[Closed] University places for sale

The problem is the fact the mixed funding model makes it very difficult to ensure this.

Works fine with overseas students paying their way, doesn't it?

Or are overseas students not teh inbred toffs, innit?

Stoner - Affect/Effect. 0/10. Very poor. 😉

given the way that universities are funded on elligable enrollment numbers then you can rest assured that your tax payers pound is safe.

Stoner - Affect/Effect. 0/10. Very poor.

and I havent got the foggiest how to spell "eligable" either. Damn this expensive tax payer funded education! damn it to hell!

given the way that universities are funded on elligable enrollment numbers then you can rest assured that your tax payers pound is safe.

If that's the case then and if it actually provides spaces for less well off students then its got to be a good thing, is this the case ? Genuine question as you seem to know about the funding model.

if you look at the outline of the proposals in, say, this AFP report*, (ignore the political knee-jerk from the political knee-jerk Porter) you can see that not only is the idea supposed to INCREASE state funded places (by basically taking a rich kid out of the state funded access route) but as I said before, private fees are set at a "profitable" level, not a subsistence level so surpluses get recycled into the education function or the access funding function of the university (as universities cant run at a profit - charities usually)

* http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iI70KnIUPLYWLP_KPHkGCKXYQ77g?docId=CNG.305f12f161c9db40e901553d95ae9a35.4f1

Universities minister David Willetts said the idea was being considered as a way of freeing up publicly-subsidised university places for poorer students.

Willetts said the plans would allow companies or charities to sponsor additional places and insisted it would have to meet the government's objectives of improving social mobility

I don't get the fuss about the divide between rich and poor. There always has and always will be this divide. Why should the gap be closed? If people don't like being poor, why don't they do something about it and become rich?

If people don't like being poor, why don't they do something about it and become rich?

good fishing.
Now where's the socialists?
Ive got my biscuits...

I don't mind being poor, becoming rich looks like hard work

red crosss behind my firewall, but Im going out ona limb to make a brave stab and guess you've posted a pic of the bullingdon lot

No you were wrong, it appears to be a photo of auditions for Duran Duran or similar 80's New Romantic outfit.

easy mistake to make.

The key point is that when they say 'students have to meet entry requirements', what on earth do they mean.

For the top university courses, you have way too many people applying, and all of them will be predicted top grades.

Currently universities try and filter them out based out what ability to study they think people might have. To change it so that some places are instead filtered based purely on ability to pay would still seem somewhat unfair.

In a way though it is just entrenching officially the existing system where if you go to a fancy school, it is much easier to get the a level grades to get into a fancy university. I'm sure I remember from when I was at Cambridge, there was some hoo hah about this, when they discovered that once they got to Cambridge, there was a very big difference between the attainment of state and private pupils, the difference in average grades was almost the difference between a middle II:I and a medium II:II.

I guess it is a bit shocking because in the past governments used to pretend that they were in favour of making universities more meritocratic, rather than blatantly wanting to increase the proportion of their rich kids at them.

Feeeeel the "market" forrrccceeeee ... 😆

Got the grades, got the money, rich parents, you're in.

Got the grades, no money, poor parents, got the loans, you're in.

Got the grades, no money, got scholarship, you're in too.

Got the grades, no money, got no loans, poor parents, be a slave.

Got poor grades, no money, got no loans, poor parents, blame self & the parents.

Many poor foreign students I used to know in the past funded their education privately with their parents sacrificing/gambling everything just for their education. i.e. selling their own house etc or borrowed from relatives, so why can't the British parents do so for their kids hhmmmm? Do they expect to breed and let the society take care of their kids education? Or are they relinquishing the responsibility of parenthood to the society?

🙄

Got the grades, got the money, rich parents, you're in.

Got the grades, no money, poor parents, got the loans, you're in.

.....

That's a load of rubbish, because many high level university courses, are massively oversubscribed, and all the applicants will have the grades to get in, it'd be more like:

[b]Now:
[/b]
Got the grades - 10% chance of getting in.

[b]Future[/b]
Got the grades and poor - current system - 10% chance of getting in
Got the grades and rich - 100% chance of getting in

How can that be fair?

do you have an opinion on foreign students paying to attend UK universities?

Indeed. And on my course, exclusively awarded all the 1st class degrees, when clearly some of them did not deserve it, while some of the British students did.

I don't get the fuss about the divide between rich and poor.

We will when the disaffected poor burn our society to the ground.

Education is, arguably because there are exceptions, the hope for prosperity for young people who don't have the advantage of family money. Don't destroy their hopes and waste their talents, by letting rich people buy them out of an education.

If people don't like being poor, why don't they do something about it and become rich?

Well they could move house to a good "state" school's catchment area. They could go to a private school, or they could get private lessons for their children. And then pack them off to university.

All of which costs money they don't have.

There simply has to be a level playing field when it comes to education, privilege and money must not be allowed carry favour over those who don't have it.

Of course those who support what's currently happening don't want the competition.

Don't destroy their hopes and waste their talents, by letting rich people buy them out of an education.

jeez, and just where does the the risk of "buying people out of education" come in?

Less of the knee-jerk phobia to markets in education and a little more thought into the genuine impact of reducing subsidised place blocking eh?

Less of the knee-jerk phobia to markets in education and a little more thought into the genuine impact of reducing subsidised place blocking eh?

Unfortunately the type of market you are referring to is going to price out many people.

joemarshall - Member

That's a load of rubbish, because many high level university courses, are massively oversubscribed, and all the applicants will have the grades to get in, it'd be more like:

Now:
Got the grades - 10% chance of getting in.

Future
Got the grades and poor - current system - 10% chance of getting in
Got the grades and rich - 100% chance of getting in

How can that be fair?

If everyone got the grades like you and you are rejected then you need to find out the reason exactly or perhaps find out how they select candidates before applying.

Crikey. If the course is over subscribed then why still apply for that? Doesn't that mean more competition for your future career prospect? i.e. more people with the same degree as you?

I am sorry but choose another course or other Univs that will accept you even if it means taking one year out and reapplying again.

🙄

the massive hit that universities are taking directly and indirectly from the spending cuts have already led to big layoffs of staff and more on the way

which is why it was innevitable that virtually all unis would be pricing their courses at the 9grand a year maximum, despite the platitudes of the condems that only a few courses would be the full whack

the reduction of student visas is also a huge blow to the universities, who were previously able to rake in the cash on foreign students

its blatantly the case that the best courses will be targeted by the well off and in certain careers the right course at the right uni really does mean the best jobs (i work with a lot of oxbridge graduates and the doors it opens for them is impressive/shocking)

this move will hinder social mobility, simply because the unis will find a way to squeeze in more high fee paying rich kids at the expense of the plebs, they need the money desperately

if it wasnt for the uber privileged upbringing of the condem front bench id think this would never happen (so in this respect the bullingdon photo is relevant)
if not for that id think this whole thing was a set-up by the torries so that the limp dems can come in and act all tough and negotiate this away, thus making them look not quite as useless, dishonest and incompetent than they currently do on universities

the sad thing is as cameron pointed out the intake of black children at oxford is incredibly low, and it speaks about a large chunk of the population (i mean poor not just black) that missed out entirely on the labour university boom

social innequality starts well before uni, poorer kids underperforming pretty much from their first day at school

which is why the the condem plan to axe sure start was so clearly wrong

this is yet another boot in the nuts for the poor folk from a 'cabinet of millionaires'

Honestly the only issue I'd have with it is that if it puts less able students into university that'll divert teaching time away from more able students- much like putting a low-standard english speaker into a regular class (which in turn is my only objection to foreign students)

People are talking of oversubscription but the university I work at is artificially capped by the limited number of places that are funded. This leads to some absolute madness- within the last couple of years the university's actually ended up teaching some students for free as they've recklessly offered a place to a UK student and gone over quota. We've gone from growing to shrinking entirely because of this. Several courses despite being oversubscribed are going to make the university a loss for the forseeable future because the budgeting's based on a higher number of students than they're now allowed to recruit.

So we compensate, by bringing in more fees-payers. And then you get some more madness, which is that an EU student gets their fees paid by SAAS and goes into the same quota as home students, whereas english students don't. I'm a europhile but it's obviously screwed that we're paying for german students but not english, you don't need to be a daily mail reader to think there's an issue here.

So we go further afield- middle east and china largely. Which brings with it huge visa issues, language issues, cultural issues... We do insist on a decent IELTS standard but the system's not hard to abuse, we've had students turn up with an IELTS or equivalent of 6.5 who can't read a word of english. And visas and funding guarantees are a blimmin nightmare, and getting worse.

It's pretty messed up in all honesty. And one solution is more fees-paying students, done right and in small volumes it could fund an increase in regular places. I've my doubts about how well it'd actually be run- once you've taken £20000 from a student, there's a big economic incentive to keep them on even if they're not up to scratch obviously.

Or such is my opinion based on my understanding of the current university economy 😉 Which to be fair is based mostly on a range of local unis and may not be nationally representative. But if you're worried that money can buy an education, frankly that ship's sailed.

Will entrance exam, in addition to good A-level grades, be the way forward? This way everyone will have equal chance to gain entry to University if they consider themselves worthy. ❓ Which means the rich cannot buy their way around and the poor, with loans, should have a fair chance if they are capable.

Will entrance exam, in addition to good A-level grades, be the way forward? This way everyone will have equal chance to gain entry to University if they consider themselves worthy. Which means the rich cannot buy their way around

Entrance exams have been shown to make matters worse - a private school is far, far better placed to tutor pupils for such an exam. Hence why the college I went to had a higher than average proportion of state school pupils on my course (a course for which it was one of only a handful not to use entrance exams). Potential for private tuition improving things is yet another way for the rich to buy their way around (my state school teachers actually offered to tutor me for free in their own time, but I was too lazy to want to take on extra work 😉 ).

Having removed the barrier to entry that was A-level grades, demand for places outsripped supply which has allowed the raising of prices to achieve a new economic equilibrium.

France hands out Bacs with even greater ease than British students now get four A*s but has alternative non-financial strategies to deal with excess demand. The main one being lots of first year places followed by radical culling. On some courses 250 students start but only 40 graduate. It has the advantage of being a true méritocratie but generates more people who feel a failure than a success.

There aren't many jobs for 16 to 18 year olds in Britain's post-indusrial ecomonmy so kids end up in the university entrance system by default. Declining A-level difficulty means they have the grades so financial barriers to entry have been chosen as the means to limit numbers. There are fairer ways of doing it, harder A-levels or first year culling for example.

With higher fees comes increased use of access funds to subsidise places for poorer students. That means some students will be paying less than half that of their peers, this could create issues if not handled correctly. Introducing another tier of fees is going to exacerbate the issue, particularly if they go to arrogant rich kids.

Fortunately Willets has done a massive u-turn, and embarrassed himself at the same time by suggesting charities are one group who'll fork out thousands to pay for places. That makes no sense, unless the charities he has in mind are private schools.

is be very dubious of a u-turn by willets all I saw was man of the people Cameron racking up the pr points after the lies we were fed about only a few unis charging 9 grand
by the time its gone thru the house we will be too busy whinging about the next big cut
the proposals have not been removed from willets white paper