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Tuition fees

Interested or active in politics, discuss here.

Tuition fees?

I had a free University education why should others pay?
1
4%
Yes they should pay more
12
44%
No they should not have to pay more than they are now
11
41%
other ...
3
11%
 
Total votes: 27

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I love beasting
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Post by I love beasting »

Its all an investment into our economy - not to mention all the medical students. Education = a succesful country. There are a lot of muppets that go to uni and blow their loans on crap. Most people come away with a qualification and thats what matters. It should remain as it stands - students pay their loan back but help from the Government regarding tuition fees.
Uni in Sepember
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Post by I love beasting »

kwew wrote:these days most the jobs that people go into have nothing to do with the degree they have which proves the degree isnt needed

What a load of tripe. Firstly there are core degrees (medicine, Law ect.) that do provide society with docors, nurses, lawyers. Secondly even if the end career is different to the degree, the degree has contributed to them achieving the role. Just because it may not be a direct degree like medicine - it could be the music industry they go into and help reap benefits to our economy.

People need to open they're eyes, isn't it clear that indepth nuturing and development can only be a positive thing. I'm not a student but my girlfriend is. She works so hard and does't come from a wealthy background. Our country needs people like her to develop their potential and put it back into society.
Uni in Sepember
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Post by I love beasting »

mattt_h wrote:if more people took trades be a lot better in my opinion
Matt, you can study trades from an achademic or practical side. Site managers, quantity surveyors, plumbing! Not saying uni is the only rout to being a good plumber but it sure gives plumming industry workers from a range of perspectives and different strengths.
Uni in Sepember
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Post by owdun »

We used to have many fine Grammar and Technical schools, but these schools insisted on pupils applying and taking various exams, in order to qualify for acceptance. The sad thing is, those centres of educational excellence were destroyed by the very people who had gained the most from them, the left wing teachers and political animals churned out by the LSE and various other such establishments. The few remaining schools and colleges are still under constant threat from Govt. despite proving their worth,year after year. Our education , once one of the finest in the world, has been sacrificed on the alter of political correctness.

I too,worked a 48 hour week at age 14 years.

Aye Owdun :evil: .
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Post by Spannerman »

Yep let them pay! It helps keep my taxes down, isn't it about time that someone put pen to paper and says 'nothing comes free'. I know I will be castigated for this but 'who owes anyone a living' there are too many on the gravy train in this country taking a first class carriage ride for nowt, those that want it pay for it.
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Post by kwew »

What a load of tripe. Firstly there are core degrees (medicine, Law ect.) that do provide society with docors, nurses, lawyers. Secondly even if the end career is different to the degree, the degree has contributed to them achieving the role. Just because it may not be a direct degree like medicine - it could be the music industry they go into and help reap benefits to our economy.
I dont not believe it is a load of tripe for example. A man i know got a geography degree, he now sells insurance
Another man i know got an IT degree he now owns a gym
Another chap i know has a Biology degree and now works for Biffa.

What have their degrees got to do with anything, how has them wasting 3 or 4 years of their parents money made them better people or get better jobs.

I agree some degrees are needed and you'll notice i slated "mickey mouse" degrees, they are a waste of university money adn that money should be put into the likes of medical degrees nurses construction eg useful things.

Then you may say, well degree has helped them, showing they have the apptitude to learn or work, so what about people like my dads mate hes 32 left school at 15 no qualifications and now he owns an import export company that works out of Dubai, Qualifications are just pieces of paper if you really want to suceed in life you need it in the heart (unless again were talking about doctors then of course you need the degree).

And whilst at university what does these people do? Nothing thats right everyone i know whos at university people in years 1 through to 4 dont actually have many hours of lectures even 25 hours a week is nothing you can still work a part time job, i think people to easily nowadays say "oh i havent got time, ive got things to do".
Im sitting at work right now i finished everything i needed to do an hour ago when at first it looked like it would take days, you just need to work hard which is what to many young people are afraid to or just dont do.
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Post by Mr Grimsdale »

The problem of fees is only caused by this daft quota the government wants to meet, i.e. put 50% through further education. As a result you get hordes of kids going to university studying mickey mouse degrees.

I spent 7 and a bit years at University studying engineering in one form or another which would have benefitted the country had their been any suitable jobs.

Unfortunately between the time when I got into science/engineering and the time I finished my first degree the defence industry downsized and the jobs simply weren't there. I continued more out of bloody mindedness and the feeling that just having a degree didn't make me stand out enough. So here I am now with a BEng, MSc and PhD working in something completely unrelated to my studies and quite frankly not making use of anything I learnt at university. The sad fact is that IT pays significantly better than engineering.

The moral of this is I have no problem with someone being funded through university if they are studying something useful to the country and there is a good chance of a job at the end of it.
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Tuition Fees

Post by df2inaus »

Students in the UK and every other developed country should definitely pay more. If it makes young people think twice about their financial future, that in itself would be more valuable an education.

We don't need any more BA grads manning the phones with preposterous sales quotas in call-centres that haven't been moved to India yet. We need trades people, nurses, soldiers among other occupations that have been looked down upon by teachers and professors for too long.

When I was working part-time for the university in the mid '90's actively recruiting new students (for the sole purpose of increasing the amount of money that went to my university) with a little private investigation I discovered that in Canada the student paid approximately 1/3 of the actual cost per student.

Tuition and most of the incidentals that went with it (booze) were easily covered by a reasonably well-paying summer job. If the students today have a lower standard of boozing, I don't have an ounce of sympathy.

The tuition should be directly proportional to the earning potential, that is, if a specific qualification gained is guaranteed a given income, it should be indexed and subject to annual review by an impartial body, meaning not tenured Marxist-leaning professors.

When I heard Blair announce to the effect of 50% of all young people going to university :o (or was it postsecondary education?), I thought he'd gone mad or at the very least was truly desperate to soothe the allegiances of the folks in Islington who were becoming torn over the looming war.

Western countries are becoming over-educated, yes, I said it.

When our grandparents went to school they became numerate, literate, and were highly disciplined individuals. Their generation did not attend university for the most part but served the needs of their country at the time perfectly well.

I have two degrees, one of which isn't really a degree at all. I'll explain, I was awarded a Bachelor of Education degree because I had a previous degree. The tradesmen who were to go on to become Design & Technology teachers were given a Diploma in Education for the same course, that was unjust and is unlikely to change in my lifetime.

If I could do it all over again, I would have enlisted in the army, left, backpacked, then gone into trades. As far as I'm concerned, the high cost of university was the loss of income I would have earned for those five years doing something more valuable to the economy.

I'm 30 and my life is only beginning to get off the ground in a financial sense thanks to "doing the right thing" and attending university thanks to well-meaning but pro-academia biased and profoundly ignorant teachers and guidance counsellors.

I have only myself to blame for this predicament, but that's how it happened and teachers are still making the same mistakes with millions of students today.

In Toronto, the tiling contractor I worked for recently was paying Romanian asylum-seekers more than teachers, nurses and cops to do a job that any reasonably intelligent Canadian could do.

These men were decent hard-working blokes whom I respected immensely, but they shouldn't have been there. They were told to apply as asylum-seekers because Canada, with possibly the most overmanned Home Office doesn't have the ability to handle the volume of skilled-trades immigration applications.

My wife is on her way back to England today for an indefinite period :evil: to complete an immigration process to Canada that began nearly a year ago. Why did I get myself started?
"Poor Ike, it won't be a bit like the Army. He'll find it very frustrating. He'll sit here and he'll say, 'Do this! Do that!' And nothing will happen."
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Post by Pasha »

Hello df2inaus,
Western countries are becoming over-educated, yes, I said it.
Perhaps overschooled is a better choice of words than overeducated. It should be remembered however, that entry level positions in many trades nowadays require some form of certification that are increasingly acquired via colleges rather than on-the-job apprenticeships as they once were.

Young people that I talk to seem to regard university as almost an automatic progression of life after school. There seems little critical analysis as to why they are persuing an academic career to that level aside from a vague notion that there lies a financial reward in doing so. The most obvious result of more graduates is of course the inevitable "cheapening of the currency" in the eyes of many employers, perhaps Owdun has a point in his harking back to technical schools. Just my own thoughts.
Best regards!

Pasha
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Post by Tab »

What worries me about all this there are degree's and degree's, now I have no objection in putting my hand in my pocket and helping some one out who is learning some thing that is going to of use to them and the country. When I read about people taking degrees in soap opera's and other such nonsense then I strongly object in having to to pay for it. If people took the time to read some of these daft courses they would have a fit, and if some idiot wants to take one as a pleasant way of spending a few years before going on the dole then let them pay for it. Lets face it, it is only a government ploy to keep the unemployment statistic down.

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Post by kwew »

Tab i thing the kind of degree you mean is wine tasting, the history of art and film studies, its all a load of Crap. What possible use is a degree in any of those things?
None!!!!!!!
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Post by AdamR »

I definately agree that there are too many people in University at the moment, and certainly too many people doing Micky Mouse degrees. I'm in the sixth form at the moment and everyone, regardless of academic ability is being pushed into university. Tony Blair's target of 50% is unreachable, drop out rates are already verging on 20%. Meanwhile a friend of mine who dropped out of Sixth Form within 3 months quickly found a job working for DEFRA earning as much as everyone else in her office, all of whom are graduates. There is a serious skills shortage in this country as it is and the politicians are too stupid to realise that an educated populace isn't neccessarily a degree laden populace. I have a cousin who's a gas fitter, he's had to learn just as much as any graduate and had to pass his fair share of exams, the same goes for plumbers, electricians and what not. I don't see the point in going to University and doing a degree unless you are going to directly apply those skills. A geography degree won't make you a better office worker. Working in an office for three years will make you a better office worker as opposed to analysing soil and population models.
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Post by Spannerman »

:o

Well B Liar made it by 5 votes, now on a 161 Labour overall majority, that was a close call, the LONG KNIVES are out for you Tony boy!
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Post by owdun »

70 of those votes were by Scottish MPs, who should not have been allowed to vote on an English education matter. Their own Cabal has ensured the same conditions don't apply in Scotland. Its time this anomaly was sorted, if the Scots want home rule, so be it, but keep out of purely English affairs.



Aye Owdun :evil:
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Tuition Fees

Post by df2inaus »

You guys left out the Playstation degree offered by Sheffield Hallam University :lol: .

Pasha, when I say, over-educated, you were right, I do indeed mean over-schooled.

I applaud the sensible young men and women who attend postsecondary education to acquire a specific qualification, get the occupation and move on with their lives.

However, not everyone is academically-inclined (as the school league tables reveal so painfully) and should not be forced into the university stream. Universities should never have expanded and dumbed down the standards to increase the demand for students.

In Canada, the big buzz word in elementary and secondary education is that the system's aim is to produce "critical thinkers." Whether they can spell, add or hand in work on time is inconsequential.

I don't think today's children have become any more critical than their grandparents, the really big difference is that they're less likely to vote. The level of voter apathy is appalling. The educrats scream "then we must educate them about how government works."

The system does educate people how the government works, around age 14 in Canada, but none of them pay attention in the lessons. If the schools only offered intense courses in the basics, maybe people would be in a better position to eduacte themselves.

Perhaps the reason postsecondary education has become so necessary today is because secondary education's prestige was destroyed by esteem-conscious social engineers.

In the past there were more dropouts, more people failed. There was an unequal distribution of success.

Now the system ensures an equal division of mediocrity.

If secondary education was a tough challenge and actually meant something, like it used to, graduates might not have to attend uni.
"Poor Ike, it won't be a bit like the Army. He'll find it very frustrating. He'll sit here and he'll say, 'Do this! Do that!' And nothing will happen."
Harry Truman
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