Intellectual elitism is what Uni should be about - not a means to educate everyone

It's his report card that made me ask for a source. It was quite a while ago, but I'm sure I remember seeing his report card and he actually did very well.

In fact I just googled it to make sure, here's the card:

but I'm sure you wouldn't advise a budding photographer to check out of school at 16 and sack off GCSEs in favour of portfolio-building.

so a meaningless piece of paper says "education is a right" - oh okay, I guess that means every african child is gonna get their healthy share of...oh.
you know the UN can't actually enforce anything, right? it might as well just be an thuper thpecial advisory body, or more like the international naggers club

Just because education isn't provided to some at present, it does not mean education should not be provided, which is what you suggest when you say education is a privilege. Countries in Africa cannot provide education because most of their economies cannot afford it.

And yes I know the UN cannot enforce anything, but they are there to make sure people's rights are not infringed as much as they can. Without the UN, many countries would not feel obliged to look after their citizens.

Oh and 192 countries would not have signed up to accord a 'meaningless piece of paper.' If you didn't know, the UN has bases all across the world and their commitments amount to more than words written on a page.

why should other people pay for other people's education, though?

Blah STEM STEM blah. You'd think from reading TSR that only STEM students actually gain graduate jobs.

There are some ridiculous degrees but take what I've studied, Economics. Regarded as a solid discipline with a significant weighting towards Maths, Statistics and Econometrics while at the same time requiring you to be proficient in essay writing. Plenty of Economics graduates have high paid jobs, just like every other discipline.

Despite this it's a social science, something that some STEM students would look down on and lump it with business studies and finance.

The system you suggest would result in an affluence and social class divide. In order to ensure that only the most passionate and intellectually gifted reach University, harsh admission processes must be enacted - similar to those in place at Oxbridge. And, what do we have at Oxbridge? A class divide; and it does exist. Why? Why, because the private schools provide kids with a much fuller, and more respected education (IGCSEs, rather than GCSEs, for example); consequently making it much simpler for the richest to access the top universities, being better qualified. Allowing only to most qualified, and those that appear to be the most intellectual, to attend, is to make University for the rich, and mediacracy for the poor.
While it is true that this is an issue, there is no fair way to weed out the most intelligent. For example, an impoverished Michael Faraday was never allowed into any formal education, due to his simple inability to keep up with his privately educated, more affluent peers. Nonetheless, he discovered electromagnetism.
Your system is a replica of an older one, and would not only create a divide at Universities and, consequently, in society, but also result in us preventing the next Faraday from discovering the next E=mc^2.

Cambridge university has a "flag' system to remind admissions / interviewing tutors of the importance of the educational, economic etc. background of potential students. So, for example, if you have ever been in care, your application will receive a flag. This is a praiseworthy attempt to measure 'distance travelled' and potential not just the presenting academic results. The details are up on their site.

They constantly complain that they offer places in almost direct proportion to the numbers who apply from private and state schools:the inference being that if more state pupils applied more might get in. I think this is right.

Incidentally they also have a comprehensive award system so students from poorer backgrounds will receive substantial extra grants, several thousand a year, making it cheaper for them to go to Cambridge than many other universities. They also provide film of mock interviews so that students have some idea of what to expect.

The Sutton Trust ( I think) has research to show that private schooling may improve A level grades by half a grade but this may be as a result of 'spoon feeding'. State school pupils do better, A level grade for grade, at university than their private school contemporaries. This may reflect the fact that state school,pupils have to have qualified teachers? are taught better overall, rather than just crammed? and so are better prepared for the rigours of Higher Education?

It is very noticeable that almost the only people calling for a reduction in higher education are young people who believe (not necessarily rightly) that they would still be entering higher education in any more restrictive system. You will not find any political party, employers' organisation, trades union or universities calling for this. In other words this is a call for the entrenchment of a monopolistic privilege in favour of those seeking the change.

The Labour government (and, if fact, previous Tory government) saw the opening up of higher education as a way to please a lot of their aspiring-to-be-middle-class voters without any real system changes in how we undertake compulsory education (because it would mean an admission that the current comprehensive system is a postcode lottery that fails far more than it helps).

I don't necessarily agree. I more or less fit your description - someone who thinks far fewer people should be admitted to higher education, but probably would still be admitted myself - and it is highly probable that I would have earned more money if I had been excluded from higher education. Possibly a lot more.

After correcting for aptitude, generalist education simply doesn't pay off. It just selects people who were already better than others, and pins a badge on them. Those people tend to do better than others, but they would have done anyway. Often the eduction system itself funnels them down a path that is not particularly rewarding but in which they now have a lot of non-transferable experience.

I think the wider access movements have much more to do with pinning the badge on more people, so that they can feel themselves part of the expanded middle class, than solving any practical economic or social problem.

You have quoted my first paragraph but have overlooked my second. I am not that we are saying much that is different You are sceptical of the economic benefit education. I say that too many people are going to university and that many who do go, are reading the wrong subjects.

That isn't what the OP and those who agree with him are saying. They are saying that there is an economic prize from a traditional academic education; that this prize is being diluted by letting too many people go to university and that prize should be reserved for those who (nominally) get the best school grades but (covertly) those who go to the best schools. That argument on TSR is frequently coupled with the suggestion that the general body of taxpayers should bear of greater proportion of the costs of educating that elite.

That is a siren call down the ages. It is the defence of the Old Corruption; it is the argument of the Second Estate. But it is invariably only the call of those who directly benefit.

It is very noticeable that almost the only people calling for a reduction in higher education are young people who believe (not necessarily rightly) that they would still be entering higher education in any more restrictive system. You will not find any political party, employers' organisation, trades union or universities calling for this. In other words this is a call for the entrenchment of a monopolistic privilege in favour of those seeking the change.

Personally, I think too many people are entering higher education and that many are entering to read the wrong things, but I think that is because of lack of market awareness. I think both schools and universities contribute to misleading young people about job prospects.

Under the science part, I'm sure social sciences are include therefore economics and such are. They're useful jobs.

However I don't think media, english, photography and dance can be justified for the taxpayer footing the bill

You have quoted my first paragraph but have overlooked my second. I am not that we are saying much that is different You are sceptical of the economic benefit education. I say that too many people are going to university and that many who do go, are reading the wrong subjects.

That isn't what the OP and those who agree with him are saying. They are saying that there is an economic prize from a traditional academic education; that this prize is being diluted by letting too many people go to university and that prize should be reserved for those who (nominally) get the best school grades but (covertly) those who go to the best schools. That argument on TSR is frequently coupled with the suggestion that the general body of taxpayers should bear of greater proportion of the costs of educating that elite.

That is a siren call down the ages. It is the defence of the Old Corruption; it is the argument of the Second Estate. But it is invariably only the call of those who directly benefit.

...kidding me? the UN may as well not even exist

believe me, dictatorships have belonged to the UN for a *very* long time

My point is distinct: that university isn't socially useful for many of those going today, regardless of what they study. That actually applies also to many of the top students. You said that the only people who want to narrow access are doing so because they will financially benefit, which I don't think is true in my case.