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.
