should university be free but harder to get into?

Not entirely sure what that connotes?

You haven't read the article properly. SME employers are becoming less likely to recruit graduates.

That is a consequence of state subsidised apprenticeships. In reality SME employers (I know; I am one) never bought into the idea of the value of degrees. The problem was that instead of getting bright office juniors and the like at 16 who would work their way up, these people weren't on the market any more. They all wanted to do degrees. Accordingly employers ended recruiting at 21 essentially the same people they used to recruit at 16 but with a greater knowledge of Jane Austen or working class housing. These subsidised apprenticeships give them the opportunity to return to how it used to be (if not at 16 then at least at 18)

I believe you should have to pay. Otherwise people who arent serious would get in for the sake of it and disrupt other pupils and also, the government couldnt possibly fund the universities enough to make it worth there while for the pupils and them. No way.

I think up to around 1990, the % of people going to tertiary education was around 6%, that was when tuition was free and there were means tested grants as well. Now, its 38% so the cost to the country is a lot higher.

If the % of UG were pegged back to 1990 levels, we could in theory have grants and free tuition again but that would mean a lot of students would never have a tertiary education.

I'm not saying this to you right but why do people on TSR ask for people's opinions on a post, they set a question to be answered, and then just attack anyone who has a different view to them? You clearly don't want an answer because you're pretty confident in your mind that you're already right and everyone else is wrong.

I'm not saying this to you right but why do people on TSR ask for people's opinions on a post, they set a question to be answered, and then just attack anyone who has a different view to them? You clearly don't want an answer because you're pretty confident in your mind that you're already right and everyone else is wrong.

The permanent, plaintive cry of TSR:

Its called a debate, each side can put forward its arguments/ Of course each side would like to present its arguments as well as possible and sound confident in their own argument.

Theres debate and then there is just slamming people who don't agree with you.

Yeah but you're still ignoring the other side of my argument; how would the universities have the facillities they do and teachers that they so that would make it worth attending if they had NO money coming in? The government wouldn't be able to give enough, it's under enough strain because of finances as it is without that.

I suspect that they would be able to afford it if numbers went back to what they used to be. However, that won't happen, so we're stuck with it.

More like 'please please stop telling everybody in the world that any degree, no matter what it is, is of enough value to to make up for £27k+ in debt and the opportunity cost of 3 years without apprenticeship/work, and having me subsidise these people who will inevitably graduate with said degree and struggle to find a job they believe is commensurate with their qualification, eventually settling for signing on or a non-graduate job with little to no chance in either case of them ever returning the subsidy to me or my children'.

More generally: I think higher education is broken. The system was somewhat better when there were fewer universities and A Levels were harder, but tertiary education was free: it imposed a natural cap, by ability, on those who went on to further study. Such a system is also a far better setup for social mobility than the current system - back then, they didn't take as much account of background and went by 'grades are grades', but nowadays there is plenty of data available for universities to set differing entry criteria by family income, school type, whatever they please. As long as it is objectively shown that an AAA private schooler whose parents are on 100k+ performs equivalently on a degree to a BBB comp schooler whose parents are on 20k-, and the entry criteria are made to match this, then I would be in total support of such a system.

Nowadays, though, the supply side of higher education is gradually being marketised but the government has created a distortion on the demand side by a) providing extremely generous financing and b) not providing enough other options to develop a career post-A Level. This leads to the situation outlined above where students happily take degrees in courses that give them minimal employment prospects, to the detriment of both the individuals and government finances.

And in response to one of your other posts, while there does appear on the face of it an inefficiency in teaching archaic but 'tough' subjects (e.g. Classics) at the traditional universities vs a more revelant, practical course (e.g. Business & Management) at an ex-poly, the fact remains that the fomer is more employable than the latter. As such, many graduate employers are essentially saying that degree content is of little use to them and all they want is high academic intellect as signalled by completing a tough degree at a top university. Of course if they are simply interested in that metric then there is no need to have degrees at all, save for particular careers which directly build on degree level material and academia. Again, then, this suggests a drastic slimming of tertiary education to only include courses which cater for those particular careers/academia, if we are trying to aim for any sort of efficiency.

The alternative is to completely marketise both sides of the equation, i.e. have as many universities as they like offering whatever degrees they like with whatever entry criteria and standards they like, but also remove government funding entirely from higher education (perhaps save for the subset of degrees identified above). This will no doubt lead to most higher education spots being taken up by dumb but rich students, and may end up perpetuating significantly reduced social mobility. Hence I prefer the alternative of free but significantly narrowed, and also strongly/objectively background-adjusted, education.

Nonsense

Just a small sample from current students

Pay-yes
9k-no
3k is FINE in my books but tripling the fees is just ridiculous especially with the high accommodation costs

Agreed, but not 9k a year

Oh look, another 30 year-old who hasn't studied any of the current or soon-to-be-implemented a-level specifications for sciences/maths

I admit, the maths syllabus is pretty easy- especially core 1-3 and S1, but still, that doesn't mean that people still struggle with A-levels, they are still hard for current students. Especially as teachers, and adults in general, from what i understand it's natural to feel as if it were harder when you were doing A-levels, just like for me GCSE's were pretty easy on reflection, they won't be for current students.

Pay-yes
9k-no
3k is FINE in my books but tripling the fees is just ridiculous especially with the high accommodation costs

As the Open university has proved, many people who didn't / don't have A levels etc, can complete degree courses.

Universities are primarily about education ( as well as offering a way to a job.)

If people want higher education and it benefits them and the country by having a more informed population able to make better decisions then I see no problem.

Do we really want to go back to the days when education meant learning the absolute minimum to get a job at 13, 14 15, 16? Isn't it better to keep people's options open for as long as possible?

In a democracy we need an educated population. Otherwise the confident educated will always have the ability to pull rank on the deferential uneducated and become a self perpetuating oligarchy.