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if you didn't know it's expensive to have fun these days as a teenager
it also helps prevent 16-18 years olds in full time education, working more than 20 a week... someone i know's friend is at school still in year 11, and shes working almost 20 hours a week due to her families financial situation
short term money needs often outdo someone long term educational effort in peoples priorities
students over 18 should help fund their education, they shouldn't pay the full brunt of it though and it should be fair, which imo the top up fees system does - id prefer the maximum fees to be £5000 and the maintence grants for poorer students increased to £4000
it would put off many potential students but we don't need half the population going to university, to improve this countries education system needs to start from primary schools 1st
Surely if education is good for its own sake then as many people as possible should do it?
going to university isn't always the best way of becoming a free thinker so to speak....
i know people who do the bare minumum amount of work to live, and learn as a hobby
i also know unemployed people, some of whom have managed to get bored enough to learn shedloads of crap - one in particular happens to come from grays, does a huge variety of drugs and loves filthy porn, yet somehow still knows a thing or 2 about physics and chemistry to degree level (not with a huge wrath of experience of things but still bloody good)..... university would have put him off it
formal education isnt for everyone, lubty wants to be a sound engineer, she's best of just doing her Btec until shes 18 and then going into work and getting experience, going to university wouldnt help her as much as just learning the 'basics' and getting experience and contacts
No-one is saying that is right for everyone but if you advocate limits on the numbers then you are saying that some people that want to go to university should not be allowed to, something I disagree with.........
All of which were made up by drop outs. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates never got degrees.
Every useful discovery has been made by a couple of dozen people who had nothing to do with the state, with the exception of all the guns and bombs and other ways of killing people.
Flight? Two lads in a garage. Relativity? A clerk from switzerland who couldn't get a job as a teacher because he "didn't have the right kind of mind". I'll say he didn't. :rolleyes:
Like I said, the state jumps in once it sees either a threat to it's cushy gravy train or a way to get a bigger trough.
Which is why it's vital that you are all "educated" to believe all that crap. If I was Blagsta I would say go and read some Chomsky and how he shows universities and other large public bodies become self sustaining by weeding out all alternative thought.
means sod all, they didnt invent computers
and as i said, hobbyists/business can often do new things as well...
not quite, that's working to an agenda withy existing knowledge, and sadly most technology has been adapted from stuff developed for military...
no idea what youre on about
there's plenty of independant thought at my university, speaking to people shows you that, on the other hand there's plenty of people who do things for fashions' sake
the skills univeristy should teach and practice you in, are being critical, and being able to research and form your own opinion and speak it
My argument is that is almost always the case.
I said "useful". Most technology that people usefully use has been developed by people who aren't the state. They might have been contracted by it, but this isn't the same thing by a chalk.If the state was any good at coming up with new stuff, then the soviet communists would have been further advanced than western capitalists
Wright Brothers, Einstein. paid for by the state? Don't think so....
No, there isn't, because all those who would genuinely think radical thoughts have already been weeded out by the process of getting to university in the first place. Chomksy - Manufacturing Consent isn't bad on this subject.
Do the few who genuinely think differently have any power to change anything, or are they just allowed to speak their piece and then ignored?
While remembering who pays the bills and therefore what conclusions you should reach......
Skills such as...?
Generally? Because for some jobs, especially menial ones, the reverse is often the truth...
Yup. Complete waste of my time.
thats why i have a general assertion that the current school system is guranteed to provide failures to fill the menial roles, which also imo is completly abhorrant
And, youll' notice, that those jobs have significant hands on training as part of the process.
Not sitting in classrooms learning loads of tangential shite and other people's opinions and theories about what's happening before you've done it?
I never said "everyone" I said everyone but a handful of professions. You do not need plumbers with degrees. You do not need small shop owners with degrees. You do not need most middle managers to have a degree. You certainly don't need a degree to go supervising shelf stackers. But the way things are going, that's the future.
I'd say about 2/3rds to 3/4ers or all modern degree holders do work that's got little or nothing to do with what they spent all that time learning.
And what will be the end result? Degrees will be diluted to the point where those profession where you DO need an extended training cycle will start to use something else to consider applicants, because the degree will be no measure of anything any more, and those people who don't have them (but never really needed them anyway) will be unemployable.
I mena, fuck it, let's just all stay in school until we are 30.....jesus.
Well, we have to pay for all our own books and other materials that we need. And for the record, not everyone gets this money. Was having this conversation with someone who was moaning because I get this money and they don't. Yeah, I could get a job but that would mean that I wouldn't have enough time to study - and we got told not to work for more than 8 hours a week. And it's a bit hard trying to have a job and study for important exams at the same time...
We need skilled manual workers. We don't need qualified ones. There is no qualification on earth that I would accept for a builder or plumber over word of mouth. I never look at qualifications because they are so easily forged. I look for what people can actually do and being me, I want proof.
Theres no value to me of you going and learning stuff for the sake of it. But somehow it's supposed to be paid by me through theftation. You can make a case for me putting my hand in my pocket to provide for doctors and i'll grudgingly agree you have a point (but still no right to steal from me) because I might benefit somehow.
Does this logic apply even vaguely to studying art history/ancient greek/klingon/accountancy/social policy/media studies/spending afternoons in bed wanking?
There is no justification for the taxpayer subsidising people to take many university courses. I don’t see why the taxes of someone who works in a shop should pay for a Law undergraduate. Or someone doing history. Or English. Or any other degree for that matter except those directly related to skills that the country is short of and badly needs – so that would include Medicine and probably undersubscribed courses like Chemistry and Physics. There’s certainly no way however that the government should be paying for let alone subsidising someone studying something like Film Studies.
Those that oppose fees need to grow up and start thinking realistically. Most of the top universities in Europe are in Britain and many of the world’s top universities are in Britain. And even as it is with fees our top universities are going to fall further behind the top American universities. This government won’t and a future Tory government won’t increase taxes to fund universities – so without fees our universities will decline and the best universities; (Oxford is already talking about it) will go private. Although thinking about it that would probably be a good thing.
General stuff, the ability to reason and to think, to produce reports and analyse situations as well as more practical skills e.g IT
What do you mean by the second bit?
In the end the debate about how useful it is is irrelevant, as many people should be able to go as want to go............
Are you a plumber?
It really irritates me when students or graduates berate other graduates/students for doing 'pointless' degrees when they 'should be doing manual stuff' when these people have no interest in being plumbers, electricians themselves..........
So you think that lawyers, historians and the film industry have no use at all?
Or is it that you think all such people are all going to make lots of money?
Either way you are wrong............
I think they are that important tht you'll find people who will voluntarily pay for them. If there aren't enough people who want to fund them, then why are they being done at all?
why do we need expensive adult education to learn such basic things?
as many people should be able to go as want to go why?
thats like saying as many people who want to go on the dole should be aloud to.
learning for the sake or love of learning ...can be done at home and at work.
it shouldn't be costing me an arm and a leg.
I think you'll find you're wrong as well as being incredibly naive and gullible.
Btw, what film-makers got where they were through doing a Film Studies course? You don’t get into the film industry with a Film Studies degree from an ex-Poly. (Or you don't do well). Or if you do, it’ll be because you have talent not because you have a second-rate degree.
Lawyers will exist with or without government subsiding their degree – um take a look around at countries that don’t subsidise people to do law degrees. Is there a mass shortage of lawyers? I don’t think so.
And I don’t think historians are going to disappear without being subsidised to study history. Indeed, you don’t become a historian through having an undergraduate degree in it – most professional historians have an MA and PhD. Should we subsidise all PhD historians because if we won’t there will be no historians or it will imply that they have no use? Where’s all this money going to magically come from?
I’m going to study history at university and like most history graduates at the moment I’ll probably go into something like the civil service, foreign office or law. Since I hope to and probably will earn more than somebody working in a shop or a factory worker in my lifetime I don’t see why they should have to pay for me to get further up the career ladder. End subsidies for courses that are not directly useful (i.e. only fund Medicine, Physics, Chemistry that we need and are short of) and introduce interest-free loans for everyone else. Then people won’t waste their time on pointless degrees like Golf Studies or do unnecessary degrees in things they could just as well learn on the job or through an apprenticeship if they've got to pay it back.
For the government everyone going to university is an excellent idea. They can brag about education, keep people out of employment for an extra few years to keep the unemployment figures down and give people a false sense of hope by telling them that graduates earn more. (Yes graduates did earn more when far less people went to university and ‘non-traditional’ degrees weren’t around but if everyone goes do you think everyone will get graduate jobs? With Golf Studies?) It’s misleading on the government’s part that they’re encouraging people to go to university and get into massive debt and then there are people coming out of university with not very good degrees and doing jobs that don’t require a degree.
theres doers and theres thinkers ...if we were all thinkers ...sod all would ever get done.
so billy the brush down at the yard keeps telling me.
I have those, I do not have a degree. I learnt them at work.
What you have done there is fail to eplain why I, as a taxpayer, should fund degrees rather than employers.
As I said before, unless you make all education free then you only advantage those how go straight from school (or with a gap year). I cannot get state funding for any course I wish to do now.
The very last thing you need for a menial task - such as putting jam in doughnuts - is intelligence. I believe that was proven in the past. Some task are too repetitive for an active mind.
It's entirely relevant if I am expected to fund part, or all, of the cost of that education.
Otherwise you could equally argue that the NHS should pay for me to do am art history degree (no comments about recent stories please
I know, it's people who have a household income of £30,000 or less. £30k? You telling me that someone on £30k a year can't support their children through college?
As far as I'm aware, low income parents will be entitled to benifits if you are in full time education up until the age of 18. If they cannot support their children on that, then that's a seperate issue, but that should be able to pay for your living costs throughout college. If you don't live with your parents, then that's a seperate issue again. But I don't know anyone who gets this money and gives it to their parents to help pay the bills, they all use it for buying CD's, clothes and other 'necessities'.
As for part time jobs, minimum wage for 8 hours a week for a 16 year old is £24. Tell me what you need that couldn't be covered by that if you're really desperate. As for not having enough time to study, plenty of students in college have part time jobs and manage just fine. But if you don't feel you can, then it shouldn't be a problem because your parents should be paying for your living costs, and anything else should be considered a luxury that you have to work for.
Is it fair that university students, in addition to having to deal with things like rent and bills (in most cases, for the first time), have to have a part-time job to pay for essential things like food, whilst at the same time students in college get their living cost paid for them (by their parents, or via benefits) and still get £10-30 a week/£500-1500 a year (about the same amount as many of my friends overdrafts, incidentally)? I don't think that students should be given money to fund their social lives, that's what jobs are for, but many people I knew had part-time jobs, and got the odd bit of cash from their parents (some of) which paid for going out etc, but they still ended up with big overdrafts, because they don't get enough money.
I wouldn't even mind so much with a comprimise. At the moment it's the poorest students that end up with the biggest debts at the end of uni, because they have the biggets loans (obviously). Perhaps a scheme with a standard loan value which everyone gets, then a top-up style grant system for the poorer students. I know that grants are available to some poorer students, but not nearly enough. Another option would be to do the current college scheme (£10-30 a month), but put it into a saving account, which could only be accessed when you finish college (or perhaps enrol on a higher education course). That way, people who wanted to go to university would have some money to put towards it (because I seriously doubt that much of this money at the moment goes on genuine living costs).
People don't want to increase taxes so that only leaves 2 options.
The Government's committed to more student numbers and there's no groundswell of opinion suggesting they're misjudging the public mood - so option 1 is out.
my niece just left edinbro uni a year ago ...with honours ...she is very bright and determined ...whats she doing now?
living with her boyfriend in sarfampton and has forty grand a year job with british gas ...in accounts.
she could have left school ...two years at college and still done the bloody job.
thats according to her.
so uni and debt could have been avoided altogether.
there was no point in it.
it just seems to have been a process.
It's like the money for college students that I discussed in my previous post. Why should they need encouragement to go to college? If it's genuinely because people have problems paying for things, then surely they're admitting that there's a major problem with the benifits system in this country and that is what should be addressed.
Yeah,. something like that.
I live with my parents, so that's not an issue. I just have to pay for all the stuff I need for college.
I don't give my parents any money, nor do I spend any of it either. However,t hey did tell me right at the start of the summer that I'd have to give them some money every week, but I don't need to do that now...
Do you really know how hard it is to find a job that doesn't involve shop work of some sort? Yeah, I know someone who works in a fish factory and is the same age as me, but the hours sound rather crap - however, he doesn't have as many A Levels as me to study for...