honest, getting a degree screwed my life up. There were no jobs when I graduated and there are no jobs now, even although I gave done a post-grad as well. And I am also swamped in debt which I cannot pay off. Thinking about bankruptcy. Get a trade, be that plumber, spark, whatever. Don't waste your time on what are good courses, but if you are working-class and going to Uni, for the most part, forget it. Even if they raise the levels to 50%, those from poorer backgrounds will not make it past the class ceiling.
Education is the answer, but the class problem will always be with us.
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We need more proper graduates - sciences, maths, technology, finance. We need fewer (if any) graduates in the arts, media studies, gender studies and other joke subjects.
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Of course we need less graduates, otherwise it will get to the state of needing a degree to clean the toilets, which is clearly NuLabour's aim.
Let's get back to the idea of success and elitism, e.g. rewarding the bright and achievers, and away from the lackadazical all peope are equal and no-one fails approach of the last 11 years!
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Ohhh....another pointless target...how exciting!
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Like it or not some degrees are worth more than others, and that is because they are more worthwhile subjects. Why are graduates suprised they cannot get that dream job after getting a degree in Humanities!?
The subjects should be reduced to ensure the quality of degrees is maintained. Right now degrees are so common they are almost useless.
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We need fewer graduates because once everyone has a degree, it has the same effect as if nobody has a degree! How do you choose which degree is best?
No. back to the days when only the brightest few percent got to uni please! But this will never happen while we have political parties of all colours that remain convinced that everyone is equal!! Some are bright and deserve a an education that stretches them (grammar school then uni), some are not.
The first party that publicly admits to this truism will get my vote!!
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Degrees mean nothing to me, unless it is the temperature of my pint of Guinness.
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The vast majority of jobs in Britain do not need a degree of any kind.
The education systems should concentrate on the basics, reading writing and arithmetic, to get everybody up to a minimum standard. It is utterly failing to do this at present. Far too many people are unemployable becuase they do not understand the basics.
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It's time for the degree system to be completely overhauled. Some courses could be condensed into two years. Lets get rid of these stupid courses that are not worth the paper they are written on and consentrate on degrees that are worthwhile not only to the student, but society.
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Really is the same old drivel every time on here. The people on here claiming that you should only get a degree if it is relevant to your work, here is my response. After 4 years of law with french law, i have not had the option of taking even one module on court proceedings. Go figure. The reason most people go to university is to have a few years of fun before their souls are crushed for 40 years before being kicked out of the job, losing their company pension, and forced to live on (what i am assuming the state pension will be in 40 years) £1.25 per week.
On another point, when they talk about raising top-up fees with "guarantees" for disadvantaged families: If you raise them any higher you will make the entire middle class disadvantaged, not to mention the poor souls who are on the cusp of middle and lower incomes but get no benefits whatsoever.
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Per se, the United Kingdom does need fewer graduates...but, the suggestions in this organisation report does not seem to be a good ideas....
(d)
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Clearly there are a lot of people who are totally ignorant when it comes to what it actually takes to get a degree at a decent university. I work at a top ten university in the UK and students who get 1st class degrees work very hard indeed. Secondly, most top universities have put their entry requirements up to reflect the general increase in applications.
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So our degrees are getting "dummed down", complains a responder. Mmm. Leaves one dumb-struck. In a rapidly evolving global economy the UK has one basic resource - the intelligence, adaptability and commitment of its workforce. Cut graduates? If yes then we might as well save time and apply now to join the world's least developed countries and get our bid for foreign aid in now.
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How good to see some sense returning to this country at last.
It is a fact that university degrees have been dumbed down in recent times, and that the qualifications obtained have little value in the real world. Most of the effort is copy-work, and any fool with access to the internet can do that.
We need more people with hands-on skills, ie apprenticeships in the vocational trades, where you can get your hands grubby and have to work hard. Those with degrees in media studies and other trivial subjects have lowered the tone of university education. It is the ability to apply skills learned, rather than the qualifications themselves, which is important.
I met one of these types at the weekend. With a degree in botany and conservation, one might have expected him to possess at the very least some knowledge of fieldcraft, especially as we were managing a SSSI field. He had no idea of the correct tools for the job or how to use them, and did not know how to light a bonfire, either. Your average livestock farmer knew more about the countryside than him.
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Of course targets should be scrapped and so should the fees in there current form. Scots get free university education in Scotland, Welsh get reduced cost university education in Wales and the English get???? I thought we were the United Kingdom and therefore there should be parity in all countries.Where do the Scots and Welsh get their funding from? Places on courses should be competed for in particular subjects and not based solely on "A" levels.The whole education system should be re-vamped to reflect the real skills needed by the UK and not by what students wish to study. Lets go forward in sciences for the future.
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Education is empowerment. Cuntries like China and India are producung more and more graduates per year and is economically growing at a faster rate. If the government is wanting its people to qualified then it is good in this competitive world. Do the country really want to produce more electricians and plumbers only? Then some day the public will have people from abroad (Migrants) who are university qualified to run the government and then there general public who are electricians and plumbers to service their homes.
The world is faced paced and competitive. People should wake up...send ur children to universities and be proud of them when they qualify instead of making them do small jobs. Have a sense of ambition....but not for being a plumber, an electrician, sitting at the tills at Tesco or ASDA...Be a part of this competitve world or be left out as being mediocre.
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I think this is a puzzle! What actually constitutes 'Higher Education' or Further Education? I seem to remember, back in the 1980s, while about 10% of teenagers went on to complete a University degree level education, many more went to Polytechnics, Technical Colleges, or chose to pursue other means of achieving 'Higher Education' ( after completing compulsory element of our education system) Also, many 'A level' graduates chose to take up some form of apprenticeship. And, I seem to remember many less able students went on to study City & Guilds and other vocational qualifications at local Colleges aswell.
SO my point is, 50% attending some form of 'higher or further' education is not such a big number! We should consider that the policy over the last 20year has been to reduce all the 'variety' of different forms of Higher Education down to a mass of 'Degree level' qualifications! When considering this fact, then today if everybody has a degree obviously it devalues the status of such a qualification. But the reality is, may of these Degrees are just renamed 'other' vocational qualifications being studied at 'renamed' institutions! Where 'Colleges' and 'Polytechnics' used to offer HNDs or other arts or engineering qualifications they are all now called Universities and all offer only degrees!
I seriously, think we should go back to a more honest approach to our 'higher education' strategy - where University was distinct from Polytechnics and Colleges - and where a 'Degree' qualification was something like a 'gold standard' - Personally I would argue that more than 50% of adults should have some form of higher education qualification - even if it is in 'media studies' or 'journalism' but not all subjects should be classified or offered at Degree level.
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19. At 10:10am on 09 Mar 2010, CM2188 wrote:
"I studied law at University and graduated last July. The one thing I noticed was the amount of people who were only at University because they felt they 'should' be there. University is tough, if you don't want to be there you will struggle to get through. As a result there was a high number of drop-outs in my first and second year.
...
Academia is not for everyone. Some people are book worms, others prefer a more practical approach. Unfortunately the latter are considered less valuable which is completely wrong. The government cannot force everyone down the same path, we are all different and the education system must support that. There is a difference between giving everyone equal opportunities and forcing them to be the same."
I also graduated in July, with a biology degree, and had pretty much the same experience. Being pushed into university regardless of what you want to do is becoming a big problem in secondary schools, especially those with no real tradition of sending pupils to university. Not everyone's talents lie with academia, and of those that are high achievers in that area, not all will want to do a degree.
My generation have become convinced that you must have a degree to get a job, which simply isn't the case. Although CM2188 and I both did specialised degrees that would get us specific types of work, many people don't do that, and they don't realise that their degrees aren't as useful. If they don't have that thirst for knowledge, they might feel they've wasted three years.
Even though our economy has changed over the years and industries are different now, it is still possible for young people to be successful without university. A friend of mine is training to be an accountant, and another is the head of IT at a small company at the age of 23. That's just anecdotal, but people who want to do well will find their way whether they have a degree or not.
Really, I'd say we need fewer people going to university when they don't really want to be there- if people genuinely want to be there, and want to learn, they will graduate as people who are employable and well-rounded.
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This country is severely lacking quality technical graduates i.e. physics, electronics, real engineering, maths, biology etc.
These are regarded as 'hard' courses. My thoughts are that course fees should be lowered/eliminated for those courses the country feels are essential.
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The answer is an emphatic yes.
But more importantly, we need a better quality of graduate! No more degrees in nonsense like media studies, human relations, surfing etc. real degrees for people who have worked for them rather than the semi-litterate who appear to have gained their degree simply for turning up!
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From reading through these posts it would seem that many people do not want a future population that can analyse and think creatively & logically. Most students realise that a degree does not necessarily lead to a job, but it helps to form a 'thinking' population that does not automatically believe everything written in the Sun or Daily Mail. Do some consider this a threat?
My son has a 'proper' degree in microbiology, and a PhD but is on 3 year research contracts with no guarantee of renewal and could possibly be jobless in a couple of years time. What this country needs is more investment in businesses that can properly utilise the skills that young people acquire at university.
For those that think that many degrees are 'mickey mouse' have you read the syllabus do you have any understanding of what these degrees entail, or are you regurgitating what you read in the Daily Rag. Perhaps you should have gone to university and gained some analytical skills!
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The mere fact that this Government has introduced its "Graduate Talent Pool" which is nothing more than a YTS (Youth Training Schemes were an 80s initiative for unemployed school leavers in order to keep them of unemployment figures) for todays vast army of graduates to keep them off the unemployment statistics says it all really!
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What needs to be done is to make everyone realise that just because you didn't go to Uni it dosen't make you a failure (I did by the way).
Some people aren't cut out for Uni but would be better off doing more vocational study - its wrong for people to be misled into gettting into a lot of debt when they think they need a degree which isn't worth anything in the real world and they onl;y find out too late
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Yes !
I don't need a person from University to repair my central heating system, washing machine, television ect ect......... these are pratical skills which benifit society. A degree in History won't help if you don't gain a job which relates to history.
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we need more graduates not less, but we need them in engineering, science, medicine,physics and civil engineering, we dont need to keep churning out graduates in sociology, geography, history, latin etc, but we do need people to further their education in the arts and classics, just not the amount thats coming out of universities into the job market thats just hasnt the jobs, education is crucial to britain and the world and we can never have enough of educated people so lets stop knocking the kids and dumbing down their achievments they are the next generation of tax payers that got to keep us,
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snarlygronkit wrote: "All this arty stuff is fine and dandy (A degree in DANCING?) but we need to get back to manufacturing, inventing and innovating, all things we were once good at."
Snarlygronkit, the world is changing to incorporate 'all this arty stuff'! Take for example the design sector; it contributes just as much as the City of London to the UK's economy. The UK's role in the world has changed over the past 30 years and so has its industry - things we were once good at we are no longer world leaders in and vice versa. New courses such as Dance are a sign of the country's universities naturally following demand and cannot be frowned upon or devalued.
I don't think it's fair to expect a job after earning any degree anyway - only apprenticeships / vocational & professional qualifications can and should guarantee entry into a sector. A degree shows that you are capable of learning and that you have studied something to a higher level - that's all! Anyone who thinks they can get a job with any degree and no experience doesn't understand how the jobs market works.
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Education should not be valued purely by earning power.
The educated benefits society by being better parents, volunteers of worthwhile causes, being better citizens and so on.
Therefore, the educated is an added asset of society.
Furthermore, because of physical resource competition and pollution, industries all over the world need to become a lot less resource intensive, and education is an ideal low resource intensity service industry.
We need a big cultural shift to regard life long education, personal development as an essential, desirable economic activity as popular as watching TV, travelling, . . .
The more graduates, the better it is for our society.
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What we need are more postgraduate students. There's nothing wrong with having a more educated population, but the higher education system was not proportionally scaled up. We have a lot of undergraduates and not nearly enough funding for postgraduates. Subsequently, it seems we have industry saturated with graduates that have comparable skills/qualifications, making it hard for companies to recruit the best people for the job.
The aim of any education system should be to enable those capable to learn as much as they can. However, I would not have my masters degree and be studying for a PhD if my parent's had not had money to lend me (alongside the 18 hours per week I was working whilst doing my full-time masters course, because I could only secure sponsorship for the course fees and wasn't able to get a loan to live off). You can't take the undergraduate system back to being more elite. All you can do is ensure quality is maintained (or regained) and expand the tier above.
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Having worked in higher ed for most of my adult life and as a current part time post grad, there are many misconceptions about so-called 'soft subjects', graduate recruitment and 'dumbing down'. It should be the goal of every civilised society that as many people as possible have access to and are able to continue in higher ed if they wish to. The arts enhance our life and enrich our society as much as engineering and the 'hard' sciences are productive. University is about developing a range of skills; critical thinking, analytical skills and being able to consider wider issues in relation to very narrow concerns. Whilst I agree that the 50 percent target (as with all targets) is not helpful, I know that opening up access to higher ed is vital for our immediate and long term future. Education is not just about productivity, it is about achievement, personal development and learning how to learn. Don't let Mandelson and business wreck our higher education system.
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The best 10% of students should go to university. After qualifying, the best 50% should be able to stay on to take a Masters or even a Doctorate, whilst the other half move into industry and commerce. No Tuition Fees should be charged and grants should be available to all - not loans. This group will pay their way by keeping the rest of the community in paid employment by designing and selling products that are competitive and the rest of the world wants to buy.
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Just as manufacturing shrinks in this country and we are trying to come to terms that UK PLC is a financial services company we need to train people to support this. For those that will be left without a job we need to train to be able to cope with this – not abandon them to the waste heap. Perhaps some of university places should revert to what they were originally – polytechnics?
An educated population is one which will make its own mind up about the politics of the day and not depend on tabloids with political views that may be biased. It is the first requirement of a fair society.
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Anybody who are still in favor of getting 50% of our graduates into university should go to China and see what has happened over there. The job markets for graduates are dire (even after the country's year on year 8% GDP growth), the parents are heavily in debt and any meaningful job (literally cleaners and waitress) needs a degree. You have to be from one of the top universities (ivy league as in the USA) to stand any chance in the job markets. All these are due to the explosive growth of higher education in China in the 1990s, when many technical colleges and polytechnic were upgraded/promoted to the university status. Now there are about 30% of the Chinese graduates who go to the universities. Everybody has to pay the fees. The University authorities are very happy because it means big revenue but the standard are very poor because there are not enough resources to cater for so many students. Many Chinese now are saying it is really a bad idea to get so many graduates into the University.
With China growing at 8% and still not being able to absorb so many graduates, what chance of Britain growing at 1% at best to find enough job for those with a degree? In the end, it can only mean one thing: every job will need a degree!!!
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The problem cannot be that there are too many learned people as that is to say there is too much knowledge about, which would be absurd. The real problem is that there are not enough jobs in this economy, for both graduates and the others. The shortage of work is a by-product of two things: overpopulation in these islands and under-employment of capital in jobs creation. British jobs for British people and a tax on idle capital and fallow landholdings would go some way toward rectifying matters.
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The UK needs more trained school leavers. An apprenticeship in plumbing is a damn site more valuable than a 2:2 in media studies from an ex-poly.
For all courses we need constant meaningful standards. I have no problems with Nurses doing 'degrees' as it should mean all nurses are trained to the same standard and properly examined. You can call it a 'degree' or a '3 year certificate of training' or whatever you want. What matters is the standard those who pass obtain.
The real problem with degrees these days is that the standard needed to obtain one is falling in real terms each year. A local university which I won't name was recently revealed to have given exactly the same resit exam to some students 4 times until they passed it. That sort of behaviour would be ridiculous in a primary school spelling test, never mind a BA.
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It seems that one cannot get anywhere job-wise nowadays without a degree, regardless of whether the degree gives you the particular skills needed. This makes employers lazy: employ a graduate then train them up to their own standards.
This also means that everyone has to have a degree. When degrees are this general, they are worth little. Those that don't study for degrees, who have different skills and a differnt methodolgy of learning are thrown on wastepile.
We don't need to lower the number of degrees, we have to make degrees less important. Something for academics and scientists, who will no doubt make the world a better place. But we have to have more apprentices, more car mechanics, more carpenters, more plumbers, more nurses, more child-carers, then our country will be a better place.
I went to university because I knew I couldn't do anything if I did not. I didn't need to go, nor have I used what I was taught there.
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Education is a wonderful gift which should be available to all, and should be the benchmark of any developed society. It teaches you how to learn, which is a good starting point for whatever you do in life.
Sadly on forums like this, people are prone to cast scorn on this idea and prefer to preserve university for the "elite" (translated as middle class tories).
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Don't lose sight of the fact that high student numbers kept NuLabour's unemployed numbers down - and instead of paying them dole the poor students actually borrow money to be out of work. Brilliant! Great for the Government, a disaster for half the students. Well, what would you expect from this lot??
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I recently graduated with a degree in Fine Art. I suspect that it may be one of the subjects that has been called 'wish washy' in past comments. However, I have often wondered if it should give me the same kind of qualification as a science or humanities degree as the teaching style and form of the course was completely different. But it was fantastic. I spent three years being able to study what I loved and if nothing else it taught me to be incredibly self sufficient and proactive. It was the kind of course where what you put in you got out and you had the incredible freedom to direct the course of your own work and study. There were fabulous resources available including equipment, libraries and the knowledge and experience of the tutors, but success relied on ones own determination to take what was offered and to ask when you needed help. You also have to learn to work well and creatively as part of a team to produce events and shows as well as to find the money from somewhere to fund you work or ideas. To top it all off you have to learn to stand in a room of people and face criticism with composure and intelligence and to engage in debate on a wide variety of topics across the spectrum.
But can all these different courses be labeled as the same thing? A BA? On the one hand the course I had was broadly academic coming from a conceptual tradition, but it was also practical and I learned specific skills to produce the artworks that I wanted to make. I also did not learn a 'specific' course. My subjects or topics depended on the course of my own interest.
I also find it worrying that people go to university purely to jump through a hoop on the way to the working world. Surely a university education should be just about that, education and a love of learning. Training for a profession is different. Yet we seem to be sort of middling. The training involved in degrees often seems to be insufficient for the expectations of employers and the more abstract learning is not as broad or challenging as it could be.
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There are too many degrees, the only benefit is that it gives school leavers something to do instead of being on the dole que and helps the stats to look better. Degrees should be for academic subjects, and training for practical jobs should be done on the job by people who have the necessary experience in the real world.
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The reality is in the modern work world we don't need millions of marine biologists or ecologists. Unfortunately people who do degrees in whichever subject are not told that only probably 10% of them will end up working in their exact field.
Degrees are good for life experience and for academic awareness, but in practical reality the balance needs to be redressed.
The only people we should listen to are recruiters who take on graduates and if they are saying we need less then we need less.
I believe if you are a good worker you will go far, you can start at the bottom and still work your way up if you work hard enough. The problem is most are not willing to put the time or effort in required.
Most people coming out of Uni are clueless to the work world, Uni creates a bubble mentality that does not exist in the harsh reality of the real world. If we do not have fewer degrees, there will be millions and millions of students in debt promised jobs they will never get.
Degrees should only be for people who have a job guaranteed at the end of it, almost like work based training. Then every degree will have value, at the moment students see at as a free holiday while they decide "what they want to do", in the process spending 3 years of their life spending more than they are earning. That does not make sense in anyones book.
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Some people assume all degrees are a walk in the park nowadays when it's far from true. The level of work put in by some is incredible. Furthermore to those saying 'I didn't go to Uni and I'm fine' well this isn't the 70s anymore manufacturing is on the decline.
What we need to do is cut funding at lower level Unis and put that money into apprenticeship schemes and on the job training within companies for skills. What I find is that people go to Uni yet companies value their on the job experience more especially in fields like retail and media.
I'd also recommend creating a grading system for degrees. Science would be one of the highest with subjects like economics and english being in the middle. Then these golf management courses being at the bottom. From this grading students applying to the highest graded courses would receive more funding (*if needed - of course the household income should still determine who gets support). Then this would allow those aspiring from working class backgrounds to aim for the most needed professions instead of settling for an Uni which is close to home but not all that good.
The amount of people I know going to Uni and then having no clue as to what they want to do afterwards is amazing.
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Education has been transformed from teaching children things that are useful to them, to coaching them through examinations. The chief aim of which is for the UK to gain a better position in international league tables.
This has been extended by the current administration to first degrees. Its not the quality of graduates that matter, its how many you can process through the system.
It is a laudable aim to try and increase the proportion of the population that have a first degree. This should be done with no drop in quality of degrees on offer. Sadly the approach that has been taken is more about spin than education. It has short-changed all University students.
By all means increase the number of graduates, but so it via improving education, not by forcing the Universities to take on more students in order to maintain funding levels.
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Surely the big give away on this is that although the government has a 50% target of people going to uni, it has no target for what they do when they get there. Unlimited numbers of 'media studies with golf course planning' graduates does not itself make for a successful economy. Meanwhile the country still has endless numbers of immigrant doctors. Why cannot we train our own? How moral is it to deprive a poor country of a doctor it has just trained? Beyond learning for its own sake there should be a link between graduates and the needs of the country. I think the government sees Uni as a way to keep some young people off the unemployment register - at their expense.
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I think it would be an improvement if there were more and better vocational courses on offer, aimed at intelligent young people who didn't want to go to university, but did want to learn a useful skill to a high standard and go on to get a well-paid and respected job. Years ago many such subjects such as graphic design, production engineering etc., were provided in this way and nobody suffered any trauma at not having BA after their name.
Why burden people with debt and overly-high expectations, and tie them down to a three-year stint when maybe two years with some work experience and ongoing training would be more than adequate to get them into the workforce and contributing to the system?
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I have been asked where I read for my degree/ PhD in electronics, computing, engineering, software development, business etc.
I have a degree in philosophy and am now excluded from work because 'I lack industry experience and/ or a relevant degree'.
The UK spends too much time on qualifications, we need value added jobs, for people without degrees, something other than working in a service industry. A balanced economy, where there is a chance for everyone, not just those who like to take exams.
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I have said it for years and my father (a secondary teacher) said similar, before me. Sending every one to get a degree is like printing money, all that happens is that the price of any job goes up, in terms of the starting qualification required. We need more intelligent people in trades and service industries out there fixing things (as has been said before in this HYS) We need people with the intelligence to think through problems and work out from first principles, not academics that can regurgitate text books for exams and not thoroughly understand their subject, and then there are those who cannot recall enough for an exam pass, so we reduce the pass mark and further de-value the qualification. Stop telling youngsters that to work for a living is degrading and that they must go into further education, and encourage them to train for a worthwhile job in industry, trades etc. Assuming that there are company's somewhere that actually manufacture goods and homes that have non disposable consumer goods and cars that have problems not caused by the computer geek that programed that ECU to do unecessary things with the multitude of sensors that reside around vehicle. The world is going insane, time to stop and look and take stock. Just realised, my wife is right.............I've become a grumpy old man!
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I am a recent University of Leeds graduate with both a BSc Hons and MSc in chemical engineering and chemistry. I went through five years of extremely hard and intensive work to gain these qualifications and am still struggling to find work, probably due to the AGR's views toward UK graduates.
I believe that the governments plan to have 50% of people under 30 in higher university education is badly thought through. This will simply act to dumb down the education system further, as the universities make their courses more suitable for less capable students in order to meet academic targets. Higher education should be for those with the ability and the dedication required to warrant academic recognition and not for those simply wanting a ticket to better career prospects.
A large proportion of recruiters in the UK are now turning their attention to employing overseas graduates, primarily due to the number of graduates leaving university in the UK without the neccesary skills, a direct result of less capable or dedicated students in the higher education system. I strongly believe that this government policy has to change.
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As the parent of a teenager one of the things I have noticed is that both the parents and the kids are becoming less keen on university. The logic the kids are applying is:
1. Do I really need a degree to do what I want to do? If so then go to university.
2. Can I get a reasonable job instead ? This could be something fun and short term such as teaching skiing or a 'proper' job. If so then put it off for a while.
3. If the above job can earn (some) money and leads on to something else then put off university for a bit longer.
4. After all you can always go when you are old, maybe 30!
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Evidence from my personal experience that education standards are poor and still declining:
1) I was part of the second year to take GCSEs after they replaced O levels. I therefore had 1 past GCSE paper and many past O level papers to use for revision. The GCSE paper in no way compared with the O level papers with respect to the level of knowledge it expected you to have obtained.
1.5) I went through my entire secondary education without ever taking an English exam as everything was 100% coursework. I suffer for this to this day (although am the first to admit that if it was causing me a real problem I could learn it for myself).
2) When I took A levels the A level courses still assumed that you had learned maths before commencing the course. My Physics teacher had to teach me the maths necessary for A level physics, whereas previously (he told me) this was part of the O level maths course.
3) I occasionally go back to the university where I studied for a degree to give a talk to the current batch of students. The curriculum they follow now is nothing like the one I did. Also, once I was asked to say, with hind site, which parts of the degree course I felt were inadequate for my chosen career path. I highlighted two areas in particular that I felt I would have benefited from going into in more detail - after which the lecturer then said both had now been dropped from the course completely!
4) I have been told face to face by a university lecturer that the reason they keep making their courses easier is that they are in direct competition with a small sea side town university down the road, which offers easy courses and therefore attracts more students. Its officially a race to the gutter, it would seem.
5) Trying to recruit decent engineers now is just a nightmare. In the last few years we have taken on a German, a Swede, an American and most recently an Indian. Good to see the British tax payers money is going to such good use.
6) I could go on, but you get the picture, if you managed to make it down this far.
Nobody in the government opposition is going to say it because it is partly down to them, also it is not considered politically correct, or gentlemen/lady like, but when every single year results get better, and every single year we get the politicians telling us that standards are not declining - THEY ARE LYING.
It is us who are standing for it, and us who are paying for it, and the country that is suffering because of it.
Rant over.
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149. At 12:37pm on 09 Mar 2010, Gaz wrote:
"..back to the days when only the brightest few percent got to uni please!"
Unfortunately, its has NEVER been the case that the brightest went to university. It was a system full of privately educated children who were no cleverer than anyone else, they just had a better opportunity.
Why do so many on here strive to keep the majority of the population ignorant? Is it the well educated wanting to keep the riff-raff out, or the undereducated perpetuating the same lack of opportunity they had?
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Yes, we need far fewer graduates. New Labour's social engineering experiment where everyone is equal and where there is no such thing as failure has failed.
And get rid of all the rubbish degrees like Media Studies and focus only on core subjects.
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It all depends on the degree. In the future there certainly will be more demand for Science/ Technology/ Engineering degrees as we move to a more specialised economy. If Britain is to have any hope of staying competitive we need to really invest in those areas.
Do we need more media graduates or travel / leisure industry grads ? Probably not.
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"Does the UK need fewer graduates?"
If you want to be part of a system and want to work in that system then you will need a piece of paper which those who run the system say qualifies you to do so. A degree is such a piece of paper.
Since fewer folks are wanting to be part of such a system then it would follow that fewer of those pieces of paper would be required, so yes, the UK probably does need fewer graduates .
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We need fewer people wasting time at University, sponging off tax payers and get them into real work and learning real crafts and trades. We have scores of people going straight into managerial positions, with no real world skills, common sense or knowledge and just a piece of paper to say they passed a couple of exams.
It is time we got back to people start at the bottom making the tea and being promoted up the food chain on merit and not on a piece of paper.
Experience is what counts in the real world not qualifications, which is why this Country is going down the drain, because people can't use common sense and think for themselves.
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There are lots of comments here about the types of courses which we should encourage at University - engineering and science seem to be high up on that list. Have you not noticed that both of these areas are shedding jobs at an alarming rate, the country has lots of skilled and experienced workers looking for such jobs.
It is essential that we do not give false hope to the next generation; so yes fewer graduates but more realistic training for the majority to replace the current 'university or bust' advice given to most youngsters today.
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I am a member of UCU and I think Sally Hunt (our Gen Sec) is wrong too.
The 50% target is an arbitrary one, that stretches all the way back into the 1908's and Kenneth Baker and Keith Joseph.
The need for a skilled workforce is obvious, but I'm not convinced, a someone working in HE, that having half of all young people doing a degree is the way. As a result, we have seen too many people coming into the secotr for whom an academic education is not the best option. And, in the process, it has diluted what the most able get too. It doesn't effect those in the 1994 group, The Russell Group or Oxbridge, because they cream the most academic, as they always did; fine, no problem with that.
Instead, HEI's in the middle ground and below get squeezed to fill courses with students who may not be in a position to benefit from it. And they have to pay for the privilege. Just how fair is that?
What the UK needs is a truly egalitarian system to allow students to go down the academic, skilled or vocational routes, and for the funding for those things to be fair and equal. As it is now, the AGR and employers generally want the HE sector to fulfil all of their needs and act as a training hothouse for them. That is not what universities are for, though no one in government wants to hear it. And the universities do this while being squeezed financially. Something has to give. Soon.
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I done a degree in David Beckham i'm well glad I did it. Trevor my team leader says i'm a well good worker and will get promoted this year. I've only worked here for 1 year and 2 months! It took Keith 4 years and 6 months to get promoted to the chips and hash browns.
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It all depends: Graduates with medical, engineering and science degress we do need. Those with media studies or a joint honours in Coronation Street and Basket Weaving we don't need.
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For 25+ years the UK Governments have allowed traditional "trade" sklls and apprenticeships to dwindle. At the same time we want 50% to be graduates.
My questions is why don't they do someting about the 50% of non graduates, so that they can get skills and fill the gaps.
Long term unemployment is not an option neither is "importing" skillls.
UK workers NEED to understand that they need to be dedicated to their employment snd pay taxes. We have far too many people who think that they deserve a living and/or don't need to work.
Enough said?
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Re: Stephen Hamblett, (Posting No.4. 09.48, 09 Mar 2010)
Sally Hunt is NOT wrong.
I live in the BRIC world, and the numbers graduating in these highly populous countries is massive, and massively outstrips our puny number of graduates in the UK.
You talk about dumming down – I guess this spelling may be an educative failure and, if so, you truly exemplify the need for education at all levels.
If, however, you are being “smart”, then you should distinguish better between Qualified, Knowledgeable and Skilled.
Your understanding of what constitutes a computer, the research and development that stands behind the hardware and the software, and the computer’s use in diagnostics prior to electro/mechanical action betrays a mind that has failed to understand the modern world.
However, all is not lost; there are remarkably good skills-related courses to bring you up to speed in the new universities.
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This Island used to be a Great Britain, but there are now shortage of high skilled knowledge. Each time I look towards the east, I panic. Where are British inventors, scientists, Engineers? And why did Britain allowed big inventions to go abroad? We do not even have enough doctors and Nurses to work in our hospitals without pouching from the nations that need their own brains. Degree in nail cuttings, and drunkeness cannot make us great. Let us scrap the weak courses and give more to those that can really make us Great again.
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The level of snobbery on here by the so call posh degree Educated just goes to show what a class ridden society we are. I have a degree o'h but its not from Oxford or Cambridge like mine, so it ain't worth now't. Get a grip you sound like bunch of catty school girls. O'h dont forget you well educated bunch managed to screw up the economy by being so clever.
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Are we allowed to quote song lyrics on HYS ?
The problem of the Association of Graduate Recruiters was perfectly summed up by Gilbert and Sullivan back in 1889.
"In short, whoever you may be,
To this conclusion you'll agree,
When every one is somebodee,
Then no one's anybody!"
How do you know who is truly able if all must have prizes? True for degrees down to GCSEs and why? So NuLab can give certain people hope and hope to benefit by so doing, and to 'stick it' again to the so-called middle class. We need plurality. Get fewer academically able people to Uni (irrespective of class) and give grants. Create alternatives for others less academically able - night school, apprenticeships, day release, vocational, professional qualifications etc. Then get ready to hear the cry of 'elitist' from the left-of-centre.
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Shouldn't scholarship be valued for it's own sake? All learning has a purpose, the
end result being a more rounded individual. What we need fewer of is semi-literate
school leavers. Regards, etc.
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No one can be blamed for wanting to better themselves. However Labour seemed to think that getting as many youngsters into Uni and awarding them with worthless degrees was the way forward. Another mistaken Labour policy backfiring. You cant just pump as many people as possible through Uni and expect a better society at the end, where are all these graduates going to go ? because there certainly isnt the jobs for them.
Furthermore, I've lost count how many times I've dealt with a graduate that lacks all common sense and is completely unequipped to deal with the job at hand. Why do employers think that having a degree is some sort of benchmark of excellence ? They often dont even care whether the degree is relevant to the job they are advertising for.
No degree can match real hands on experience in the work place. A lot of these graduates should of left school at 16 and got their feet firmly on the employment ladder. Chances are they would already be in a better position, without being burdended by student debt, and have a firm footing into their career, rather than wasting years at Uni studying for virtually useless and irrelevant degree.
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We have shortages of certain professions in the UK, why doesn't the government stop charging tuition fees for courses such as dentistry and medicine, the funds are then added to the thousands of people sitting on courses that will no benefit the country.
This will also reduce the need for immigrants which the government continually tell us we are short of.
To be sure the right candidates are admitted to the course the A level mark scheme needs to be re-addressed so that only the top X percent of students get an A grade.
It will give students targets to aim for with financial rewards (removal of penalties) to be trained and to go into careers which have almost certain job prospects.
Those who wish to go to university which is primarily for a fun 3 years will then start to think again as their fees will be increased or they will have to be good enough to enter into a meaningful degree which they will have to work much harder in.
The UK used to have some of the worlds greatest universities, they now seem to have turned into production facilities to give people degrees and dumbed down to the lowest common denominator and cater for the high paying international students.
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The simple facts are these:
Exams are NOT getting easier(take it from someone who recently did A level exams).
The reason the number of students gaining A's and B's is increasing is because the number of people taking soft courses is increasing. I know personally of two further education colleges that make it compulsory for all their students to take general studies and/or media studies, specifically to boost their league table position.
Hard courses such as Maths, Sciences, Economics, Philosophy, English Literature etc are continually being passed over. Instead of taking results at face value look at the subjects they are being achieved in.
In my opinion this is because many are made to feel like failures if they can't achieve the top grades and so are switching to easier courses. More universities then supply degrees in soft subjects to capitalise on these qualifications to survive, no matter what the economy demands. There is also a worrying trend of "positive discrimination". For example, a good friend of mine was offered a place at an internationally accredited university and was incredibly pleased having worked very hard to achieve it. However she later found out she was offered the place as to "meet the government pro-ethinic minority target". She refused the place and now reads at another university. She was completely disgusted to be offered a place because she was a British-Asian woman, rather than because she met the entry requirements. I am aware that some of my points aren't relevant to this specific question but this issue isn't two dimensional, one must take into account all aspects. I believe, as the majority of people do, the best performers in education should have a chance to go to university if they wish, be they poor, rich, white, black, it doesn't matter, so long as they have the mental capacity. Reduce the numbers taking part in soft courses and soft degrees, so more money can be made available to abolish the barriers into universities for the intellectual people no matter their background. You do not need a degree to work in retail or manage a golf course. This is all down to senseless interference from central government.
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My husband is currently at university as a mature student studying computer science. Although I am obviously biased I, and many others, can see his intelligence and skill in the field he wants to obtain a degree in (Computer Science). Every time he comes back from University he is absolutely staggered at the vast majority within his classes that do not know anything about the subject. They are in Year 2 of a three year degree and some of them do not even know how to save data onto a CD-ROM! (True). He is working day and night to get a First class degree so he can go on to do a Masters and actually then distinguish his degree from all others but he despairs that the lecturers actually put the worst students in his group so that they can pass based on his work! This is not good for him, the students or the poor employer who will end up with a graduate who knows nothing about the subject. Degree's need to be put back on a pedestal - nobody needs a degree to type a letter, be a quality manager, etc. Its the Government's fetish with red tape that is making degree's 'worthless'. They need to stop ticking boxes and go back to basics - start teaching worthwhile subjects to people that are interested in and intelligent enough to give their all to a once amazing opportunity.
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Simply saying we "need to be at the forefront of a skilled knowledge-based economy" sounds like vague jargon, rather than a thought-through strategy. How, precisely, does a BA or BSc specifically prepare someone for the "knowledge economy"? Is our economy suddenly based on library research, 3,000 word essays with citations and bibliographies?
If we stopped pretending that a degree has more intrinsic value than, say, a technical qualification or three years of real-world work experience and on-the-job training, we'd be better off.
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The main problem with the government target is that it is not quality driven.
Achieving a place at university should be based on genuine academic ability, clear commitment to the work required to attain a degree, and an appropriate assessment that the student can positively contribute to and gain from university life and life as a graduate.
A-level standards are most definitely lower than theyt were (say) 25 years ago and yet more students are at university - these 2 things are contradictory!
So, yes, the UK needs fewer university graduates of a much higher quality, but would also benefit from the re-introduction of the polytechnic system allowing the achievement of more vocational skill based degrees.
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The target of 50% waw designed to mask unemployment figures and followed the philosophy that we are all equal. Reality check - we are not all equal. Some are academic, others athletic. Some take to a particular subject, others don't Some are clever, others are not. 505 is a ridiculous target which forced the following:
- Dumbing down of degree courses to allow for a higher pass rate
- More courses created to meet demand hence to appearance of ridiculous ones that have no post-graduation use in the real world
- Devaluation of the degree to the point where it's approaching farcical GCSE and A-Level grading where you barely need to make the effort to get an A*
- Employers need to test graduate applicants because the degree grade and subject are meaningless to the role
- We now have less 'skilled workers' and more 'academic workers' who seem to think their degree will guarantee them a high salary for no work but leaving nobody to call if there is a leaking pipe or broken fusebox. Those you can call are foreign imports meeting demand.
A really sad state of affairs.
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This government has completely distorted the value and quality of education.
A University education is about academic excellence. Of course degrees are going to be devalued if thresholds are changed to get 50% of students in. You may as well just give everyone a degree.
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I think degrees are fine if you know what you want to do and they require a degree i.e. teacher, doctor, lawyer etc. But if you go to University and just do a degree that doesn't actually lead directly into anything, then it isn't necessary useful. You can just end up applying for jobs that you're 'overqualified' for. I enjoyed University to a certain extent but I'm still in a job I'm 'overqualified' for.
My husband on the other hand didn't go to University, but got in-house training from his employer which ended up being much more useful and he rose up in the organisation as a result of that.
So I don't think that more people should necessarily be encouraged to go to University - but to get the training appropriate for what they want to do.
I think also that too many people look down on others who didn't go to University and they did. And I do agree that education appears to have been dumbed down so that more people who wouldn't have got A grades previously now do, and so get a false impression of how intelligent they are. It's not fair to them, or to society in general. We need people to work in all sorts of jobs - and people shouldn't look down on those with 'less qualifications' than themselves.
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63. At 11:13am on 09 Mar 2010, inglishdiginous wrote:
"Yes of course the UK needs fewer graduates. Anybody who hasn't been to university and who therefore has brains, common sense and who has defied all odds to be financially successful can see that. Unfortunately though most people today have been to university and struggle to spell corecctly let alone understand the problems associated with having too large a population of graduates."
Ummmmm....correctly?
That aside, I wish people would remember that not everyone goes to University with their future job prospects in mind. Some people actually go to learn more about a subject they are interested in! Since University places are no longer government funded then surely people should be able to study whatever they like without criticism from the 'I never went to Uni and I turned out OK' brigade.
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There seems to be no consideration of the type of graduates that the taxpayer should fund. We certainly need more engineering, science and maths graduates and the lack of physicists is a scandal and in my view the taxpayer should encourage this by fully funding some types of degree,or write off loans if the degree is completed, because such degrees impact more directly on the prosperity of the Nation. I know that justification could be made for all areas of learning but we do need to fund what best helps the National need because we have limited funds. Many areas that now have degrees used to be hobbies or were filled from technical colleges since what is required here is practical experience more than academic knowledge.
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Successive governments have all but destroyed the value of education in Britain. Not content with the debacle they made with schools, they are now doing the same with universities. According to Labour, everybody should go to university, irrespective of the fact that they get a worthless degree, which makes them virtually unemployable.
So, yes, we do need fewer graduates. What we do need is plumbers, electricians, joiners etc.
Perhaps Labour should call apprenticeships in these vital jobs - degrees. That would keep the left wing political pygmies happy and we can boast that more people in the UK have university degrees than anywhere else in the world. Job done!
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Business should be paying universities to help train under graduates.
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This is a very demand sided view. What about the supply side i.e. the students? Don't they deserve to go to university and study Dance, Media, Communication studies (or David Beckham studies as some other comments refer to) if they so wish? This experience should not just be ring fenced for the top 10% only. The government’s aim of 50% in Higher Education was part of the widening participation agenda and encouraging those less likely to go to university to consider it as an option, to help broaden their horizons and enable social mobility, whilst at the same time contributing towards the knowledge economy and UK productivity.
Whilst universities are now more focused on producing the future workforce, there is still an original element to them for developing the cognitive and social dimensions of their students and graduates. There is the social well being of people to consider too, not just employment.
Most jobs that did not require a degree a few years ago are now stating a degree as a prerequisite in job applicants now- this will only exacerbate and a degree will just be as standard. If you do not have a degree you will lose out. Irrespective of the degree subject studied, general soft skills are developed during the programme and most of which are transferable to a variety of employers and therefore a large proportion of employers recruit graduates from a wide pool of disciplines.
I acknowledge that skills shortages occur (in particular Science and Engineering) and a more concerted effort should be made to rectify these shortages, but focusing attention on these areas should not be to the detriment of others disciplines and to those who are not academically inclined to study these subjects.
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It's great that an organisation has finally had the courage to rubbish the government goal of getting 50% of people to university. This has always been a crazy notion and gives people false hope of an academic-based career path. It leads to disappointment and everyone (including the prospective students) would be better served if we invested in providing more choice to school leavers - e.g. providing decent apprenticeship and training schemes.
It's not a question of reducing taxes, just spending them more wisely. I would like to see us spend the current levels on fewer people - remove the need for tuition fees. Whatever people say, it's a barrier to students from lower income families. Heck - let's go the whole hog and actually provide student grants for subsidising living costs again...
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I do like the idea that all of a sudden lots of people are doing "pointless" degrees, unlike the golden age of the past, when people did subjects like English, History, Classics, pure maths, Philosophy, Geography, etc etc.
Of course, a lot of these people then went on to be Lawyers and Accountants after another several years of training, which rather argues for more, not fewer vocational-based courses. (by the way, the "less" vs "fewer" pedantry is getting rather tedious, except in that it is another good indicator of what was considered important in the days of "real" rote-learnt education).
There may be an argument for coming up with different names for different qualifications, but to say that we can do without practical courses like Hospitality and Leisure management gives a good clue as to why we have so many badly run, amateurish and outdated services in this country.
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A degree (in any subject) proves you are able to think and extrapolate to a particular standard, degrees are awarded not made up by Universities for fun and must meet a rigorous standard. Therefore all degrees have value to an employer as they give an indication of the relative intelligence of the student/prospective employee. That said, all degrees courses should be forced to show all applicants the employment status of the last three years graduates to give them an indication of their worth. It wouldn't hurt either for the Government or new employer to 'wipe' the student loan of graduates in approved, hard to fill subjects or as a valuable way of passing your probation.
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Looking at other entries it is obvious that most in this country equate 'further education' with a Degree. As so many have pointed out the country has a shortage of other skills, all needing further education. We may well have too many graduates in some disciplines, we certainly have a shortage of skilled engineers. I can see the logic of cutting back on production lines of some degree courses, but the country must spend the money to produce the skilled workforce behind the degree holders.
As someone pointed out, a Computer can find the fault, it takes a skilled engineer to fix it!
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Let's start valuing apprenticeships; after all, the apprentice is studying as well as gaining valuable on-the-job training. There's been too much focus on degrees, mainly by the government. Cynically, I would say this is because it puts the young people away in a box for a while, so they don't have to be included in the jobless totals.
Our economy can only thrive with a balance of employees: a graduate is unlikely to keep the road surfaces or rail network maintained, so how will another graduate get to the hospital to operate on a patient?
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In Post #89, LeftieAgitator advocates a return to a "golden age", when there were few universities and higher education was for the privileged, plus a few working class scholarship students.
I believe that the golden age was the thirty years after World War II, when higher education was totally subsidised by the state and university entrance was freely-available to working class men and women through our great network of grammar schools. For these students, it was the passport to greater economic prosperity and upward mobility.
The social engineers of the 70s and 80s, with their politics of envy and misplaced egalitarian ideology, attempted to destroy these islands of excellence, but some have survived, to dominate completely the state sector of the social engineers' own educational league tables.
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Degrees of today do not compare positively with those of 20-30 years ago. Why would we need 50% of the population to do a degree? Is that a good representation of the nature of jobs in the economy? Only 5% of University graduates go into academia, while most go into vocational jobs, which universities do not ptovide. Previously most had FE education and those not academically oriented did apprenticeships in useful skills, such as plumbing, building, hairdressing etc. So why demand that 50% need HE? What happened to the National Training Board, where they planned the type of skills needed for the economy?
A good comparison is to compare the giants of engineering of the past such as Sir George Edwards and his achievements - Chairman of British Aerospace - he had only a technical college education but far outperformed anybody with a PhD within todays HE system. Rest my case.
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Scrap all funding for hobbycraft at university or college. If people want to learn how to arrange flowers, take photos or do finger painting then let them pay full fees for it. The learning institues should recrtuit part-time staff to deliver any hobbycraft. Proper lecturers should only be employed in science, engineering, business, law etc
Scrap all research for meaningless data and associated trivia
Then remove tiers of management who just attend meetings to discuss data and suggest more meetings, and actually offer very little to the education of people. They need to remember that every piece of data is actually a person. We may still have bad teachers - but more importantly we still have very bad learners...
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It doesn't take a genius to realise that if 50% of people were to have degrees then degrees would be worth much less. Degrees in weak subjects are hardly worth anything as it is.
The suggestion that employers should get a tax break for hiring new grads is descrimatory against pretty much everyone else. That is highly unfair in my opinion.
What they should do is make key courses for doctors, scientists, etc very cheap if not free. All junk course should be paid almost in full by the person or their parents. This will help (hopefully) boost the amount of needed employees and lower the amount of people with awful degrees who end up thinking they're owed more in life for studying something better suited to be learned in work experience.
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What I would like to see is fewer young people seeming to think that the world owes them a job because they have a degree.
Unfortunately children are educated to believe that a degree is the be all and end all of life.
Many of them study a degree that is either then of no interest or of little relevance to what they want to persue once they mature into a real person.
Opting not to do a degree simply meant I was three years ahead of my cohort when it came to the job pool. My skills were relevant, up to date and I knew how to manager and interact with others.
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These days a young person seems to need a degree to get the most basic of jobs. However, what we need as a society is for the people who have failed in education to be able to easily get jobs in order to keep them from leading useless lives. We surely have enough drug-taking, reckless drinking and anti-social behaviour in our society to realise that an appropriate investment in these people will pay more dividends than extra investments in the best people, who will always ensure that they are educated without our intervention.
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I graduated from university 9 years ago, with a degree in Business Management and Marketing. Despite the fact that i am now working in Marketing, and my degree certainly helped get me my current position, i was made redundant 6 years ago. At this time i registered with a number of recruitment agencis to find work and held a temporary position for 6 months until finding employment in a suitable role to my skill set. During my search for work i realised that had i gone from school and worked for 3 years in Marketing i would after 3 years have been as employable if not more so, as employers were looking for experience (less expense on training required), and not specifically for a degree. I would also not have had 10k of debt hanging over my head that i have still yet to pay off as with the increase in property prices and with the wages in the Westcountry i am unable to clear this any quicker than i am doing so.
University was a great experience but if i was asked by my children in the future shoudl they go? i would find myself hard pressed to encourage them into a life of debt with no guarentee of any better paid work at the end of it!
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The UK definately doesn't need fewer graduates, the more graduates the better. People should cherish the opportunity to learn as much about the world as possible and University provides the correct environment for it. People may say why don't people just read more books to learn more, however the context of reading them at university and learning to think about them critically is what meeting people, using the vast libraries and discussing things in seminars is all about. Whereas it may be true that standards are dropping although I see very little evidence for it, people still get a much better education and wider view of the world, even in ex-polytechnics, than people who haven't been to university at all.
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I can understand the argument to provide all with the opportunity for further education. Meanwhile, the number and quality of science students drop year on year. Science provides the future for society, as it has in the past.
Less degrees in jewellry, media studies and Madonna. Perhaps if more journalists had degrees in English the appalling grammer and spelling of modern media would abate.
Finally, what ever was wrong with learning a trade? Some dont want to be 'smart' or educated at all: they just want a means to make a living.
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All those that think degrees are being dummed down, are WRONG. Same with A levels. It's not that the material is becoming easier, it's that young people are being pressured more and more and do work harder. Yes a lot of students go out drinking regularly, but during the day we work really hard! And if companies want graduates that stand out, then pick ones with a higher classifcation like a 1st or 2:1! Or those that have a degree as well as other desirable features! And those graduates going into fields such as mechanics or whatever, of course they're still going to need training! But so would someone without a degree! The only reason so many young people go to university is because our generation has been told from age 5 that university is the place to go to get a good job, in any field. If companies want people from another route, they should go into schools and make that known to the people that will want that job one day! If the job markert had a bigger role in schools on the same scale as prospective universities, young people would see more options and would make the best decisions for their futures. The answer is not to scale back graduates, the answer is to improve the knowledge young people have and give them more options while they're in school so everyone has a fair and equal oppertunity to make the right decision for their future!!!
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We live in the 21st century yet here we are still unable to educate our children fairly. The bottom are kept ignorant(fodder for the factories) whilst the top are educated separately from poor and family.
It is as if because you are born poor, you will be poor academically. The truth is the so called elite must be seen to be more intelligent. So Oxford for them and make do for the poor.
This is why our country is democratic in name only. After that it's what you have and who you know that determines your status, education and chances and as long as government is made up of these people, the poor don't have a chance.
In recent weeks we have learned that in our state primary scool children are being failed. Most are going forward into secondary education with a very poor (if any) knowledge of Numeracy and Literacy. This just proves my point.
Yes what we need is the best and most brightest children for the future of our country but these children should not be prejudiced by where they come from and until we get that right our government can't call our country a fair or civilized society.
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If you flood the employment market with thousands upon thousands of graduates you defeat the very object of the university system.
They should reflect excellence - quality over quality every time. Employers should feel that they are getting the cream not the dregs of the bottle. If you demean the degree you demean the person who attains it.
It is easy for career advisors to give youngsters the impression that with their ....ology degree the world will be their oyster. Get real and admit that it is usually only high grade passes in math, science, law, accounting etc. that result in worthwile jobs. Stop leading students up the garden path. With literally hundreds of degree students in the arts, media and fashion chasing just a few opportunities of job all you end up with is disappointment and resentment. Far better to be be open and honest and lead the student to something that is more likely to bring them long lasting success.
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Re: Stephen Hamblett, (Posting No.4. 09.48, 09 Mar 2010)
Sally Hunt is NOT wrong.
I live in the BRIC world, and the numbers graduating in these highly populous countries is massive, and massively outstrips our puny number of graduates in the UK.
You talk about dumming down – I guess this spelling may be an educative failure and, if so, you truly exemplify the need for education at all levels.
If, however, you are being “smart”, then you should distinguish better between Qualified, Knowledgeable and Skilled.
Your understanding of what constitutes a computer, the research and development that stands behind the hardware and software, and the computer’s use in diagnostics prior to electro/mechanical action betrays a mind that has failed to understand the modern world.
However, all is not lost; there are remarkably good skills-related courses to bring you up to speed in the new universities.
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GCSEs used to be enough, but everyone has half a dozen - at least - of those and so they're almost meaningless in the job market; people need A-levels instead. Then the majority of people have A-levels and so we need degrees. Now the government wants everyone to have degrees, so I suppose in 20 years it'll be pushing for 50% of all students to get a master's.
We should stop pretending that everyone needs higher education. Not every career path does and so young people are starting off their working life with thousands in unnecessary debt, and widening the field too much lowers standards and devalues the process entirely.
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Higher education and University are not the same thing. Having 50% of pupils going to Higher Education establishments is not necessarily a bad thing. 50% going to university is nonsensical. As many people as possible should be as educated as reasonably possible, but a university education is a very special thing which is designed to provide the very brightest people with an education to the very highest level. Entry standards should be such that at most 10% and more likely 5% of the population can attain them. If more than that reach the entry standard, then the standard needs to be raised. Certainly, all levels of education need to be improved and opportunities for everyone to get the best education they can should be provided where possible, but please keep universities what they are supposed to be, the institutions for the very best academic students.
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Please let's scrap the MBA..... There are now over 60,000 MBA graduates in the UK and you can plot the growth against our economic decline and come up with an almost perfect fit.
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The UK needs less graduates with degrees in subjects of little real value to the national economy and community well-being. Equality of opportunity to achieve a university degree does not necessarily mean a well-paid job at the end of that process and I believe Government is guilty of raising false expectations in that regard. The achievement of a vocational skill is just as valuable as a degree; perhaps even more so in particular areas of work. Obsession with 'equality' should not be allowed to cloud the fact that peoples' abilities are varied and different. Politicians have been meddling in education for far too long and we are now paying the price.
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What we need is an education system that has not been devalued by this government with dumbed down qualifications and Mickey Mouse degrees.
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It's all a load of social engineering from the boys in blue aka Oxford Blue. Are there any senior MPs from ANY party that haven't been OXBRIDGE educated? Get all the young people into further education and then they are not on the dole eh! An even better idea...lend all those young people the money to go into further education thereby creating jobs in the 'universities' and by the time they leave the need for work will be so extreme they'll take anything! Mind you, what exactly do you do with a graduate in poster paint management? The Gov should get on with promoting this idea, we could even end up with 100% of all young people in further education!! Now that's a calming thought.
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I personally don't think school leavers should be allowed to go directly into university, because very few have any idea what they are actually there for. The difference is that mature students are there because they WANT to learn. School-leavers are there for their friends and generally do the bare-minimum they need in order to scrape a pass.
It is this process that turns out the 'drone-graduates' unable to think for themselves, not the fact there are dummy-degrees out there.
I currently work in a school, and the best teachers are ALWAYS the teachers who have done something else before going into teaching. (People who go from school to uni then back to school as a teacher do not have any real-world examples to relate their teaching too, and lessons suffer as a result.)
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We absolutely, definitely, need less graduates.
We need a well-trained, well-educated workforce, but having virtually everyone go to uni is not the way to achieve it.
Under Labour, degrees have become devalued, and universities seem to have become little more than a time-filler for some, and a way to disguise illegal immigration.
We need to turn the clock back some 20 years, and make a degree something worth having. At the same time, we need excellent vocational education and training so no one leaves school unable to enter the workplace.
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Surely the system should be set up so 100% (anyone) can try for a degree but only those who make the grade can pass it. i.e. the cut off marks for 1st, 2:1, 2:2, 3rd should be proportional to the number of places required by the industry, but not fall below 80%,70%, 60%, 50% (or whatever the percentiles usually are).
Perhaps more grade levels are required ? The point is to differentiate between potential employees, not leave employers to make up their own exams and do the job all over again !
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More graduates does not = dumbing down. It means fairer chances. The people that rant about how easy degrees are to get these days are just angry at the fact that they aren't special or unique for having one anymore. Because a huge proportion of young people are studying as hard as they did when they were a tiny minority 30 years ago. Well get over it! I'm so sick of people ranting about the education system when they know nothing about it! It's the labour government that are weakening the status of a degree by pretty much forcing young people into universities. The courses are not becoming easier! If you think they're so easy nowadays then why don't you go try writing up one of my assignments? I'll expect a first yeah?
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If you want to eventually be a Doctor, Lawyer, Academic or in a profession which requires a degree, then fine, go to University. For everyone else, stop wasting your money. Some of these Mickey Mouse degrees are so laughable, I refer to Media Studies and Jewellery Design as an example.
There are three underlying factors here:
I. One of the faults of this, and past governments, is that our manufacturing base has almost disappeared, therefore we have no more apprenticeship’s to offer young people just leaving school.
II. Parents tend to live their lives through their children, maybe because they didn’t have the opportunity to go to University and their lives would have taken a different path, who knows. But they tend to push their children in to going to University, mainly to keep up with the Jones’s.
III. The attitude of some graduates in thinking that they will walk in to a very well paid job beggars belief. There is nothing out there for them now. Either study for a profession (and I don’t mean IT) or obtain a skill, which does not mean a University degree and a mountain of debt.
Some, not all, graduates I’ve come across during my working life think society owe them a favour for having a degree. Experience, experience, practical experience is the key. The best way is to start at the bottom and WORK your way up the ladder.
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Posting 12. At 09:56am on 09 Mar 2010, The Ghosts of John Galt:
and...At 12:43pm on 09 Mar 2010, The Ghosts of John Galt wrote (awaiting Moderation):
Congratulations to this poster; he/she wins my award of the best-balanced postings on this topic.
As one from the university business I see much virtue in these comments, contrasting greatly to the huge amounted of bigoted comment elsewhere posted.
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University degrees should be there to help propel talented individuals into employment, rather than being the root requirement for getting a job, as they have now become.
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The Last Virgin - scrapping student loans won't increase the quality of graduates, but it will close off University education to poorer students.
We should be excluding students based on ability, not income. To suggest otherwise is a pretty disgraceful attitude in honesty.
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I'm doing a degree in modern languages at the OU, purely out of interest, and obviously get no financial subsidies. However, I do believe that graduates in subjects such as media, art(did Gainsborough and Titan actually have degrees in art?), social studies, etc, should have to pay for tuition in these subjects, as these degrees are useless in the real world. As an aside, I'm horrified by the back that many graduates have no conception of spelling!
In my opinion, there should be more encouragement for students to take up useful degrees such as maths, engineering, physics, biology, medicine, and chemistry: these are the things that, just, might make Britain great again. However, I still don't understand why apprenticeships aren't offered any more. Let's face it, a good plumber is worth far more than a graduate in media studies when one has a blocked drain, ditto a car mechanic. Let's concentrate on getting people back into "real" work again.
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To those who harp on about the relevance of a university degree as training for a career read comment 10 (I wish we had recommendations). The knowledge derived from a degree course is about the ways of obtaining knowledge, independent thinking, how to solve problems and not rely on others to think for you. This should be the case whether the degree is in film studies, engineering, or the symbolism of garden gnomes.
As a former head of a university department I attended a job fairs meeting where prospective employers were looking for graduates who would be suitable for training within their companies. An employer approached me and said he was from a cutting edge computer firm. I politely directed him to the computer students but he resisted saying he was looking for classicists, philosophers and theologians. In his opinion they were capable of abstract thought, vision and originality, and could be trained in computer studies within his company. In contrast the computer students, he thought, might be trapped in the conventions of that science as taught for the excaminations and it would take several years to release their creativity.
The lesson: don't knock the esoteric subjects. It is the capacity to think and think originally that will save this country.
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The currency of a degree has been wholly devalued by ludicrous vocational non-degrees. Media studies springs to mind. The awaful thing is that with only 50% of secondary school leavers having anything remotely like adeuqate GCSEs, how on earth can this silly target be reached.
University (after all most undergraduates cannot spell the word correctly and have to call it uni) should be teaching people to expand their minds and to think. That will enable them to turn their hand to a variety of things, rather than using university to 'train' for a particular job. In my opinion, the only vocational degrees that are of any use are engineering, medecine, vetinary sciences and maybe law.
US universites, with several notable exceptions, are pretty awful. Young people go to 'school' largely to learn about their chosen vocation. Having graduated, after a few years, many decide they don't like this vocation and have to go back to school to qualify themselves to do something else. By following the current course, we in the UK face a similarly bleak future.
I'd far rather university was a meritocracy (say the top 5% - 10%) and fully funded by government, as it was in my day.
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As a parent, employer and ex parent governor - I can absolutely agree with this. Too many of our young are fooled by the education system into believing that if they get a degree - any degree - then they will earn great money. It is not like that.
Add that attitude to the student loans system and all you end up with is a lot of 20 year olds with useless degrees , little work experience and loads of debt. Not a good start to life.
Top jobs like doctors, dentists, scientists, etc need the degrees. Other occupations can be equally rewarding both financially and emotionally with on the job training.
A client company has recently stopped recruitment of graduates as trainee nuclear engineers but prefers to take them directly from school and college so they can mould/train them earlier. Better for the trainees and better for the company. Interestingly they will have the option of reaching Chartered level - all paid for and with a salary. Says it all really about our degree culture.
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I would suggested we need less graduates and more well-educated people. What bliss it would be to have less functionally illiterate and functionally non-numerate people leaving education. Employers would then not have to spend as much time as they do teaching their staff the 3R's.
Degrees are only relevant for some occupations and how on earth is an employer supposed to sift through applications when everyone has a degree? The only "sensible" way will be for us to throw all of the applications into the air and pluck four or five from them whilst they fall to the ground.
I cannot imagine that there is an employer on this planet that has the time (or the inclination) to individually sift through a pile of, say, 100 applications trying to intuit the best people to interview for a job.
What will be the perceived or real value of a degree when everyone has one? I anticipate that the government of the day will then expect everyone to be leaving "education" with a PhD.
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"I would rather that be the situation than go back 20 years or so when only priveleged children got to go to university - if one council estate kid gets a fantastic degree and goes to the moon or cures cancer, then the whole thing is worth it in my opinion. "
Twenty years ago you didn't get to University because you were priveleged, you got there by being good enough to pass hard A levels. University was free so tallented people from poor backgrounds didn't have to worry about spending the rest of their lives in debt. The prospect of being twenty thousand pounds in debt with no guarantee of having a good job at the end of it puts huge numbers of poor people off.
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Why was the target set at 50% anyway? What's it based upon? What assumptions were made as to the number of graduate jobs that were likely to become available? What professions and industries were consulted? Sounds to me like poorly-prepared guesswork.
However you try to wrap it up in pseudo-economics and get opinions from learned educationalists with an axe to grind, it seems a crazy figure to me. It's creating a position where there's terrific competition for real graduate-type jobs, and the unsuccessful get turned away from other jobs because they're over-qualified.
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It costs the Government several thousand pounds a year to keep an 18 to 22 year old on the dole. If they go to university, students not only pay for their own unemployment but they don't appear in the jobless total.
This is the real reason why Labour is so keen to stuff Universities with people
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As shown by the recession there isn't a need for more course for lack of a better word are Mickey mouse courses. Degrees of the future need to benefit the country cultural. scientific or economically there are too many people that could be doing courses more suited to the jobs which they plan or are doing. The target of 50% of people with a degree is very responsible. First it would make the country top heavy and if everybody has a degree what is it really worth. I believe that employees only look at degrees of merit such as degrees in maths, the sciences, engineering and the like. A degree in pottery or dance just isn't going to cut it and isn't really needed there could be a GNVQ or on the job training schemes for courses such as these instead of degree courses. Furthermore it is likely now that the cost of degrees go up less and less people from low and moderate income families will apply to universities.
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What this country needs is Real workers not just those who have acquired a fancy qualification. What was wrong with the old system where many would train and attend college on a weekly or block release basis.
And why we persist in this nonsence of calling a Tech.College a University I'm blowed if I know.
It is no use studying politics, economics or history if the country cannot earn enough to pay its way. Earning one's living is what life is about and all the other pleasures are what follows.
The problem is that politicians always want us to feel better-off so that we may vote for them next time. Education should not be allowed anywhere near politicians anymore than architecture or food production.
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Of course the UK needs fewer graduates. Why is the UK, yet again, copying the US? At least many US grads progress to become professional sportsmen or women. But that framework doesn't exist in the UK. More of a case of take your fees and fend for yourself when you find your degree is useless. But at least it keeps 'em off the unemployed stats for three years eh Gordon?
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To my mind a degree course has two objectives:
1) give knowledge to a required level
2) provide the tools with which to use that knowledge to best effect
In my opinion attending university is now seen more as a right rather than something to be earned, and when I attended university almost 20 years ago, it was apparent that time, money and effort was being wasted on a high percentage of students who would never take full advantage of the education and training being given.
Many years ago university was seen as somewhere to grow up and receive the tools for a future productive life, but now with so many mature students, the emphasis should shift more to the academic side. I don't think the majority of 'Graduate' jobs actually need entrants qualified to Higher level.
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I'm a student and almost none of my fellow students have a clue what they want to do for a living after university. Uni is turning into practice for when we all have to grow up and get real jobs. Perhaps if school equipped us with basic life skills and a sense of purpose we wouldnt have to drift into university, load ourselves with debt and then drift into a call centre job? Why don't we have careers advisers that have actually had careers themseleves rather than a feeble and anaemic "Connexions" service where weak chinned institutionalized twenty-somethings tell us all about our "options".
The sheer lack of inspiration or ability to enthuse others of the graduates we are turning out must surely tell us something of the system that creates them.
The bottom line is that the targets the government has set for getting young people through university have served only to necessitate, perpetuate and legitimize a process whereby many students do little more than pay £21,000 or more to damage their livers and postpone important life choices.
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All competitive degrees need to be financed partially by the private sector, which expects the government and the public to fund 100% of all degrees! Frankly, this attitude is unsustainable - it is the private sector that directly reaps the most benefit from the majority of graduates given the shortage of graduate placements in the modern civil service and government employment, and as such it is the private sector that must become involved to invest in the best possible education for their future workforce. Perhaps major multinationals could become linked to the top 40-ish universities, based on the specialities of each university, and provide extra funding for them. This investment frees up money for more people to do them, or for the quality of those courses to be improved, or for other, innovative courses to be started up. I'm all for everyone being given equal access to higher education.
However, I think it's debatable whether the ex-polys should be called universities and whether the valuable courses that they offer can be considered academic degrees - what they teach largely involves no research whatsoever (the historic definition of a university is an institution heavily engaged in teaching AND research) and the traditional academic standard required to enter many ex-polys is, well, pretty damn low. That's not to say they don't offer worthwhile courses - DMU here in Leicester provides valuable arts programmes, journalism, etc. that the University of Leicester doesn't and will never offer, and the city is all the richer for it - but let's not make the mistake of confusing an academic degree with other higher education qualifications in non-academic subjects.
I'm presently a first year at the University of Leicester, reading for a BSc in Geography, and plan on staying in academia, just for some context.
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The value (ie salary) attached to a degree comes from how rare and scarce that extra qualification is. When I did my degree not that long ago, only the top 5 - 8% of school leavers went on to get a degree - and I still only started on £10k pa when i landed my first job. If 50% of school leavers get a degree then it is - by definition nothing special / pretty common and those with them cannot expect to use that degree to command significant salaries. As an owner of a business I find that the vast majority of graduates I interview genuinely believe (incorrectly) that having got a degree, they are fantastic / know it all / have nothing to learn. Here's a tip - just 'cos Granny is very proud of you doesn't mean you are worth a fortune to a business from day one. You might get to that point once you have learnt a bit more - but thats the key Graduates need to understand that the Degree is only (a now devalued) starting point.
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236. At 2:06pm on 09 Mar 2010, CA28 wrote:
"All those that think degrees are being dummed down, are WRONG. Same with A levels. It's not that the material is becoming easier, it's that young people are being pressured more and more and do work harder."
You're partly right. Students ARE being pressurised to work harder to get the grades. This is because the grades are very commonplace due to them being easier to get. You're also right that A-Levels and degrees aren't being dumBed down. Worse than that, they're having massive chunks of the course dropped thus making them much easier. I did A-Level Pure Mathematics about 19 years ago. The first three weeks were spent learning the things that had been dropped from the GCSE curriculum already (GCSE being fairly new at the time). I shudder to think how much more has been dropped. Never mind how much has been dropped from A-Level and degree level subjects to compensate.
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235. At 2:02pm on 09 Mar 2010, the doctor wrote:
Finally, what ever was wrong with learning a trade? Some dont want to be 'smart' or educated at all: they just want a means to make a living.
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Firstly you don't choose to be smart you either are or you aren't and you aren't. You do choose however how much you want to value education, learning and knowledge. Also what do you mean whatever was wrong with learning a trade? Have you not got a copy of the yellow pages?
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I have a 2:1 from a Russell Group university in Economics and Politics. I was unemployed and believed myself unemployable for several months, became so desperate for a job that I moved 200 miles to an entirely unfamiliar area to find work, only to leave five months later due to terrible homesickness.
My younger brother didn't go to university - his A-level grades would have got him into an ex-poly, but no better - and is in secure, moderately-paid employment.
While I virulently disagree with the manner in which some courses are being described by the anti-academic right-wing complainants that dominate HYS, I do believe the market signals are crying out for fewer graduates, though not necessarily that many fewer. Recruiters have recognised the declining standards of universities and are now placing a disproportionate emphasis on 'experience', for which read 'we will make it a requirement for any prospective employer to work for a pittance in order to ever get anything better, which will allow us to hold down salaries further up the pay scale because workers will come in with low expectations'. Ironically, of course, that's a potentially significant left-wing argument for tearing down one of Labour's flagship policies...
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The reason theres so many mickey mouse courses is purely down to the fact that the proper degrees demand more resources and therefore make the university less profitable. University is no longer about education, its about making as much money as possible, students are seen as a source of income and courses are seen as an expense.
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universities need to cut course like surf management and david beckham degrees, useless course like these cheapen degrees
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Turning technical colleges into 'universities' was the final phase in dumbing down our education system. By more or less forcing teenagers to stay on for 'degree' courses, the Establishment managed to curb the youth unemployment figures at a stroke.As always, totally manipulative and cynical, anything to fudge the figures!
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Of course. University should be only for the best students, and it should give students a path to a good career, setting then up for a profession.
These days however, thanks to Labour's insistence of giving everybody the chance to go. Its ironic that I say that, since despite getting a 2:1 in Business and IT 12 years ago, when a 2:1 still meant something special, Im still convinced that I mainly got a place at my chosen Uni due to my working class background, since my colleage resuls were OK but nothing amazing. Even then, you could see the non accidental cross section of society in my year, some of which clearly had no chance of passing their course, as they couldnt even speak English, begging the question, why were they admitted? At least 2:1's and 1st were still hard to come by back then.
Uni is now just something that people do, just to either avoid getting a job, or do because they think that it will improve their career prospects. Due to this, we have millions of people with complete Mickey Mouse degrees, which are useless or irrelevant to their chosen career, or any other for that matter.
A degree in this generation, is a watered down, often useless piece of paperwork, which costs the tax payer, and often the student, tens of thousands of pounds, an investment which will never be returned, let alone seen to make a profit in the form of higher wages, and hence more taxes for the Government.
Scrap irrelevant degrees unless they are 100% student funded, and encourage people to study law, medecine, science, technology and business etc, free of charge. Even then, only the best should be given the chance, regardless of their colour, background or wealth.
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A degree can only be obtained with sufficient intellectual capability to complete it - do 50% of the population? But I am an OU graduate and a fellow Summer School attendee who was of more mature years justified her study by saying that every 4 or 5 yeats she was asked to vote on serious issues and she had a duty to be as educated as possible.
There is also the area of work based learning where a degree or higher level qualification can be obtained. The Smith Institute publication "The future of the North East" has an excellent chapter by Dr Jenny Naish on this with reference to Marks and Spencer Foods,. The Chief Exec of the IoD in Hong Kong, Carlye Tsui, has a WBL Doctorate!
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Our education system is a complete mess.
Only 10 - 20% of students are really bright eneough to benifit from a REAL university education - they can become the leaders in the future.
50% is ludicrous!
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University should be to learn how to learn.
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The UK used to be a world leader in engineering, both civil and mechanical. We were the workshop for the world in things like ships, railways, mchine tools and large civil engineering projects. The Thatcher government decided that these things were not important and that the service based economy would lead to prosperity for us all. Consequently there are large areas in the North of England, Wales and Scotland where nothing is manufactured and our young people are encouraged to go to university to obtain a degree in anything at all in order to give us a highly educated workforce producing - what? Working in call centres earning money that a tradesman would not get out of bed for, driving a delivery van or bar work.
The flagship of the British Merchant Navy, along with all these magnificent cruise ships which are advertised, was built abroad. Our modern tilting trains are Italian. If you want to bore tunnels for hydro electric power stations you will need to employ a German company.
It's maybe too late, but we should be producing more graduates in the sciences to remedy the situation I have described. What we need is more quality, and less quantity. Stop treating people wanting to enter engineering with contempt, as has been happening in this country for years. Oh, and as we remedy this crazy unbalanced situation, start reducing the fees to zero. We need to start investing in the future of the country, and stop cramming more and more people into university to meet some arbitrary government target.
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If a totally average person, 100 IQ, set 3 in most subjects at school is expected to get a degree, then what value does it have?
A degree used to be a bench mark, now because all awards eg. GCSEs, A levels etc. are watered down from where they were even 15 years ago, most kids will get them, they are unlikely to know much about the subjects though as they are now taught purely for the exam, leaving no space for independent thought or wider knowledge of the subject.
...and for those of you still blinkered to the current farce we now have masquerading as an education system in the UK, cheating is rife in most subjects all accross the nation.
This is very easy nowadays as the vast proportion of all subjects are made up of coursework, every child can use the internet, everyone can cut and paste, many parents will even do the work for their children, knowing full well that it will never be discovered.
This is NOT an exaggeration, this is common place, most teachers, most exam boards and even most MPs realise this, but what can they do?
To admit it calls into question the validity of all exam results, MPs simply don't care about it, they see the problem but realise it would take sweeping changes to achieve anything, after all how many MPs children go to state schools.
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Everyone should have the opportunity to go to university if they want to and if they have the grades, but it shouldn't be a default option for 50% of the population. You see plenty of people at university who aren't really interested in studying, often ruining things for the rest.
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Have I got this right? New Labour wants to socially engineer a situation whereby an optimum number of young people will graduate.On the other hand, the same government's economic policies have constrained the market to offer unemployment to 2.75 million people. Erm.... What exactly does the government(having watered down entry requirements in order to help meet targets for university entrance) hope that these new graduates, now many of them highly trained in underwater macrami and media studies, are going to contribute to society.
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Nu Labour created the monster of all young people thinking they can go to a 'uni' irrespective of their abilities. This country needs less basket weavers and more bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, etc. Leave academia to the academics.
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I have never understood how people can criticise a graduate for gaining a degree. Even if graduates do not use the degree in future employment it still demonstrates the ability to learn to that level. If a graduate chooses to take a job that does not use their degree course it surely benefits the employer. At the end of the day it is the graudates choice.
It is difficult enough to gain a university place so by cutting the places available will create a gap which I hope will be filled with other types of courses or opportunities for students.
As a graduate myself I have been lucky enough to gain employment in my degree field and the degree itself has certainly helped me with job applications.
I think University should be a selective process but at the same time it is not for everybody and as long as the government offer other choices for young people I do not think there will be a problem.
Yes the debt is horrendous when you leave but the experience is priceless and inevitably will help you in the future.
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I graduated last year and I am slowly realising the reality of being a graduate in this frail, disastrous UK economy. Brown talked about more opportunities for young people to obtain degrees, and the benefits of that - however sadly, I have yet to reap any benefit from my hard work, debt and frustration.
The problem is that I feel the job market is diminishing with a crushing influx of graduates like me competing for the same jobs. The UK economy is still far from a solid recovery, to support huge numbers of graduates like myself. The UK economy cannot repair itself unless employers open their arms to the skills that we can give them. Otherwise the value of a degree will be further impaired.
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Joob's comment, number 17 is absolutely right. We need people who are capable of getting degrees in medicine, science, engineering, etc and not things like media studies which is less than useless.
All the dross should be cut out.
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Oh, and while I think about it. Sally Hunt said:
"The future for the UK is at the forefront of a high-skilled knowledge economy and we won't get there with less graduates."
Didn't she mean:
"...we won't get there with fewer graduates."
Where did she get her degree again? :)
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Those people that will benefit from going to university should be able to go. By benefit I mean be a more productive and valuable member of the society which paid for your course (and no matter how much you paid, the taxpayer paid too).
If by that criteria 50% of people should go to university then fair enough. I suspect however that the figure is much, much lower.
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' 'All this arty stuff is fine and dandy (A degree in DANCING?) but we need to get back to manufacturing, inventing and innovating, all things we were once good at.'
Maybe we should go back to a previous time where people would read such vocartional subjects as latin, The Classics, Literature and thei ilk? The good old days where nobody did an arty degree? Pray what practical application do the subjects I have mentioned have?
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We need the standards to be higher, less graduates, all nurses should not have to have a degree, what about just having vocational training for some and then standards and efficiency in the NHS may improve, Tony Blair aim of 50% university uptake was wrong, we need tradesmen.!!!
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Keeping young people off the unemployed register, watering down standards to be able to claim a 'success', raising false hopes in young people, confusing jobs that need degree qualifications with 'just getting a degree'... oh what a mess.
But at least I get a graduate service in McDonalds (acknowledgments to a previous poster).
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When I was at school, we were told that a degree was a passport to a brighter future, and that average tradesmen like plumbers and electricians, were dead-end jobs that were on the way out. Fast forward to now: a shortage of tradesmen so acute that we have to import them from Eastern Europe, and the few remaining British tradesmen earn a good living and live in nice big houses, while thousands of graduates are unemployed or working in McDonalds.
Going to college is great for teenagers with a desire for specialist knowledge, but only if there's jobs for them to go to. And they need to be aware that a great job doing something they love and have studied is a rarity, and that even if they're lucky enough to get it, it won't necessarily come with a good wage.
Why has our society got to the point where our brightest minds and greatest talents earn peanuts, and the er... "less bright" earn thousands a week just for kicking a football?
If I was 17 again, I wouldn't go to college. I'd leave school at 16 and train as an electrician or something. My father did, and he had a good life, and lived in a great house, and could always afford what he wanted. Sure, he wasn't 'Bill Gates rich', but no-one went without. Whereas I, with all my fancy skills and degree and years of training, can't afford my own house. I feel I was lied to, or was made a promise that wasn't kept.
A degree would be worth it if the job at the end was a) there, and b) well-paid. Sadly, in most cases it isn't.
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This AGR has a clear vested interest in reducing graduates, it's not the public interest. Big business pays far less tax than in past decades, especially in UK, that's because it's international and controls, rather than is controlled by, governments, a very unhealthy situation. So public services are so cut back or second class in UK. Also, I wonder if big business and big money interests actually would prefer us dumbed down so we are docile. These people run the tabloids, who clearly are doing just that.
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We need more with apprenticeships rather than a degree. A degree is basically learning to churn out the facts or history of your subject but does not, until Masters or PHd level, teach you how to apply that knowledge. Too much emphasis has been put on degrees and credit and respect should be given to people with excellent practical skills as well.
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What is required is graduates with proper degrees (mdeicine, engineering, law etc). It is time that the Mickey Mouse media studies, interpretive art and other pointless degrees were confined to a lower tier of "higher education". People should be encouraged to go into higher education to not only improve themselves but to enhance society.
Upshot nowadays is that there are too many grads out there with too many poor quality useless degrees competing for jobs that they are not qualified for. They want an easy ride and I am sorry but in the current climate there is no such thing!
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
To really understand the importance of these things requires a knowledge of biology, physiology, chemistry and bio-mechanics. Of course sociology is important too, to understand how norms are imposed, psychology for how we perceive them, and behavioral therapy for how we overcome the difficulties they cause.
Yes, a degree in Armpits is a challenging and wide-ranging qualification, fitting the holder to live changing action in the economy of life.
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Hmmph, again!
What does it mean? There's only a few logical ends for this train of thought: 1) we end up with some sort of a jury-rigged caste system culture of either the 'overqualified' or the 'under-educated' 2) Degrees of such little worth that you can get them by collecting Sunday Paper coupons by 2050 or 3) Nothing will change and all this hoo-hah means absolutely zilch in the real world. Although I suppose it's possible that by 2030 half the population will have a degree in 'The Media'. Wow. Imagine that!
Putting 50% of our under-thirties population through uni will mean that more people have degrees they don't need and can't usefully use. It will mean that more people who couldn't afford it now have loans to pay off.
Frankly, and I know that this is unpopular and not even slightly PC, the University should be reserved for Britain's best and brightest: our intellectual elite of applied education. I'm not saying that these people are 'better' than us, I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with going to Uni or not going to Uni: what I'm saying is that this is very dangerous as it devalues the currency of education, and it artificially creats something that might be described as a 'labour drain' (lower case l, before you all started worrying / cheering!) - by that I mean all the skilled and unskilled work that goes into keeping this country moving. You don't need a degree for this stuff, you just need enthusiasm and a desire to work hard. Be 100% honest - if no-one left school at 16 and learned how to be a brickie (for example) you'd end up with a country that knows how to build a house IN THEORY. Give 'em a hod and they wouldn't know what to do! (No, I'm not a brickie.)
Wouldn't it be far more useful if all the energy that goes into objecting to these plans, coming up with these plans, counter-objecting and so on was put into creating a state of education that can deal with the demand it already faces, and instead focussed on attracting new technologies, industries and processes into our existing infrastructure? You don't need 50% of the employees of the Uk to have a degree for that.
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The UK needs less graduates. David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg to name but 3.
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"124. At 12:21pm on 09 Mar 2010, Willios1221 wrote:
yes the UK does need fewer and higher quailty.
There are too many courses that are a complete and utter waste of time that people can get degrees in.
I belieive that Sir Dysons idea of paying the debts of people who do Math or Sceince is a great way of getting people onto these courses and can only benefit this country."
That'll be the same Sir James Dyson who shut his factory here & moved all his manufacturing to Malaysia because of the lower wages and working conditions? Yup...he really cares about this country.
In any case any decent Science or Maths course is already oversubscribed. More to the point would be funding the departments teaching the course, not the students studying it. A lack of facilities, salary & job security in academia was responsible for me leaving last Xmas and joining a private company.
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Surely these days to take a degree after having cleared what occupation to follow seems to be a good idea if you have the talent then take a degree . Many firms would give talented people the chance to get the degree needed .My nephew in Canada did just that very successfully . Meat for manners
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Kids shouldnt be encouraged to take the lazy 3 year degree with obligatory "year out" then have a £15k debt.
Doesn no one tell them that its no good doing a media degree when there arent any jobs in media? seems to me like a lot are doing degrees that they think will lead to top end jobs without realising that years of experience count for much more.
Then the luck ones with rich parents work for free in some city agency, being taken advantage of when companies should be paying office juniors to learn on the job.
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Here is my comment, I agree with posters 2, 4,5,27, 37, 120, 202 and many others. The 50% target has resulted in degrees being dumbed down to many being worth no more than A levels. Children arrive at secondary school illiterate and inumerate, with no idea why they are at school. Alice in Wonderland - "All Must Have Prizes" - but the people we really need, electricians, plumbers, and so on - are ignored or made to feel failures.
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It's all about supply and demand. The government should be introducing top-up fees but they should set the levels and not the universities. They could then change the maximum fee on an annual basis for a course with regards to its popularity and relevance to society. I'm afraid to say that several arts subjects and social sciences are the easy way out for students who believe (wrongly) that a 2:1 in any subject is the golden ticket in life. The government and universities are happy to let this continue despite the lack of contribution to the economy these subjects bring.
Three girls I knew at university who took sociology have since become a mental health care nurse, a secondary school teacher and a graphic designer. Each of them had to do some form of additional education after their degree. Coincidence?! At the end of the day how many sociologists does the country need?!
What exactly did the three years studying sociology do for them or the economy in that time? Would their time not have been better spent taking courses (university or college) in their new respective fields?
Also the lack of numbers doing pure sciences and medicine means these departments get less funding despite the unique and specialist nature of the research undertaken by these departments.
A physics graduate
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I think both employers and students alike know whether their degrees are worth anything. It is very easy to quickly sort through those from the traditionally 'good' universities and those not. The more universities there are, the more the 'G5' of good universities will simply wish to break away and become even more super elite, which can only be a good thing.
Many people here are suggesting that degrees should be more focussed toward getting a job. This is simply wrong. A degree is about enlightenment, and the continuation of subjects that should always remain in our culture as a western nation, which otherwise would not remain if career minded people were in charge.
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Sally Hunt is correct in saying the "The future of the UK...etc...
(It's 'fewer' gaduates, BTW, not 'less' - another victim of dummed down education?)
But the graduates should be world class, ie from world class universities, but we can only afford a limited number of these. To try to give 50% of the population a degree is spreading available resources too thinly, is downgrading the standing and value of a degree and is like making 50% of all soldiers an officer - not very sensible at all. The essential practical skills the country needs should come from apprenticeships, coupled with part-time theoretical studies, leading to diplomas or equivalent qualifications.
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26. At 10:19am on 09 Mar 2010, Steve Willis wrote:
"Yes scrap it. It is a ridiculous target.50% into "higher" education means, by definition degrees for all those with an IQ of 100 or over. How on earth can this be "higher" education. The best it is, is FURTHER education. "Graduates" with an IQ of 100 won't get and shouldn't think they deserve a premium salary in the job market."
Dear God..... so you think salary should be dependent on IQ? Why bother having degrees at all? You could save a fortune by just IQ testing everyone. I make cancer vaccines and earn £27,000 a year. A petrol tanker driver earns £44,000 a year. Richard Branson with his one O level is worth about 9 figures. You're worth what you can earn, not what your IQ is.
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Why does 50% of the workforce require a degree? Seems an arbitrary figure to me.
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Yes, we need fewer graduates in the likes of media studies, theology, personnel management, and all the other rubbishy non-academic subjects that allow the intellectually challenged to obtain degrees and the government to boast how well its educational policies are working, and a lot more in the worthwhile but difficult subjects like the sciences and the engineering disciplines.
But the continual dumbing down of educational standards in the schools, which has has been going on unchecked for the last half-century, will make it virtually impossible to achieve. Don't take my word for the abysmal standards of current university entrants, ask any university academic concerned with entrance selection who has been in post a few decades.
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Could we start by asking the right question please? Does the UK need need more graduates? Well that depends on what you mean? Does a road sweeper need a degree is not the same as does he want one. But Education is a business so it stands to reason that the Universities would want to import as many fee paying students as they can and the ones who pay the full whack are not the UK students- only foreign ones. Ideally the Unis do not want to see a subsidised student at all which rather puts a hole in Labour's shot locker and underpins the Tories more privelidged view point. Ergo Cash equals success=education. Just goes to show that Universities do not require brains-they require cash.
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As a student in my final year what bothers me is that there is a huge discrepancy between what my degree entails (I'm at a Top 5 UK university) compared to what would be required in the same subject at other less rigorous institutions. It's not that university is being dumbed down in general (that depends where you go) but that secondary education in terms of maths, science and so on is not up to scratch so subsequently people who wouldn't have tried to go to university years ago are now able to fulfil the requirements. But don't, whatever you do, pull me down with the types of institutions some of you are sneering at. I've worked seriously hard and am leagues beyond where secondary education left me in many respects.
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I'm currently training a graduate to assist me on a large project, much to his disgust - he seems to feel he is entitled to a higher position. He's not interested in learning anything new, he doesn't bother to retain what little he has learnt, and when he has to pick up the phone to anybody his attitude is sulky at best. He's earning about £4K more than I am. So yes, if this one is anything to go by then I'd say we need fewer of them!
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CA28
"If you think they're so easy nowadays then why don't you go try writing up one of my assignments? I'll expect a first yeah?"
And you're kind of proving the point you're opposing. Your challenge is meaningless - we don't know what your assignment is, what subject you are doing, and at what level. How do you know, and why do you assume, that your readers would find it so difficult? And how do you think you'd have managed at uni back in the 80s (when I was a student)?
Back then, only a small percentage went to uni, we certainly weren't the social élite, we just had good A-level grades in the appropriate subjects.
From what I see, there are plenty of good students today, doing worthwhile courses - but there is an awful lot of time-wasting going on.
Still, on the bright side, I have noticed that the quality of staff at our local bookshops and pubs has improved markedly in recent years....seems plenty of people are going straight from uni to a career in retail and catering.
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As a current undergraduate, I find this a pretty important subject. Yes, degrees do need to be given their value back (generally speaking), although it really juist means that getting into a 'good' university is more important than ever. However, raising tuition fees really really isn't the way to go about it - places should be awarded on merit, not wealth. Combined with the sweeping budget slashes across UK universities, this would simply cripple the HE system we have.
And more importantly, I think the UCU general secretary meant 'fewer graduates' rather than 'less graduates'. Pedantic, yes, but also correct...
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There are too many doss degrees available just to get people in to uni. What we need is to go back to university being a place of a high standard of education with a view to a career at the end of it. There is job training, but rarely leads to a career since it is more economical for employers to have a trainee, & all the associated grants, than it is for them to employ a fully qualified person. University entrance ought to be on academic merit not ability to pay.
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It is annoying to see how many of these self-serving and very selfish tories crow about too many graduates. They can always throw their degrees in the Thames. A graduate education is more than the qualification. I creates a different citizen who can do what ever they end up doing with the quality of informed approach that they would other not have. Every child with the ability must be encouraged to aspire to university education. The nation benefits by having a population of informed citizens with self-assured selfworth. How else could I have been able to see that those who vote tory are doing so in the vain hope that they can fill their pockets with il-gotten gains at the expence of the poorly informed (non-university educated) victims of clever roages who will evade their responsibilities to the community who had given them their intellectual and material assets. Christ said to the rich man ;go and give away your wealth to the poor and follow me'.
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The 50% target was always a nonsense because 50% of the jobs in the UK economy don't need graduate level skills, and 50% of the population aren't capable of (genuine) university level learning.
The economy probably needs somewhere between 5% and 10% graduates to function well. At the moment many young people 'graduate' only to end up working in call centres or as filing clerks. I used to work in a UK university and the institution would employ large numbers of it's own graduates in menial roles, and then boast about the high level of employment among its graduates! No-one seemed to recognise the aburdity of this!
Let's have the very brightest going to University, and properly funded. Then let's have a middle strand going to other institutions to do shorter, business and industry focused training courses. We could call the middle strand institutions... I don't know... how about 'Polytechnics'?
Oh... hang on a minute...
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The number of people here harping on about the type of degrees everyone should be doing - Maths, Engineering etc is staggering. I studied English at a red brick and if I were to listen to everyone on here I'd have to start believe it was worthless and that the Arts have no place in the UK. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Wordsworth all worthless. Interesting. The Arts are an enriching part of life, without poetry and music what do we become?
My Grandfather worked so hard to get the education that finally got him and his family out of the mines (only man to do it in his family and the only man who still had a job when the mines closed) and he would be incredibly disheartened to hear this general distaste for a 21st Century degree.
As for the mention of the nursing degree - I agree that it's nonsense. My mother became a nurse in the 70s as she wasn't academically qualified enough to do much else and it's a vocation she is perfect for.
I think the interesting thing here is more the vocational v academic - we need to be clearer about this. I was never brought up to believe I needed a degree or that I was somehow entitled to do one but I had the head for it so why shouldn't I have? I was and am bright enough to know that it was the voluntary work, part time jobs and student politics that got me the relevant experience for the world of work and not to tutorials, seminars and lectures on English Literature.
That said, I come across many young dancers whose parents think they should do GCSE, A Level and Degree Level Dance when what they really need to become professional is training, classes and talent.
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I am not convinced by this debate. The knowledge economy requires people that can understand, assimilate, create, and share ideas. People that can manage concepts, share them sell them, buy them, distribute them and get paid cash for them. In this age of technological and industrial sofistication, what is gained by studying anything for 3-5 valuable years. Lets face it, its out of date in that time. These days knowledge is highly packaged and commoditised. The majority of which can be earned/absorbed without graduate study and found in every library and all over the internet. Most A Level A* physics students could happily learn quantum physics without needing a degree in it to apply it.
Maybe, 25 years ago you needed a degree to have a career. But these days, I fancy you don't.
I'd suggest that these days, the rush for more graduates is completely misconceived - as evidenced by the varying levels of knowledge and know how between graduates (and this includes Oxbridgers).
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I heard it said we should concentrate on quality rather than quantity. I have always assumed this to be the golden rule in education anyway. Of course the greater the number who perform well the better but please recognize diversity in the population is the reality, and not all of us are academic by inclination.
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I am a recent university graduate and I feel the value of my (rather expensive) degree is continually being undermined by the government's push to get so many school leavers into university. While their intention to develop a highly skilled workforce is laudable that does not mean university is right or indeed appropriate for everyone or every chosen career prospect. University should be a place for people to develop academic skills which are not required for all skilled jobs. The polytechnic system was much more appropriate. If you wished to develop job skills which are not academically based you could at a poly. Many of the courses that this engorged flux of new students are taking are quite frankly ridiculous and have clearly been designed to capture a market of students being pushed into university by government but neither interested or equipped to be able to complete a more traditionally academically rigorous course.
Furthermore any plans to increase the student top up fees will most definitely make it more difficult for middle income families to send their children to university. Those who earn too much to get aid but are not from particularly well off families often end up being the poorest students and are increasingly saddled with a large amount of debt before they even reach their mid twenties. Do we really want to see a system like in America where people need to take out mortgages to afford university for their children?
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There has been some interesting points raised that has left me questioning my position.
Im studying Marketing with Sociology. I feel this is not a valued degree after reading some points here. However I think the problem with most graduates and these "mickey mouse" courses is that when we leave A levels we are not clued up wwhere we want to go or end up. Some graduates choose courses that excite them as presented by the universitites. There needs to be aducation for A level leavers about the value of certain degrees and not leaving them to go on "studying for a degree in TV".
However on the other hand degrees such as media should not be given the same status as the maths and sciences. There are some genuine candidates who would passionately read for a qualification in media, not because they want a degree but because they enjoy it.
I would like to know from the more experienced here about their views on management courses such as marketing, HR or business.
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I see here so many people stating quite blankly how "dumbed down" degrees are nowadays and I really don't understand where this is coming from. Last year I did Chemistry A-Level, half of the syllabus were subjects my dad who has a chemistry degree (Southampton) from 40 years ago covered during his first and second years. So are A Levels really hard but degrees really dumbed down? Don't be silly people.
I understand how you feel about these laughable courses like hairdressing, but do not state that all courses are being dumbed down when you simply have no proof or knowledge of this.
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The last time I checked flipping burgers didn't require a degree. But then again so many of our recent graduates are now flipping burgers, so perhaps I'm wrong.
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A typical tory will be frightened by the prospect of an educated masses having the ability to smoke them out and be shown to be motivated purely by individual greed.
'Feeding the world cannot begin until we can feed those next door'. 'Seek ye first the kingdom of god within through a thorough education' that is only possible at university. It is never too late. Take a loan if you need to. Education is priceless as it is you route to self actualisation and realisation.
No one has the right to curtail your access to self emancipation. Seek your own freedom from being fed rubbish by those you have appointed in error during ellections. Another ellection is upon us. The truely educted will be wise to vote as their intellect informs them.
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Oh what bliss it would be to interview a candidate for, say, a clerical job without the aforesaid candidate thinking that because they got a degree in dance or dusting or Hollyoaks they should be starting at the top on a fabulous salary. And if they could read fluently, write legibly and in whole sentences, even do basic maths wow! what a joy. Instead we are sending anyone and everyone (why this 50% target?) to University to keep them out of the unemployment figures and obtain useless degrees. In themselves no use and simply serve to undermine the genuine graduate who worked hard, understood what they were doing and gained a degree in engineering or maths or some other useful subject. Please save us from any more Labour induced idiocy which tries to ensure that all men are equal (but some are more equal than others!).
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Successive governments have contrived to disguise rising youth unemployment by extending the length of time young people stay in education.
The result of this is that for too long now the universities have been awarding third rate degrees to students that didn't deserve them. This surplus of meaningless qualifications has served to devalue all degrees.
18 yr old school leavers with good "A" levels should be encouraged to seek full-time employment and employers inentivided to take them on.
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It is unrealistic to push 50% of students into uni there are many bright ambitious people that choose not to go for very valid reasons and uni is no longer the golden ticket to a career. There are many other routes such as apprenticeships and employer funded degrees etc that are often better suited. I run a website called www.notgoingtouni.co.uk and I spend lots of time trying to show students that real viable alternatives exist.
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Clearly there can be too many graduates, as if everyone had a degree it would not be an advantage. Similarly if everyone had a degree the local council litter picker would have a degree!
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" 41. At 10:43am on 09 Mar 2010, MarkGE wrote:
Fewer but better graduates (more rigerous courses in academically demanding subjects) are what we need. The present system where school leavers are conned into going to university to lose three years earnings and take on huge debts, only to be left with degrees that offer them no better prospects of getting a rewarding (financially and intellectually) job is unethical in the extreme."
Very true. I also think the 50% target is linked to the high number of students who drop out.
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The concept of people needing to have 'the value of a degree' described to them is frankly insulting. I can understand that to those hiring, an increase in degree holders could amount to an extremely competitive situation involving jobs, but this does not constitute the beliefs that have been stated by the AGR. A degree is not just a piece of paper to present to employers, instead (for many) it symbolizes hard work and effort, but most of all, it is a source of pride. Whether you're 20 or 50 a degree is a marked success in your life, something to show to those you love and work for. To take away government targets, would mean a lack of a campaign to get people into the situation where they can achieve a degree. To increase top up fees would result in the same. Less people would apply for the degrees which should be open to all. Education isn't meant to be denied to anyone, yet here it seems, the AGR wishes to lesson the flow of those wanting that further education, wanting to learn. How is that any different?
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"41. At 10:43am on 09 Mar 2010, MarkGE wrote:
Fewer but better graduates (more rigerous courses in academically demanding subjects) are what we need. The present system where school leavers are conned into going to university to lose three years earnings and take on huge debts, only to be left with degrees that offer them no better prospects of getting a rewarding (financially and intellectually) job is unethical in the extreme."
Very true. I also think the 50% target is the main cause of the high number of students who drop out.
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There's not much point in having a degree if you end up doing a job that you could do without it. I'd say that more that 90% of jobs can be done without a degree. I wish there were more opportunities for graduates though.
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It is not so much about having a university degree but the extent to which the mind is developed, and continues to grow. This can be done effectively either within the walls of a univerity or out there in the "UNIVERSE/city of life!"
Having said that, the government's policy is driven by the events and education policies of the European Union member states, and indeed by countries outside the EU that constantly produce huge numbers of graduates yearly.
There are many in the UK who feel that in order for the UK to remain competitive and not lose out to foreign graduates, the %-age of UK graduates must be increased.
A poorly executed policy however will inevitably lead to the general lowering of standards.
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My son has just been rejected by 4 universities to study medicine even though he already has one A level(gained last year) and will go on to get two more at A* later this year and I am sure he is not alone. to me it is not a level playing field what with fewer places available government targets to be met it should be based purely on ability not whether you come from an inner city area or go to a grammer school or not, and at the risk of sounding controversial maybe they should have a year or two without inviting foreign students here to study on medicine because part of the huge talent pool here may never get the opportunity to study what they want.Take away some of the mickey mouse degrees and put more places on degrees such as medicine
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Neil at Post 285 writes "The UK economy cannot repair itself unless employers open their arms to the skills that we can give them. Otherwise the value of a degree will be further impaired."
As a graduate Neil you clearly didn't spend enough time on your basic economic theory. If the economy has crashed and their is an over supply of experienced workers - why does anyone need a graduate ? They can buy the qualifications plus time served experience in a downturn for less than the over inflated egos of new Graduates. Your posting demonstrates that like all Graduates you think that having got your degree business should pay you a fortune and let you loose on the world. Wrong so wrong...
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I’m with "285. At 3:30pm on 09 Mar 2010, Neil"
I left college and was told "YOU MUST GO TO UNIVERSITY" by my teachers. I graduated from University in 2008 with a Geography degree, and I am keen to use my degree and knowledge to get a job. 20 months on I am still working as a civil servant, something I did all the way through University. I now realise I was a product of Tony Blair’s dream to be super educated, but where do I go? I’m competing against tens of other graduates for jobs. Can I look abroad to the EU for a job? I can but I’m at a distinct disadvantage as I only speak English where as the majority of European graduates speak at least two languages.
I would advise an potential student, have a long think about where your degree will get you. Yes your friends are doing it, yes the social side is great, but that will not help you get a worth while job at the other end. University is not the be all and end all, it is not the ultimate goal anymore for young people.
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Currently a single small public school (St Pauls the old school of the George (oops put the decimal point in the wrong place) Osborne) with around 200 students in the exam year sends more students to the Russel Group(top universities) than the poorest 80,000 families in the country.
Before we think about cutting places we need to address the gross inequalities in educational opportunity resulting from the fee paying sector.
Remove their charitable status (which is clearly an abuse of the term charity) and ensure that VAT is charged. Unless they start letting local state schools share their facilities.
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I obtained a research degree from one of our top Universities. 20 years and two redundancies later I obtained a different (but very useful business related) post grad qualification from one of our lowest rated Universities, which has served me well. A problem? Only if you try to equate the two universities. In practice the former serves the national academic 'elite', the latter the local population with a range of courses, many night school and for 'mature' students. Both have a place. Neither need be part of a 50% target, which is totally useless and meaningless. 50% by what age and for what courses, for example?
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"Nu Labour created the monster of all young people thinking they can go to a 'uni' irrespective of their abilities. This country needs less basket weavers and more bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, etc. Leave academia to the academics."
Just continue reading the likes of this all over the net, clearly demonstrating how they attempt to defend the defensible.
Core skills have long been forgotten and we are a analogue society attempting to live in a digital society.
Students are simply work-shy and we hold a top heavy society.
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I'm sick of people rubbing student's efforts.
Kids are just smarter, how about going against what the Daily Mail told you this morning and actually use some analytical skills, oh wait you didn't because you are all so intelligent and above the common university degrees. Fact is many of the people spouting their cynicism on HYS wouldn't be able to get past the first day of a degree, yes even a degree today oh wise men or indeed women.
And please stop digging up the bad spelling from the quote provided at the start, one bad spelling isn't representative of the whole education system, people are really grasping at straws here.
Every year we have people going on the radio, on their newspaper comment sections going on and on about how harder it was back in the good old days. Hello, is common sense at home here? Take off the nostalgia goggles.
Rant over.
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Labour have not got a clue. All their policy has created is worthless degrees and a dumbed down university system. Now their policy has created a mass of young people with worthless degrees and no prospect of a job.
Typical useless labour.
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The burden of debt being carried by graduates is a disgrace. An even bigger disgrace is the New Labour policy of virtually forcing 16 year olds into at least 2, preferably 5 more years of education to keep the numbers on the dole down. Funny how the fees are paid for students in the minority areas of Wales and Scotland where Labour seats abound, the English students end up subsidising them.
Vote Mr Brown stuff out before the whole country goes further down the drain.
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Years ago when I worked for a large British company, without a degree qualification myself, PhD's were literally "ten a penny" as were many other M.A's, B.Sc's, etc.,etc. Initially all such highly qualified personnel were on a different/inflated salary scale but many languished on the promotion ladder simply because they had little ambition and/or thought that they could afford to just "coast along" and never really show much initiative. Nowadays the wider range of university degrees means that some degrees are commercially worthless unless one is heading for the teaching profession. I am often shocked by how many of today's graduates seem unable to compose a decent business letter or have any idea of basic accountancy.
What did they do at university I wonder?
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What we need are higher quality graduates, not more nor less. I receive a lot of CVs over my desk and most of the holders of degrees do not inspire confidence. Simply dishing out cheap degrees will not help our economy.
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ALL INSULTING commentators on on this subject of UK graduates should be ASHAMED?
ALL young, mature and all ages and occupations in-between, should be encouraged to enter university and/or higher education throughout life?
ALL of us should be viewing formal or informal education as a necessity, not a luxury for the few.
Conservatives will slash further education, higher education and most education opportunities unless you are wealthy enough to afford it or become an MP??
Conservatives also know that UK companies are going abroad for business who employ intelligent graduates forced to work in call-centres?
Appreciate foreign call centre employees, only know that Conservatives do not want a well-educated population in the UK?
!
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How on earth can UK citizens afford the University. BTW, does the UK government help the immigrants with their university education? I bet so, as a lot seem to be able to go. When the UK starts helping their indingent citizens, the UK might prosper a lot more.
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Having worked in a professional environment for many years I am astonished at how the quality of education itself, not specifically to degree level, has been diminishing over time. I can go back 20 years when the writing was on the wall as regards our progression through educational fads and the setting of targets and league tables.
Even my son who is hopefully going to a proper University this year feels that he is being taught how to pass exams.
Add to this the alleged dumbing down of the exams themselves then we have a large body of academically qualified people entering the real world who have difficulty in thinking their way through problems. Selection of the best from these people is difficult as the grading system seems to be top-weighted. This also is indicative at the A Level stage where attaining a University place seems almost a right rather than an achievement.
The degree 'categories' should be modernised, perhaps A to E? Marking of all exams should take into consideration use of English. I have met graduates who cannot write coherent sentences and in a job which requires report writing then this is clearly unacceptable.
There are so many graduates now that having a degree is not seen as an advantage. It should not be seen as failure by not attending University as former colleagues of mine came through the 'shop floor' route and have outperformed the newer graduates consistently.
Bring back grading at all levels of examination to filter out the capable, perhaps the top 30%, and allow them into our Universities. If funding Universities is seen as an issue then scrap the courses which seem to be there just to provide a meaningless qualification. Grade those achieving success in a manner which identifies the "best of the best" so that employers can more readily filter the wheat from the chaff.
Tuition fees are in my opinion an abomination, although perhaps a necessity in modern times. Raising them may well put poorer families in a position where a University education is discouraged, and the student fearful of the debt after (hopefully) graduating. We may then lose talent due to social grouping.
I have a daughter who after getting her degree had little interest in promotion as she would lose any advantages in repaying her loan, yet have the extra responsibilities and associated stress. Double the debt and incentives drop further.
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A degree is rarely vocational and further training is needed afterwards to get into most professions and trades. We certainly need highly skilled electricians,plumbers,mechanics,engineers and builders as well,but I do wonder where this obsession for having them obtain degrees first came from. I'd have though that a year of vocational training post 18 might do for many younger people,and when they have worked for,say,5 years, and feel they might need futher academic skills to back up their workskills,then they could study for a degree.I think the Blair government had some sort of strange notion that we were going to become a world leader as a kind of banking,service and scientific research economy and so would all need degrees. The end result of this seems to be mass immigration of tradespeople from Eastern Europe and mass unemployment of overeducated British twentysomethings.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
We need more NOT less if we are prosper as an advanced economy. Do these people who object to more graduates think that the world owes us a living well you are sadly mistaken, Luddite in attitude and global competition is only get tougher. Now I hear cries of lets rise tariff barriers and trade protection to save our industries and why do they need protection because they haven't embraced and invested in the newest technologies and process to allow them produce cheaper high quality goods and what do they need to recommend and implement these changes graduates!!
Invest invest invest more in education if you want a vibrant, world beating and competitive economy. If you don't want because of some out dated prejudice then please switch the light when the last person leaves the country or we could turn the whole country to an industrial theme park of yesteryear.
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It’s time recruiters recognised vocational routes to the professions. Vocational qualifications such as the AAT are a viable alternative to university and should be treated in the same esteem.
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Graduates! It doesnt matter now, as employers will sort the cream from the rubbish. If one has worked their socks off it will show in a interview. If one has not worked their socks off and still get a job and then the employer finds out they have made a mistake, then believe me, they might keep you where you are and give you feeble jobs to do until you leave but do not expect a good reference.
We employed 3 graduate engineers 20 years ago and unfortunately for all of their degrees there was no engineering basics in their vocabulary, in other words they were just plain useless.
This might appear to be opposite to the first paragraph, and it is.
You see every degree has its limits for a job and there must be jobs out there to suit the degree one is doing, no jobs going, then one is wasting ones time and money.
In the same breath if one has worked hard and one gets a good 2-1 then it will stand one in good stead to go on and do more education.
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Going to university never worked for me. I spent 5 year studying Electronics to get a HND. Due to the lack of manufacturing industry in UK it is hard to find a job. In those wasted 5 years I could have been earning good money in a warehouse so I lost an income of £50,000. The only people doing well in England are immigrants who are given luxury homes in London - I can't afford to live in our capital city.
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Educational qualifications do NOT guarantee ABILITY....
If you need an example of this just look at our POLITICIANS !!!
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Yes Stephen Hamblett is right there is need for more sensible subjects to taken up by Universities like Engineering,Science,Medical Degrees not what seems to be happening IT, Hair Dressers,Hospitality,Cosmetic Make over,Fashion Design,Retail and many more that should be brought into City and Guilds or the now so called National Certificate. Let us make our Universities a place for serious education. There is need for more Doctors ,Nurses,Engineers and Scientists in this Country do not let us keep importing them from abroad
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We need more high quality useful degrees in Medicine,Engineering and Science if we are to rise to the levels that will be needed in the future.
What we don't need is degrees in Media Studies,American Studies,Social Studies or Theology which don't benefit the country at all.Save the money spent of them and redirect it into the Sciences from which we will all gain benefit.
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We need more science, technology, engineering graduates. Even in these areas the numbers required are only about 10% of the workforce, the rest being skilled technical workers.
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"[The lecturers' University and College Union] general secretary Sally Hunt said: "The future for the UK is at the forefront of a high-skilled knowledge economy and we won't get there with less graduates.""
Ahem. I think Sally means 'fewer' graduates.
Good start.
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I disagree. Most employers nowadays will not even look at applicants without degrees. In fact, I recall reading an article in the Telegraph about a year back which said that 'traditional' subjects have lower employment rates than 'Mickey Mouse degrees'. Those who graduated with a degree in chemistry or in history stuggled to find employment, compared to those who did Golf Management and PE, who we able to get jobs. The reason: if you want to employ someone to run your athletic club, you would pick someone with a degree in PE than someone with a degree in mathematics, because you have to pay for the mathematics graduate's training. The same applies across the board.
People have seen the names of degrees which they snobbishly disregard, throwing about statistics (the majority of which seem to be pulled out of thin air) without ever having consulted an employer on the issue.
The UK economy is moving away from manufacturing (we just cannot compete globally anymore) and into services (which require training: whether in Law or Golf Management). It's about time the attitudes of the country caught up...
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My own experience of university in the eighties was poor and I under-performed in my degree. This didn't really affect my earnings long term but it probably resulted in many missed opportunities. Standards were slipping in then and I shudder to think how low they've gone now.
I think that we should have fewer students and fewer universities. We are wasting huge resources giving mediocre students degrees which aren't valued by employers and won't advantage the students in any way because employers will always discriminate in favour of graduates from established universities against those from the former polys.
Similarly, our best and brightest kids should receive the best educations even at the expense of the majority. It's essential for our global economic competitiveness that we produce a highly educated workforce. There's no room for fairness in international competition - just look at our performance versus countries like China, Japan and South Korea where the best and brightest are hot-housed.
Let's bring back grammar schools and ignore the whinging of the liberal left.
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I am currently an undergraduate at a well-renowned university and I am studying for a 'proper' degree in Psychology. So why did I apply to university?
1. I wish to become a good primary school teacher. To train as a teacher on a reputable course, I must have a decent degree.
2. My degree modules will/ should help me when I qualify as a teacher.
3. Most of the content of my degree is of a lot of interest to me and to my career aspirations. I cover linguistics, neuroscience, and child development.
4. My course is a sandwich course, only offered at select institutions. This means I will go on placement for my third year, and will give me a whole year's experience in the middle of my degree.
However, my time at university has been pretty miserable so far. I worked my backside off to get here, achieving very high A level grades. Also, whilst I understand that I cannot expect a completely free higher education, I am getting myself in a ridiculous amount of debt whilst our vice-chancellor sits on a six-figure salary.
One of the best things that will come out of my university experience is learning to fend for myself, and the experience I will gain from my professional placement year. Perhaps more universities should run sandwich courses, giving undergraduates the chance of proper work experience rather than just churning out thousands of degrees.
As for the debt and unhappiness I've had, I still wonder whether it has been worth it.
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Of course fewer graduates makes more sense. Just like too many cooks spoil the broth so too does too many folk without any real intellectual ability hamper the progress of those who were born with real intellectual ability. We need to start looking after our gifted children rather than letting them become disillusioned by too much dumbing down.
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We need more good graduates doing proper academic subjects (maths, physics, chemistry, engineering and the like) and less doing Mickey Mouse, non-academic degrees like Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford. Noone who's done a doss subject like that could be much good at anything.
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I finished uni in the summer of 2006, nearly four years later my annual salary only just meets the level of my student debt, I don't have a particulalry good job and struggle to make ends meet. It took me six months to find a low paid admin job when I finished uni and that was when the enconomy was goof and unemployment levels were fairly low. I am 27 and don't think I will ever put my degree to good use or find a good job that I am happy with. Going to University is my biggest regret.
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Try doing a five year apprenticeship and find out just how hard real life can be. The loss of British tradesmen has proven that experience is more valuable then some mickey mouse degree.
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As a recent graduate I personally feel let down by the educational system. Having spent years being funneled into university by secondary school being told it was the best possible option for my future. I have recently come out of education with an upper second class degree in biomedical science to find it is almost worthless without relevant experience (which I attempted to gain even through voluntary work following my degree to which I heard no reply from numerous letters posted). Aside from part time jobs during summer etc i obviously lack any experience in almost every field, being in full time education for the duration of my adult life. I am now looking at gaining vocational qualifications which I am told I will struggle to get funding for as I already hold a degree. Why was there almost no emphasis placed on vocational qualifications during secondary school? I am £16,000+ in debt, lack experience in almost all vocations and no possible further educational experiences in sight.
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"285. At 3:30pm on 09 Mar 2010, Neil wrote:
I graduated last year and I am slowly realising the reality of being a graduate in this frail, disastrous UK economy. Brown talked about more opportunities for young people to obtain degrees, and the benefits of that - however sadly, I have yet to reap any benefit from my hard work, debt and frustration.
The problem is that I feel the job market is diminishing with a crushing influx of graduates like me competing for the same jobs. The UK economy is still far from a solid recovery, to support huge numbers of graduates like myself. The UK economy cannot repair itself unless employers open their arms to the skills that we can give them. Otherwise the value of a degree will be further impaired."
This is what no-one ever tells you, Neil.
IT. NEVER. STOPS.
The need to push boundaries, challenge yourself and continue being open-minded simply germinates at university. You don't simply join a queue for a job as soon as you graduate and stop thinking!
A good degree can open doors but you still have to walk through them. And continue walking through, throughout your life and career. I'm 31 now and I'm still applying the techniques that I learned at university to my life and profession. It's the hard work and application that moves things forward, not a qualification that becomes increasingly and exponentially irrelevant two or three years after you've gained it.
My old man told me when I was 18 (and off to university) and again at 21 when I graduated: "Two things to stand by in life. First, however hard you think you're going to have to work for something, you'll always end up having to work three times as hard to get where you want. And second, no-one ever, ever, EVER gives you anything for free."
Good lessons for life, I always thought.
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We are suffering from job inflation, more and more qualifications required for the same job. I started studying for an accountancy qualification with a couple of A levels, shortly afterwards entry required a degree. All this meant was people started at 21 where I started at 18, in no way were they better prepared for the grind of studying while holding down a job. In practice I had to learn continuously as time went by and technology and job requirements changed. I believe this is the reality of the modern job market, whatever you learn will become progressively outdated and the real requirement is not a mass of graduates but an efficient system of continuous learning.
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I think the entry requirements to obtain a place on a degree course should reflect the ability required to complete the course.
For example, I did an Adult Nursing degree and when I applied (in 2005) you did not even need any higher grades (A-levels) to get on the course. The entry requirements were 5 standard grades (GCSEs). Needless to say, many people who were not capable of completing a degree level course obtained places and subsequently the drop out rate was ridiculous. If memory serves me correctly, the class initially consisted of approximately 150 students and only 30 of us graduated with a degree. What's the point in making access to university easy if many people who start the course are not capable of completing it? Without being rude, it was easy to spot the people who would drop out or be kicked off so why continue to let them on the course? I know someone who has just started the course that I did and I am about 95% sure that she won't finish it. Maybe for the nursing and midwifery courses, it's the appeal of a student bursary?
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As a recent graduate from two red brick universities - BA and MA - i frankly find it highly insulting to hear my education being diminished in such a calous manner as has been (certainly in the earlier posts here - sadly i don't have time to read through them all...)here. Having spent 5 years working incredibly hard, including 12 months of full time study and full time employment to support myself, i have achieved a great deal going through the state school system in the UK. This is no small part thanks to the semi-socialist system within which we live, which has contributed to my annual fees for the first three years, provided me with a student loan and ensured that my state provided education at secondary school was to a good enough standard to get me onto one of the top 10 Literature courses in the UK - no private education or middle class back ground required thank you very much!!
Far from de-valuing the system, the increase in universities and choice of subjects to study encourages those from a less privileged background or with less academic ability to enthusiastically pursue an education and most probably improve their chances of earning a "middle class" wage once graduated, even if their degree was in "mickey mouse studies" from the "university of walt disney".
The completion of even such a degree as this proves an individuals ability and willingness to learn and to improve, and regardless of the subject matter such ability and enthusiasm is entirely transferable to the work place and - one would hope - be a desirable trait for prospective employers. Yes, perhaps it is true that graduates of such degrees might not expect to be sitting in the prime ministers chair any time soon (although never say never, we all know what John Major's former occupation was...) they can at least point to their achievements academically and hope this earns them their rightfully earned stable and decently paid job.
Even with a Distinction and 2:1 Hons under my belt, i find myself working freelance as a Business Manager in the civil service, filling interim posts, due to the lack of jobs for graduates during such tough economic times. Nevertheless i was able to "scrape" enough learning from my years at university to transfer my communications, analytical and writing skills to a job in IT procurement! One thing my education has most certainly taught me is to be dynamic, and to adapt to changing environments.
For the older generations of this country to begin to belittle the system through a lack of understanding, having been through tougher times, it only serves to devalue the worth of any such education. The point of league tables and the varying standards demanded of students from differing universities simply proves that we have an incredibly diverse and well equipped university system serving a variety of students and providing them with a foundation for their future.
Pushing the elitist agenda as i have read above proves a very sorry understanding of the contemporaneous diversity of UK society.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
As an employer we desperately need qualifed engineers and they are like hens' teeth. The same is true of qualified accountants and IT professionals. It is ludicrous to persist in this plan to have 50% of school leavers going to university. All that will happen is that 50% of the youth of today will be saddled with debt as soon as they finish education.
It seems to me it would be better to have a percentage target of those finishing university - no-one mentions the success rate. There should also be scaled funding based on the value or demand of the degree. eg engineering degree gets 100% funding whereas a degree in archeology or media studies gets no funding.
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My eldest daughter has an 'ology. It took her two years to get a job in an office in the same university. She's quite bright but with only a trace of common sense. Often the way. There are far too many nebulous arty farty degrees which have no bearing on anything.
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Good old Labour. Change the Polytechnics to Universities and the qualificatioins that the Polytechnics give into degreee and bingo lots of degree students. But what have we really? Just non universities that do not do the job they were opened to do. They should go back to taking Aprentices for 2/3 days a week during their training by and industrial company that actually pays their fees and than makes the necessary employment opportunities for the graduate. Labour could not organise a drink party in a brewery and it shows.
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There is always a demand for graduates in 'hard' subjects such as physics or engineering as well as doctors, pharmacists, teachers etc. Hopefully a number of other degrees are also vocational. The use of arts degrees has always been questionable because there are only so many academic posts although there is always the PGCE and teaching. I believe that some 'degrees' should be made more vocational but not be called degrees.
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Our top UK Universities are simply whoring themselves to rich customers (yes, that is a better term for them than 'students') from the Far East.
Take a walk through any of the London College campus and you will see clearly that Asian students are the majority.
Non-EU undergraduates pay a minimum £10k PA for a degree here and when compared to the 2k-3K taken per home student, it is clear which of the two types of customer is most profitable.
The truth is that the UK and other European countries NEED more skilled graduates, especially in Engineering related disciplines. Selling our limited places to foreigners does nothing to fill the skills shortage whilst predestining school leavers to a life of low pay, worry and misery caused by the lack of a recognised degree. NOTHING compares to a good degree - all other diplomas and training schemes simply pale into insignificance when compared to it. And anyone 'working their way up' in any company now will soon hit the proverbial glass ceiling.
We need to encourage more of our young to get degrees and to stop auctioning off our nation's future to the highest foreign bidder.
PhD.
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Of course we need more graduates. The more highly educated the workforce the better. Some of the comments on here only go to show what a miserable anti education bunch of whingers we have become, perhaps a decent education would help. An as for more entrants to Uni being to ploy to reduce unemployment figures - Uni or dole ? I don't think thats a binary choice is it. Some people need to get a life.
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There are two further problems: firstly, the offshoring of graduate jobs, which the government further supports via the current legislation on so called Highly Skilled Migrants: Secondly, the grade inflation has devalued the qualifications of the older generation, since junior HR staff automatically equate not having a top degree in their terms, whereas today half the people who get firsts wouldn't ever have gone to university.
But lets not think we are unique in this - many countries are producing more graduates than before, but they are in real subjects. The quality is of course still lower, but the cheaper economies can solve this with more staff...
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Hello people.
My comments keep being vetoed but I will nonetheless keep trying to post whilst I discover the political vagaries of the moderators.
Education is at an all-time low in this country and is in danger of being further driven down by those who believe that education means giving every Tom, Dick or Harriet who turns up for their three years of work-avoidance a degree.
A piece of paper now so devalued that those employers who take on graduates fully expect to have to teach their new employees how to read, write and count.
Set the top universities free from political interference to strive for academic excellence and return the rest to their polytechnic status where people can go and study fashion marketing skills, football and suchlike.
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Knowledge is power and education is the key to end poverty and crime!
The UK has a very poor self image when it comes to education and qualifications. We are lagging behind the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand when it comes to taking care of the next Generation. Where are the sports scholarships that marry athletics with education? Why are kids at 16 leaving school when the average Canadian receives education until he/she is at least 22? For example: We should not let people enter uniformed services without at least a community college diploma. If I might be a little cynical, the elitist wealthy control everything of any worth on this tiny rock, and UK society knows the odds of a good education won't matter much anyways. Things have to change. One has to admit, the Americans lead by example! England should sit-up and take note. Knowledge is power and that's the difference between the US and the UK!
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"The future for the UK is at the forefront of a high-skilled knowledge economy and we won't get there with less graduates." So wrote one of your correspondents. If this is the standard of education being churned out today, then there is no hope for us. It should, of course, be FEWER graduates.
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What we really need is far less silly and superficial courses but hej!this helps to keep the unemployment figures down!!
Not only do we not need further education paid for by the tax payer for over thirties but also a serious culling of those under thirty.
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"Degrees are now so dummed down..."
Genius.
I graduated 20 years ago, from a small college affiliated to a university, with a degree in combined studies. Coming from a poor background, I received a full grant and full tuition fees; an entirely free higher education. And it was a complete waste. Whenever I've mentioned that I have a degree, the response I usually get is, "What are you doing THIS job for then?"
Prior to going to university, I had 3 part-time jobs and earned more than I would on a YTS scheme. As soon as I became a student, I totally embraced the slacker lifestyle. I would have been far better off going to a technical college with my A-levels, and I'd probably be doing something now that I genuinely enjoy and getting paid a whole lot more for it.
In short, higher education is wasted on those who aren't focused and dedicated enough to get something from it. And it's inculcating the debt culture in people too young to realise its ramifications.
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AGRs chief executive Carl Gilleard will soon be looking for another job. This goverment does not like people with common sence. Of course he is correct in saying too many are at uni.The top 20% should go & for free. Thay will soon pay this back in tax at 40% when thay begin work.
The problem is educating at secondrey modern to get thair pupels in that 20% Bring back grammer schools to advance the bright ones & leve the likes of me to the tecnical collage for a trade.
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To all those who say there are too many students, who are you, or anyone else for that matter, to decide who can go to university and who can't? People moan about social engineering but it works both ways. Surely by limiting university places, that is just bigotry and social engineering of the worst kind? What's wrong with people trying to better themselves, wouldn't that be of benefit to the nation?
Still, you have to have something to moan at don't you? First it was students lying around all day doing nothing, then moaning over student grants, "Why don't they get a job and why should I pay tax to help them study?" etc. Now the blame game has moved on to the dilution of degrees and social engineering. Perhaps you should look at yourself and examine your own short-comings instead of dispairing over people who have the gumption and mind to try and improve themselves.
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Actually offer courses that will give somebody the best possible skills for employment and give the country the workforce it requires to be competitive and a world leader. Unfortunately far too many places seem to offer courses that offer little to prospective employers.
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There's nothing wrong with further education - it's a good idea, in fact. We don't need to call all the institutions 'university' though, nor do we need to call all the qualifications 'degrees'.
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You could say that 50% is just an academic figure.
As for people claiming "kids are smarter" and an english graduate agreeing that a nursing degree is "ridiculous", I'm sorry, I can't stop laughing.
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Stop sneering and sniping at media studies!! Why do people hate it so much? It relates to a collection of mega-buck hi-tech, creative industries which increasingly dominate and even define our culture. It clearly has a unique vocational and cultural importance. Stuffy literature and fine art courses are much less relevant and probably easier.
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We have ample thinkers now we need some doers who don't consider getting their hands dirty a weekend hobby
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The lecturers' University and College Union said it was disappointed by the recommendations. Its general secretary Sally Hunt said: "The future for the UK is at the forefront of a high-skilled knowledge economy and we won't get there with less graduates."
Please assure us that Sally's subject is not supposed to be English.
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I've heard of some colleges doing University courses, probably in the same way that some secondary schools do A level courses. It would be an idea to advertise these a bit more so people can take advantage of them. If I can do a university degree at college it could save me a lot of money, which could be spent on a gap year.
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I undertook an Honours Degree in Electronics at LMU my background prior to this was a Trade Electrician and Maintenance Engineer. I had reached as far as I could go with a "mere" trade background yet often I knew more than the Project Engineer. But try as I might I could not go any further, not without that magical bit of paper that said B.Eng Hons. To be blunt attending University for me was a 3 year paid holiday thanks to the generous grant I received (our intake was the last one to get full grants). Not only that but the few hours I actually had to attend each week allowed me to hold down a near full time job, and all Tax free thanks to my Student status, it just needed some creative book keeping to reduce the tax take and I was quids in.
As for the Degree itself, well I have one, but do I need it? The answer is only in as much as I can stick it on my CV and flout it at interviews along with my City and Guilds certificates.
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'Never mind the quality feel the width'
Bottom line is we don't need all of these graduates.Sadly so many think that obtaining a degree is all that is needed to get and keep a well paid job.Well I've got news for graduates gaining the degree is only the start.
I want to see commitment,hardwork,enthusiasm,initiative,responsability and flexibility in addition to the modern 'fiddle it where I can' degree .
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The strategy for HE definitely needs a re-think. The 50% target is unrealistic and could only be achieed with massive dumbing-down.
The government needs to prioritise ce