Looks like my lad is going to Leeds to study History.
Oxford didn't want him.
Liverpool is his second choice. Liverpool Hope was 3rd, but they wanted higher grades than University of Liverpool.
Daughter at Manchester. Enjoys it there, but she is teetotal. Son? Liverpool, doing maths. Sends us images of mini riots outside his house in Toxteth, with up to five Police cars in attendance. Endless people at their door, all hours, off their heads. A woman was shot twice a stroll away. Was in an Uber that got written off. Was at a rave last night. Oh, this all happened in the past week, and is only the stuff what he considers tame enough to tell us about. He loves the nights. Can't tell us about, you know Uni, or the city during the day. We don't think he has been to uni much over the past year.
Oh, this all happened in the past week, and is only the stuff what he considers tame enough to tell us about.
Unrelated to the original question but my sister was at Liverpool probably 15 years ago and she had plenty of similar stories. One of the student houses she was in had a cupboard optimistically "converted" into an en-suite shower in order to double the rent. The house opposite was a regular target for the early-morning police door knock.
Her boyfriend's house was burgled by the landlord. Turned out he had several properties and they all got done in the space of a week and the police connected it all; basically the landlord would scope out what all his new tenants had then send the heavies in to nick it all.
Charming place. Can't imagine how it got the reputation it has.
Looks like my lad is going to Leeds to study History.
Oxford didn't want him.
I went to Leeds. Oxford didn't want me. I never regretted it!
EpicJnr in his 1st year at Leeds, international relations. Having a ball. Bunch of mates up this weekend for otley Run round 2.
Leeds seems to be a great city to be a student, can't yet comment on academic excellence, still sorting that transition
School of hard knocks followed by the university of life. That'll teach them everything they need to know; how to scribble misspelled placards about "protecing are kidz" and protesting outside asylum hotels.
Waiting on Durham, offers include Lancaster and Aston, business/entrepreneurship type thing. Needs to pull finger out in the next couple of months judging by mocks grades….
Eldest is at Birmingham, shared house in Smelly Oak this year (so called because of the bin strike).
Thump is at Strathclyde, in his second year of Prosthetics and Orthotics. Loves the course and the uni.
Occasionally communicates via an Instagram reel.
Thud is looking at Glasgow City College for Architecture.
Daughter wasn't super academically, but good enough to get a place at Uni - was going to Lincoln.
Took a gap year that turned into two and never went in the end. Not a bad thing as it wasn't an amazing course and she was going through a bit of a wild phase.
Had various 'temporary' jobs, travelled South East Asia for 6 months, moved to Manchester, got a job in digital marketing, smashed all the records in the first 6 months.
Got itchy feet and has gone to Oz for two years with a view to staying. Was going to travel, but has settled in Sydney for now and has bagged a job as a Digital Marketing Account Manager at a multinational - $80k AUD plus unlimited commission. Been there a week and loving it - dogs in the office, pub lunches, fully stocked beer fridge to help yourself to, afternoon cheese boards, Friday buffet breakfast, they even got the wine out at 4pm the other day - fortunately she's not drinking much ATM 🤣
So, TLDR - no student debt, or left wing indoctrination and living her best life it seems. She's 25 now
We live in Leeds, its a great uni town.
My two went to Edinburgh (fab also) and York (gorgeous city).
My son looked at Liverpool (maths) and didn’t take to it.
Durham is fab but really is full of people who REALLY wanted Oxbridge but didn’t quite get an offer. Very heavy public school %age of students.
Northumberland and Newcastle are also good unis.
dogs in the office, pub lunches, fully stocked beer fridge to help yourself to, afternoon cheese boards, Friday buffet breakfast, they even got the wine out at 4pm the other day
Nightmare! I felt more at home in a place where I went running or swimming with colleagues in the lunch break, the comapny sponsored a local sports club and drinks were served a couple of times a year after hours. Thank **** I never went with a girlfriend when she moved to Oz. 🙂
The left-wing indoctrination thing is a laugh given the thriving young conservative groups and far right nut jobs in unis. In economics there was just one openly left-wing lecturer who taught on Basque cooperatives, labour economics, social hostory etc., the rest were right/far right liberal free market capitalists. Thing is us lefties turned up to all the right wing propaganda lectures but the faschos didn't turn up to many lefty lectures and none to the last lecture, just two of us present. When I opened the exam paper I was very pleased to have been to that last lecture.
However we managed to point junior at the most notoriously left wing uni on the planet - Science Po Paris. 🙂 and if that wasn't enough Berlin for Erasmus.
At 28 he's a ski instructor and DJ-producer. Techno rave heads might have seen him in Manchester last weekend. It took six months in a start up for him to rationalise the experience in terms of everything he learned in life and at Science Po and get fired. It's not just what you learn at uni, it's who you meet and the things you do with them: Mongol rally, various sporting challenges between unis, Erasmus, visiting mates in their homes around the planet, bands to play in... .
Daughter at Man Met doing MSc in Digital Animation (involves traditional animation too). Son had a number of IT jobs, but due to ADHD, couldn't settle into office work. Blitzed his HGV driving lessons and test back in August (somewhat benefited from many hours on Euro Trucker simulation game over the years), and is a HGV driver. Well paid and loves the night shift. Works 3 long nights a week.
My daughter is going to do midwifery and has unconditional offers for Robert Gordon and Napier. She's veering towards Napier as Robert Gordon would require a car for placements. And Napier is close enough to home she could stay at home if she wanted to save some money but she's keen to do halls in 1st year. She was thinking medicine but a year ago she had a blood clot which meant nearly two weeks in hospital and missed a lot of school. It also gave her a chance to quiz her doctors and she came to the conclusion that there were too many downsides to medicine. And she gets a bursary to do midwifery. She's done volunteering and work experience in the maternity wards and really enjoyed it, so we're really happy for her.
My son is nearly finished Sports Science at Edinburgh university. He's a bit fed up now, had enough of essays and just wants to work. He's got back into biking in the last year and wants to do more of that.
Daughter finished Warwick last summer, very much a campus experience so different to the cities being generally discussed above. Struggling to find a job in the industry now, wants to go into theatre production, meanwhile working in hospitality so at least earning a decent enough wage and living at home so cash rich although quite down from time to time at just what arseholes the general public can be.
Son in comparison is in first year at a London drama school associated to City St George's, so in halls in Farringdon, St Paul's Cathedral at the end of his road, and although not a huge nightlifer (and 35 hours a week of mainly physical classes is hard work if you did try to burn both ends of the candle) is just enjoying the experience. But ****, living in London is expensive!
My kid started at Surrey uni ( because he wanted to keep his debt down and still live at home)....1st in the family.. doing mechanical engineering, still in his 1st year, loving it...but he said it's well hard, so far 50 people have dropped out, im not surprised his maths look like something you see on 'Big Bang Theory '
Durham is fab but really is full of people who REALLY wanted Oxbridge but didn’t quite get an offer. Very heavy public school %age of students.
Gawd yes. I recall going to the open day decades ago and almost every single answer to my questions was either prefixed or suffixed by
At Oxford and Cambridge they do .... We do....
You could tell how achingly they wanted to be part of OxDurBridge setup.
'Sending'...is is not a case or where your cherubs are choosing (and being accepted to) rather than you sending them?
I've probably missed a STW 'in' joke?
Daughter: Final year Product Design at Glasgow School of Art.
Son: 1st year Physics at Glasgow Uni.
I've probably missed a STW 'in' joke?
Nah, it's a thread of middle class bragging.
Took my youngest to an 'offer holder day' at Buckingham New University for her Fine Art course yesterday. A great example of the mess our university sector is in. The girl showing us round the hilariously overpriced dorms was like half the country doing her barista training in Psychology and Criminology and the rest of the room meat were doing equally unemployable options whilst racking up eye watering debt and financing the local slum landlords Mercedes G wagons.
I'll be doing my utmost to ensure she goes somewhere else and does something else
Nah, it's a thread of middle class bragging.
Indeed. I'll have my man drop him at the station with his trunk. We'll have him back in time for The Season.
I'll be doing my utmost to ensure she goes somewhere else and does something else
Yes, heaven forbid that we educate anyone about art.
EpicJnr in his 1st year at Leeds, international relations
He's picked a fine time to start a course in that... Is there a module on 'How not to do it?'
Neither of us as parents guided either child as what to do or where to go. WTF do we know, as neither of us went to uni. Daughter was a product of the covid system, when Uni visits were not a thing, so picked somewhere entirely at random and a course that surprised all of us, even herself and her teachers. Son looked at how daughter had coped, or rather hadn't as in 2021 the system was crap, and figured it was all much of a muchness, so just go to the most nuts city he could think of. He wasn't fussed what he did, as long as he could basically cheat his way through and engage as little as possible with the learning bit. Meant anything where you had to produce stuff in volume was out. Daughter started in Keele, ended up in Manchester as the department moved there, and she hated Stoke.
Daughter has accepted a place at Plymouth to do Maritime Business. She wanted something business based but with clear career options. Looks a rather good choice.
Buckingham New University ... A great example of the mess our university sector is in
Buckinghamshire New University? I'd not heard of it!
Not the University of Buckingham, then. It's an odd one, being a private ('independent') university.
For millions of people over the years, uni has been a stop gap, where people went whilst they grew up (emotionally and intellectually) and got a better idea of who they were and what they wanted to do with their lives. Obviously, there are plenty of vocationally based degrees where the specific learning and qualification unlocks the next stage, but a lot are more are about learning about thinking (with a side serving of living away from home, getting drunk and fraternising with the gender of your choice). The corelation between people who appreciate that life/views/events/politics are rarely simple black and white and those with graduate level education is high. I'm not sure how much of that comes specifically from the learning or how much from the whole experience.
However - given the cost and the long term impact of paying it back, there has to be another way.
It would be really interesting to have the thoughts of people who work in a position where they employ early 20s graduates regularly. If they had say £15-20k, plus anything you earned along the way, could they 'design' an alternative 3 or 4 year 'education' that might be just as attractive to an employer and not disadvantage you over someone what has a degree in whataboutery from the University of Blaaa. It sort of had degree level 'equivalence' in term of readying yourself for a proper job. Not necessarily the same skills and experience, but equivalent levels of employability for a job that didn't need a specific vocational degree level of learning. It also gave you the same opportunity to grow up and get some hedonism out of your system.
My take might look something like:-
- Work a holiday season (ski or summer) - often levels of responsibility you'd not get that early elsewhere, often teamwork and working with the public, a chance to get some serious partying in away from home.
- Doing some travelling - hopefully more that flop and drop on a well-trodden path. Hopefully some work, something to broaden your cultural awareness. Something seriously out of your comfort zone.
- Do some volunteering - something you are passionate about. An opportunity to see different lives maybe not as 'comfortable' as your own. Again, working with people, empathy and responsibility.
- Do a bunch of jobs. Short term, low paid - it's all good. Factories, care work, hospitality, office based. Point is not about starting a career or earning a fortune, it's about a better understanding of the world you want to be in, the value of money (how hard earning a pint's worth of money is) and how to work with people.
- Do some learning - it could be online (modules from the OU), it could be short term in person courses, could be a collection of MOOCs. It could be related to an industry of you were thinking of going that way.
- Do some reading - widen your horizons. Do it because you can, not because you've been told to.
I reckon there is a wrapper that could be put around it as some sort of 'diploma in life'. A bit like DofE Gold recognises a wide range of experiences. You find a mentor and create a portfolio of experiences over a few years that you can use as your alternative to a degree on a CV.
It would be really interesting to have the thoughts of people who work in a position where they employ early 20s regularly and most are grads.
In my previous life I was hiring grads into technical roles and my first thought is "thank god I didn't have to compete against them when I was job hunting", because the level now is way higher than I reached back in the mists of time. My uni career was somewhat as you describe above "where people went whilst they grew up (emotionally and intellectually) and got a better idea of who they were" - you may say it's a pity I didn't finish the process. The people I hired had a strong education in a specialist area, which sometimes was directly related to the job, and sometimes was related to some field where the skills could be transferred. The salad of experiences and courses that you describe would not have cut it. Maybe it would work in a different environment.
. Son ... figured it was all much of a muchness, so just go to the most nuts city he could think of.
Don't leave us hanging... where, pray tell.
Binnerette number 2 has opted to stay at home and go to uni in Manchester to study occupational therapy. Her choice, but I can’t say I’m not relived to not be finding the money for rent every month I’ve been shelling out for Binnerette number, 1. She’s presently buried in her dissertation etc in English at York. She’s absolutely loved it in York and is on for a first.
Oh, this all happened in the past week, and is only the stuff what he considers tame enough to tell us about.
That sounds exactly like my time at Salford Uni, living in Salford 6, if you chuck in the joyriders ragging stolen cars up and down the road all night, which would then be burnt out on the park at the end of the road in the morning. That and the comings and goings all night at the knocking shop a few doors down.
I remember waking up one morning and opening the curtains to what looked like a glorious sunrise. Turns out it was a transit van on fire, right outside the front window, that had just been torched! I bloody loved it, living there. Never a dull moment 🤣
Son #2 is in his second year at UBC in Vancouver. Dual nationality courtesy of his mum means he’s treated as a domestic student. He’s studying Astrophysics and has an exam every week this term but is enjoying a very different experience to his mates in the UK
Daughter currently in her first year doing Natural Science at Lancaster, and loving it. Failed at the last hurdle (pooling) at Cambridge, and no regrets, think Lancaster was a better fit for her.
(Son did get into Cambridge by choosing a niche subject - music - and benefitting from Covid A level grading. It worked out fine for him)
Liverpool for son. Lives in Toxteth. Second year now. Luckily for his final year he is moving to a more sensible area. Toxteth again!
study History.
Money well spent? What line of work does that set you up for?
or left wing indoctrination
Think this statement says more about you and your prejudices than it does about university.
And she gets a bursary to do midwifery.
And so she should.... Courses that benefit the public good and not ones bank balance should be paid for by the state..... Potential teachers, nurses, doctors et el should be encouraged with zero fee courses.... Or at least zero student loan payments if they work within their studied sphere.
so in halls in Farringdon
Fabric just round the corner then.... Shame it wasn't twenty years ago when Turnmills was still a thing.
For millions of people over the years, uni has been a stop gap, where people went whilst they grew up
Wasn't that the point of a gap year (aka bumming around Asia or Australia around with a backpack)? I wasn't sure what I wanted to do aged 18 so buggered off to Oz for a year. Done a surprising amount of growing up in a year (even more surprising if you know me.... Imagine what I was like aged 18!) and came back with a better understanding of how the world works, my place in it and people skills. Having done a variety of jobs - some shitty, some really shitty and some not so - I had a better idea of what I wanted to do with myself. Time well spent. Darn sight cheaper than three years of study, too.
Seeing friends that went to uni, many of them are not in a better situation than I am. Several swapped their suits and fancy pens for a good in the trade and are much happier than before.
Mate who is doing the "best" financially and seems the most grounded amongst my old cohort shunned the idea of going to college to do A-levels and went straight to the city. Crap starting salary (but realistically not worse than you'd get nowadays with a degree), but by the time we finished our A-levels he was on his way to buying a house (TBF, this was ~2002). Three or four years later when others were starting uni he was earning nigh on six figures. Works up in Lloyds of London.
work in a different environment.
Think the major problem is that everyone is competing for the same jobs where the employer has now come to expect some level of higher education regardless of whether it's actually relevant to the job.
The majority of folks I know who studied are doing jobs that have nothing do to do with their degree course and could easily have been taught on the job. The expectation/idea that you'll only get a job if you've studied is bullshit and not really necessary.
I would rather employ someone who had a genuine interest in the job than someone who needs the job because they're financially broken after three or four years at university.
Son1. Four years at southampton studying geography and geology, finishing with an MRes in Geophysics. Would recommend Southampton as a place to study to anyone. Covid then an MSc at Bristol in volcanology. Nice city but living costs were ruinous compared with Southampton. Now finishing a PhD in Dublin (also ruinous but he is EU funded on a proper salary). Has 80k student debt that will never get paid back.
Son2. Worked at Heathrow for two years as his friends all headed straight to Uni. Then went to IT Carlow to study a BSc in Pilot Studies. Provincial Irish town and small campus. Met his partner, before two years flight training in Spain. Also ruinous (the practicals!). But walked into a job with EasyJet and is now set up. Will also never repay the debt.
If asked for a recommendation, I’d say Southampton is a great place to live and study. This from a seven year student in London, two-year post doc at Sussex and a five-year Senior Fellowship at Oxford.
What line of work does that set you up for?
Indulge your passion, wouldn't the world be a boring place without knowing about our history 🤔
If you want to be instrumental about a degree take a look at where history graduates can end up working, personally I reckon if you're going to pay for a degree you might as well do something you're actually interested in!
There's the rest of your working life to be bored so spending three years doing something interesting seems like time well spent to me and who knows it might lead to a more interesting career than some tedious 'applied ' subject like accountancy or business studies 😳
History is likened to maths with words. Logical thought processing, source data summaries. Solid civil service training. As per Son2’s best friend who read history.
Not Kent - yeek, outbreak of meningitis with symptoms easily confused with a hangover!
Son finishing Mech Engineering at Southampton this year. Really hard course but that's the point. Seems a good place to be a student.
History is likened to maths with words. Logical thought processing, source data summaries. Solid civil service training. As per Son2’s best friend who read history.
IIRC the most prized degree for work in the big consultancy firms when i was at Uni was Philosophy. I played football with a mate who was top of his year, read Sartre in French to better understand it, then went he left uni went on to run an insurance brokers for years.
... just looked him up and it seems he was found guilty of squillions of pounds of fraud a couple of years ago. He was a good right-back though.
Courses that benefit the public good and not ones bank balance should be paid for by the state..... Potential teachers, nurses, doctors et el should be encouraged with zero fee courses
That would be nice. As it is they aren't even assured of a job at the end of it.
Students who did degrees in health care alligned professions like nursing, audiology, physio etc used to get bursarys now they don't I wonder which government did that?
Courses that benefit the public good and not ones bank balance should be paid for by the state..... Potential teachers, nurses, doctors et el should be encouraged with zero fee courses
Ok what about the scientists who create and test the drugs that the docs file out?
Ok what about the scientists
They get much better renumeration than an NHS nurse or doctor.
I know a few scientists working for Roche and Sandoz (both with massive works just south of Munich). They get very well paid.
Mine is in her first year at Manchester Met
It seems to be a very expensive way for them to learn about modern society and independent living.
She's studying Marketing and the amount of time she's actually in lessons seems minimal. The uni and accommodation folk seem to be doing very well out of all this but it does feel like she's at uni simply to reduce the chances of her ending up working in a zero hours type job.
I would rather employ someone who had a genuine interest in the job than someone who needs the job because they're financially broken after three or four years at university.
Any young person living in their "own place", which they are paying for, is financially broken. First jobs don't pay the rent (where the work is). Discounting a worker because they badly need money to get by day to day is excluding anyone without rich parents, or family in your area they can stay with. Genuine interest in the job is always highly desirable though (for the employee even more than the employer).
doing her barista training in Psychology and Criminology and the rest of the room meat were doing equally unemployable options
Don’t see why psychology and criminology is going to result in being unemployed / selling coffee? In a country with prisons bursting at the seams you’d expect far more opportunities than in a lot of courses.
I'll be doing my utmost to ensure she goes somewhere else and does something else
I’d strongly encourage you not do put her off studying something she is genuinely interested in or passionate about. 3+ yrs doing a subject you are doing because it makes dad happy is a grim experience - all the more if you knew what you wanted to do.
On one hand I get the studying pointless degrees argument - but that is assuming that a degree is teaching you direct job knowledge, mostly it’s teaching you skills and approaches to life/problems/people/understanding/communication/independence etc. if your daughter has the skills, patience, temperament and interest to get into a Fine Art degree that’s something worth nurturing not pissing on and telling to find a “proper” job.
as a (one time) scientist I’d dispute that! There are points in their career paths where the graphs of earning for doctor, nurse, scientist cross but in terms of lifetime earnings the average full time doctor will earn more than the others, and then retire on more too.Ok what about the scientists
They get much better renumeration than an NHS nurse or doctor.
I know a few scientists working for Roche and Sandoz (both with massive works just south of Munich). They get very well paid.
The solution seems obvious to me that employers (whether public sector or private sector) should be paying for the training that they required as prerequisites for their employees. (they might say “we already do - 15% of their salaries for life”!) but there is an issue then that only rich kids get the opportunity to study stuff like art or classical music so personally I think a better solution would be to have a finite number of scholarships on ability, and employer scholarships which fund places/courses. Governments, trusts, charities, philanthropic benefactors, universities could even fund scholarships for under represented groups, niche topics, etc.
They get much better renumeration than an NHS nurse or doctor.
That's a bold, broad, and frankly ridiculous statement
I know a few scientists working for Roche and Sandoz (both with massive works just south of Munich). They get very well paid.
Hardly a relevant comparison. We both know that MUC is full of Schikky Mikkies on vast salaries that would make UK NHS salaries look ridiculous. TBH there are probably janitors in Munich whose salaries would make a NHS doctor envious 🙂
The majority of folks I know who studied are doing jobs that have nothing do to do with their degree course and could easily have been taught on the job. The expectation/idea that you'll only get a job if you've studied is bullshit and not really necessary.
But as an employer I’ve looked at school leavers - and the vast majority aren’t really ready for work. If they have an aptitude for learning and getting on with doing stuff by themselves they go to college/uni. There are now graduate apprenticeships breaking that model but its far easier for me as an employer to hire people who have proven themselves at university (or similar) to be able to make it through the basic problems in life. I really wish it wasn’t like this but it is.
But the other thing is the catchment area for graduates is a lot wider than those who have never left home. For all their faults uni’s teach people there’s more to life than commuting distance from their parents home and people just like them who went to the same school etc, and so means they are much more broad minded about where they might take a job after graduation and even what they do.
its far easier for me as an employer to hire people who have proven themselves at university (or similar) to be able to make it through the basic problems in life
Or more prosaically, hire a candidate for a chemistry job who has already proved themselves to be able to do biology.
hire people who have proven themselves at university (or similar) to be able to make it through the basic problems in life. I really wish it wasn’t like this but it is.
This is making my brain bleed! I see it the exact opposite. So many (all?) students seem to go to uni because they don't know what the **** else to do or can't be arsed getting a job and taking control of their lives...
"Fancy pulling your finger out and going out into the big bad world, work for a living and get your life in order?"
"No thanks, actually I'd rather take a wedge from the government/ parents and spend a further three years pissing it up against the wall '
PS. I don't really think this but slightly.....
That's a bold, broad, and frankly ridiculous statement
on a like for like qualification basis, its likely to be true. We employ a lot of physicians, and their pay scale would make a consultant in the NHS cry. Most of them also work for free as consultants in the NHS one day a week. At the degree and masters level, salaries will be at or above nurses after a few years. Pensions will not be as all are offering DC with perhaps a 7% employer contribution plus matching, but share saving schemes are also available
Drug development is a well paid profession.
With all due respect.......I think we are all asking the wrong questions....... it's more about why has the UK f4cked it up so monumentally, both higher education and providing better opportunities for young people.
Why is Britain failing to provide opportunities for grads
Why are there not more grad apprenticeships (all woefully over-subscribed I believe).
Why is vocational/technical training sniffed at? (Does Germany still have Technishe Hochschule?)
FT did a piece in mid Feb asking why only the UK amongst our peers is not able to provide a graduate premium for youngsters
We shouldn't be pointing fingers at each other, we should be asking our local MPs to create a bit of noise to sort this out....
With all due respect.......I think we are all asking the wrong questions....... it's more about why has the UK f4cked it up so monumentally, both higher education and providing better opportunities for young people.
Why is Britain failing to provide opportunities for grads
Why are there not more grad apprenticeships (all woefully over-subscribed I believe).
Why is vocational/technical training sniffed at? (Does Germany still have Technishe Hochschule?)
FT did a piece in mid Feb asking why only the UK amongst our peers is not able to provide a graduate premium for youngsters
We shouldn't be pointing fingers at each other, we should be asking our local MPs to create a bit of noise to sort this out....
hire people who have proven themselves at university (or similar) to be able to make it through the basic problems in life. I really wish it wasn’t like this but it is.
This is making my brain bleed! I see it the exact opposite.
How many school leavers (or people leaving college with an NC after a year) have you hired? There must be great candidates out there who don’t want to go to uni but do know what the want to do and have the aptitude to do it. But out of hundreds of applicants we struggled to find them - we needed fairly basic literacy and numeracy but not geniuses. We were warned by the apprenticeship partner (college) that anyone who passed higher* maths and English was usually encouraged by schools/parents etc to go to Uni. Even candidates who met this bar weren’t necessarily “job ready” - who without explanation didn’t turn up for the interview “oh I forgot”, and one who we offered a job to said “I’d need to get the bus everyday and I’ve never done that”. Something is broken in how we develop and nurture young people - but I don’t think it’s the ones going to uni that are the problem.
(If you are not Scottish, Higher is about midway between A-level and GCSE, we were asking for people scoring above 50%)
Here's a chart from the FT article.....
it's more about why has the UK f4cked it up so monumentally, both higher education and providing better opportunities for young people.
Why is Britain failing to provide opportunities for grads
I don't think that's uniquely British. Mrs Reeksy taught in Australian universities (5 or 6 off the top of my head) for a long time. She witnessed a constant degradation of standards, focus on international student fees, reduction in staff pay, and inability for students to manage the demands of their courses - often because they were working long hours in retail to afford uni because it's the done thing to get ahead even though there are few related job opportunities.
Probably the difference I notice here is the value placed on trade qualifications and careers. Most of the teenagers we know are gearing up to be electricians etc, because they can earn good wages without getting into huge debt. They still can't afford to rent or buy because they get an expensive car, but that's another matter.
Here's a chart from the FT article.....
I'd be interested to see Australia on that. There's a huge disparity in earnings depending on sector. Almost 20 years ago I remember engineering grad's were waltzing into mining jobs earning more than their the Directors of the engineering consultancy I worked for. I did a journalism graduate diploma as a mature student and was offered around half of my consultant salary to become editor of a local newspaper ... I turned it down so we could afford to buy a house.
I'd be interested to see Australia on that.
Or Norway / Sweden - countries we are often told are good to aspire to be because they earnings disparity between the doctor and the cleaner are nowhere so extreme. On the one hand a feeling that graduates should earn more doesn’t fit with the idea of increasing minimum wages and elevating standards of living for the “poorest”. Perhaps an obsession with earnings is not actually the right target?
On one hand I get the studying pointless degrees argument - but that is assuming that a degree is teaching you direct job knowledge, mostly it’s teaching you skills and approaches to life/problems/people/understanding/communication/independence etc. if your daughter has the skills, patience, temperament and interest to get into a Fine Art degree that’s something worth nurturing not pissing on and telling to find a “proper” job.
I'm not sure how much recent experience you have had first hand with sending a young person to Uni or whether you have actually crunched the numbers but I think you might be a bit behind the times. The days of the happy go lucky student finding their way in life whilst putting off the inevitable are long gone. A typical student now graduates with over 50k of debt which is increasing so fast even MPs can't pay it back on a salary of almost £100k. In addition, as a parent we have to make up the maintenance loan shortfall to the tune of at least £500 a month - in fact when my other daughter starts her (unpaid) neuroscience research placement at Queen Mary university next year, we'll be paying almost £1000 a month for her rent. That means for two young people at Uni we'll be paying at least £1500 a month, plus train fares and extras like laptops. Not only that but the daughter on her placement despite living 200 miles away from Exeter Uni and having almost zero contact will still have to pay 80% of her tuition fees....
The modern university experience is monetised and sanitised - many students just feel they are on a conveyor belt, handing over cash at every juncture whilst being given the minimum quality of tuition and then - well there is rarely a pot of gold (or even bronze) at the end of the rainbow for most grads these days unless they pick the subject very very carefully and even then with the AI wildcard thrown in its almost impossible to do this.
There is very little independence in a modern university set up, students are often stressed and feel taken advantage of.
However - thanks to recent govt policy of both stripes, there is very little other choice for those young adults and parents that want to expand their horizons and maximise their talent. But please don't tell me not to 'piss on her ambitions'. I have probably spent more time thinking about my daughters futures and how we can best support them in their chosen fields (art for one, science for the other) than anything else I've ever done. Young people have way more smarts than their parents think - i know that, but one thing they do not have is an understanding of long term debt and how it can grind you down and reduce your opportunities. They also do not understand how the university sector has been destroyed by greed and bad political decisions to become a pale shadow of what it once was.
As for nurturing her interest, next month we are travelling to Amsterdam to check out the University there - we have also looked at Zwolle Uni already. In Holland tuition fees are a third of the cost, students get a grant as well as a loan and if they graduate they only need pay back a small amount of the loan not all of it. Basically a 3 year degree costs about 8k not 58k. Oh and the courses are generally in English, though she does speak OK Dutch. It would mean putting of uni for a year but thats no bad thing - many young people are not ready for Uni at 19.
A lot of truths above, but a couple of things to add. I think a lot of Uni including the independence thing needs to be grabbed, not expected to be spoon fed (how do you spoon feed independence anyway?)
My daughter's course (Media and Creative Industries) included a lot of project work, alone and in teams. And some of the teams she had to work with had her tearing her hair out, absolutely unable to deliver part of a project on time, not turning up for meetings they had arranged, etc. In the end getting the same mark having been carried along by the workers in the group. Sounds a lot like real life, I know! In addition she was part of the theatre groups, so both acted in and produced shows. At least on those it was voluntary, ie: far more chance the cast would turn up for rehearsals or the lighting guy would have his plans done on time as they wanted to do it. She learned a hell of a lot about project and people management, time and budgets, forecasting of spend, etc.
That's the career she wants but it's not a good time and jobs don't come up very often, and we're stuck in that 'No experience - OK, give me experience' limbo a lot of the time, but it'll come. In the meantime, and to respond to the very condescending IMO 'doing barista training in psychology' yes, she is working in hospitality. 6 months in, serving people like you no doubt but also now asst store manager including needing to do staff rotas, organising the stock and re-order, managing contractors that come in when things break / joe public trashes your toilet, reporting daily and weekly takings. Because at 6 months but with her experience (not the qualification itself) she is way more organised than the 17-18-19 year olds that make up most of the staff that can't manage to get in on time, can't manage to dress themselves properly (seriously, what does long trousers but short sleeves mean really?), can't manage to not be on their phones when working (contamination risk, have to then go and wash hands and wrists - hence the short sleeves rule)
Drug development is a well paid profession.
Please can you tell my employer that 🙂
My wife and I both have life science PhD's. I work in drug development, she works for a research charity. Guess who earns 50% more than the other (hint - it's not me!).
M
My daughter's course (Media and Creative Industries) included a lot of project work, alone and in teams. And some of the teams she had to work with had her tearing her hair out, absolutely unable to deliver part of a project on time, not turning up for meetings they had arranged, etc. In the end getting the same mark having been carried along by the workers in the group. Sounds a lot like real life, I know! In addition she was part of the theatre groups, so both acted in and produced shows. At least on those it was voluntary, ie: far more chance the cast would turn up for rehearsals or the lighting guy would have his plans done on time as they wanted to do it. She learned a hell of a lot about project and people management, time and budgets, forecasting of spend, etc.
Hated group work on my part time degree course, cost me a 2:1.
On a wider theme, that experience with other groups and project/people skills is a huge bonus for employers. Eldest did a music degree, sod all use in the real world but his time in those groups helped him shine in assessment days.
His girlfriend did a degree apprenticeship instead of normal uni. She had to move and be independent as well so got all the benefits of uni with none of the debt. Much better option.
In the meantime, and to respond to the very condescending IMO 'doing barista training in psychology' yes, she is working in hospitality.
MissJ went down that route. After a while she had a qualification far more valuable than any that I (and most of us) have - a licence to sell alcohol. Now retrained as a nurse, so she can administer alcohol AND drugs.
. I have real-life, very recent experience of supporting 2 children to decide what they wanted to do, where they wanted to study and how they were going to afford it. That doesn't involve me chucking £1000 a month at either of them for rent, and whilst I am making a contribution to maintenance costs its less than half what you are! I also seem to understand more about the student loans schemes than you do (an English student going to uni now and becoming an MP would be paying back £6750 per month, with interest of only 3.2%). There are many bad things about student loans, some of them structurally unfair, but the aren't really a normal debt. It's a graduate tax. What's worse than paying tax on earnings? Being stuck in a job you hate because you chose to study something your parents said was a good idea.On one hand I get the studying pointless degrees argument - but that is assuming that a degree is teaching you direct job knowledge, mostly it’s teaching you skills and approaches to life/problems/people/understanding/communication/independence etc. if your daughter has the skills, patience, temperament and interest to get into a Fine Art degree that’s something worth nurturing not pissing on and telling to find a “proper” job.
I'm not sure how much recent experience you have had first hand with sending a young person to Uni or whether you have actually crunched the numbers but I think you might be a bit behind the times.
I hope she's eligible for the great deal in the Netherlands. Your point about her being ready for uni is the same point I was making (and otherjonv is making in a different way) - if they aren't ready for Uni they sure as hell aren't ready for a proper job either.
Eldest did a music degree, sod all use in the real world but his time in those groups helped him shine in assessment days.
OTS Junior 1 is doing Electronic Engineering and Music. He plays principal trumpet in an orchestra and lead guitar in everything from musical theatre to an award winning punk band. The hard maths and engineering doesn't come easy for him, but the interpersonal, emotional intelligence and project management skills he's had to develop as a recording and performing musician have seen him excel in the group work and business-focussed courses. He's not going to be designing the next generation of 3d AI GPUs, but he might well be leading and managing the folk that do.
Junior 2 is doing Physics with a very keen ambition to become a Swiss Banker. Given her temperament, she's either going to end up as a director in Julius Baer Group or head of a Glasgow crime syndicate. I reckon it could go either way.
I also seem to understand more about the student loans schemes than you do (an English student going to uni now and becoming an MP would be paying back £6750 per month, with interest of only 3.2%).
Erm, I think maybe not. Your figures are beyond wrong.
Assume you mean 6750 a year, which would sound about right for someone on a salary of 95k. However the other error is the interest rate which on a Plan 2 loan for someone earning over 50k is 6.2% not 3.2% (you forgot to add RPI), but hey I'm sure the rest of your post is spot on ;0)
Luckily my daughter being a dual national is eligible for Dutch Uni but for some its a big step going to uni full stop without throwing another country into the mix so we'll see.
Poly’s figures are correct for a Plan 5 loan - except for the year/month thing obvs.
I also seem to understand more about the student loans schemes than you do (an English student going to uni now and becoming an MP would be paying back £6750 per month, with interest of only 3.2%).
Erm, I think maybe not. Your figures are beyond wrong.
Assume you mean 6750 a year, which would sound about right for someone on a salary of 95k. However the other error is the interest rate which on a Plan 2 loan for someone earning over 50k is 6.2% not 3.2% (you forgot to add RPI), but hey I'm sure the rest of your post is spot on ;0)
Oops, yes £6750/yr not month (that would be more than the earnings!). All new English students are on Plan 5 loans. These have a lower starting salary for repayments (£25k) and longer time out period (40 yrs) but interest is simply RPI (currently 3.2%) with a cap. You've confused it with Plan 2 loans which stopped 4+ years ago. They are where the most controversy seems to lie - the interest rate is linked to earnings, not just the repayment rate, and its higher than new loans being given out today and the thresholds didn't keep moving how they were implied they would when originally set up.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loans-england-plan-5/
Hardly a relevant comparison. We both know that MUC is full of Schikky Mikkies on vast salaries that would make UK NHS salaries look ridiculous
There is massive wage discrepancy in Germany and perhaps even more so in Munich.
Mate of mine is a judge in Munich. Worked his way up first as a lawyer, then state prosecutor, then judge. His missus is a teacher at a Gymnasium (kinda like a grammar school).
Their combined income is less than that of the scientist friend whose main job is checking patents despite having a decree in biology. She's very very rarely in the lab.
Does Germany still have Technishe Hochschule?
Yes, the GF went to one doing product design.
mostly it’s teaching you skills and approaches to life/problems/people/understanding/communication/
You make a lot of sense mate, but this bit is meh in my experience of having to mentor grads. UOTC/Junior officers **** up more than junior ranks, mostly because the bods are unencumbered with the false sense that know better.
One could also ask why, if it teaches them this plethora of skills, are they struggling to secure employment? Tis but a problem to solve.
Also not all degrees and uni experiences are equal.
ah it may not apply to military folks where the basics of life have been beaten out the school leavers!mostly it’s teaching you skills and approaches to life/problems/people/understanding/communication/
You make a lot of sense mate, but this bit is meh in my experience of having to mentor grads. UOTC/Junior officers **** up more than junior ranks, mostly because the bods are unencumbered with the false sense that know better.
I don’t know any who are - now some may not have found their dream jobs but that was always thus. I’m sure some are - we’ve interviewed graduates who were awful - but I’ve been hiring grads since 2003 and there’s always been a spectrum of employability.One could also ask why, if it teaches them this plethora of skills, are they struggling to secure employment? Tis but a problem to solve.
well that is definitely true.Also not all degrees and uni experiences are equal.