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All universities below the top 40 should be shut

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The 'Top-40' officially changes every year so this isn't feasible at all.
Also, by closing universities lower down in the league table you are depriving students who don't have the necessary academics to get into the higher universities the chance to develop their lives so they can get a decent career and put money into the economy.
Not to mention you would be putting hundreds of thousands of people, such as lecturers, tutors, technicians, librarians, cleaners, caterers etc, out of jobs and therefore would damage the economy even more.

Yeah I don't think its a good idea.

Reply 21

yaboy

Original post by JOR2010

Well your grades are clearly awful. Must be the worst of the Russell group universities..

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LOL harsh

Reply 22

bluebell100

Original post by JOR2010

Well your grades are clearly awful. Must be the worst of the Russell group universities..

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Lol is Nottingham University the worst? :P

You're right though. CDD was disappointing for me. Not anymore though as I've learned that A-level grades are not the be all and end all. Nottingham gave me a conditional offer of BBB but still let me in when I got CDD.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 23

Hal.E.Lujah

My university isn't in the top 40 I don't think, I just liked the course. It offered me exactly what I was looking for, with the tutors and facilities I wanted, and I'm happy to be here. What you're actually saying is diminish choice in order to make universities better, when actually they would become less competitive and most likely worse.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 24

sarah_22_16

Also what about all those unis such as Greenwich that run degrees such a nursing, midwifery etc. We need more nurses and midwifes not less.

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Reply 25

yaboy

Original post by bluebell100

Lol is Nottingham University the worst? :P

You're right though. CDD is awful. They gave me a conditional offer of BBB but still let me in when I got those bad grades.

Probably a foundation course then, or its a pretty unknown degree.

Reply 26

Goods

Top 40 is too Harsh. But I do in some way agree we should reduce the number of universities closing those that don't reach sufficient academic standards and open new higher education establishments that teach vocational and non academic courses. University status should be reserved for Academic institutions.
Also if you reduced the number of universities so significantly there would inevitably be private higher education establishments set up and then we would exacerbate further the two tier education system for those with money.

Reply 27

LexiswasmyNexis

Original post by TobaccoSmoke

If only the top 40 best universities remained open that means only the most academically able applicants would ever get a place and the cost to the tax payer would be far less to run the universities.

Also, with far less universities, the UK might be able to reinstate free tuition.

Original post by TobaccoSmoke

No. Just no. Not at all. Where would all those students go? What about those employed by the unis? What about local economies and their dependence on the presence of those jobs and students?

Then we go into how do you judge the top 40? Which table would you use? What criteria? What about top researchers at lower ranked unis? How about strongly performing sections within lesser unis?

Edit: Although I'm not in principle opposed to closing some low ranked courses at certain places if it is truly of economic benefit.

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(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 28

username306617

Original post by TobaccoSmoke

ROI or pay for the ferry to England. Simple.

I know you're trolling but

a) Why should people be forced to study in another country (ROI)?
b) What about people who can't afford the ferry? Or have unwell family members they need to care for? Or simply don't want to live away from home?
c) Northern Irish hospitals would have no trainee doctors or nurses, how would they cope?

Reply 29

bluebell100

Original post by yaboy

Probably a foundation course then, or its a pretty unknown degree.

It was an undergraduate degree in BSc (Hons) Animal Science.

Anyway, my main point is that the university you go to is not an indicator of academic ability.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 30

Theflyingbarney

Original post by TobaccoSmoke

Basically you're suggesting that it's a good thing that we have loads of low ranking universities with their main purpose of existence to hide the true unemployment figure?

Not to hide the unemployment, but to give people chances at getting jobs that they wouldn't otherwise be able to get. Think about how many jobs nowadays require a degree as a basic requirement - it's a massive proportion, and straight away you're cutting a good 60-70% of potential applicants out by closing all but the top 40 universities. And believe it or not, people do learn relevant skills at lower-ranked unis - as I said, they just tend to get badmouthed because they're of lower quality compared to others but they do represent new skills that A-levels wouldn't give you.

It's true that eventually the requirement for a degree would filter out but it'd take a long time - I'd imagine a good 20-30 years until enough of the people that had 'old' degrees retired to make a significant difference to the jobs market, and until that day comes you have a load of perfectly capable potential employees doing work way below their potential just because they couldn't quite meet the requirements that previously they'd have had no trouble with. In the long run it might work out but in the short term it'd be economic suicide.

Reply 31

olop

A ranking of 'top 40' doesn't mean much. A university I considered was top 20 overall but for the subject I wanted it was about 50th...

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Reply 32

fallen_acorns

according to the guardian.. thats:

Manchester
liverpool
shefield
queens belfast

All gone...

Thats quite a shame, but I guess those students just didnt have enough academic ability..

I guess I should notify my two friends who study physics at manchester, after recieving AAA - and both already have great graduate jobs linned up...

Shame..

Reply 33

cambio wechsel

Original post by Theflyingbarney

Not to hide the unemployment, but to give people chances at getting jobs that they wouldn't otherwise be able to get. Think about how many jobs nowadays require a degree as a basic requirement...

But is it the employers or the jobs that require the degrees? My suspicion is that it is in many instances the employers that do, and that because they can, and that because there are so many graduates.

I've little sympathy for the OP's case but I think there are an awful lot of people who likely aren't benefitting from what is nominally a higher education beyond their getting the (increasingly devalued) piece of paper. The pity of it is that there are too few obvious alternatives to doing it.

Switzerland, for example of a very high tech and knowledge based economy, doesn't put this proportion of its young people through a university education. There are there apprenticeships that are every bit as respected as the university courses to which they are legitimate alternative.

Reply 34

yaboy

Dunno would people see City university as a top 40 uni? dunno but they have cass.

Reply 35

User1014865

As people have said: Which are the top 40 universities? It constantly various and depends on a few things.

Reply 36

Theflyingbarney

Original post by cambio wechsel

I agree, it's the employers that require them, but as I said while there are still a sufficient amount of graduates in the labour pool, they'll still go around requiring a degree as it'll still be the easiest way of cutting applications down to people they're actually likely to take on.

Reply 37

JD95

the top 40 changes yearly (granted, not majorly, but it does) - and you're forgetting that it could be the case that one university not in the overall top 40 massively outshines a load of "better" institutions - why should that then be shut?

Reply 38

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

I am of the opinion that we do not need Oxford University.

We already have Cambridge, which is regarded as Oxford's superior in EVERY WAY the world over.

If we shut down the inferior half of Oxbridge, think of the extra funds we would have to further improve Cambridge - we could even challenge Harvard or Princeton one day!