The Student Room Group

STEM students should pay higher tuition fees

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Original post by Lh030396
Yes, well that's you isn't it? Others are going to think differently. Not everybody is doing a degree to vastly improve their employment prospects. Some people want to invest time and money into something they are passionate about.

Yes, it's true that STEM degrees, on average, lead to better job prospects... that's why STEM students should pay higher fees. Supply and demand. I don't know why you think young people would be dissuaded from doing STEM if fees were higher than non-STEM subjects. Most people on here are obsessed with making a lot of money and most people see STEM as a way of getting a job that pays a lot of money. Therefore, most people would continue to apply for STEM degrees even if they were more expensive than non-STEM.


If people want to do a degree because they're passionate about it then that is absolutely fair enough, but why should they get a discount to do that? They can do it at their own expense. I might be passionate about hoola-hooping.. doesn't mean I'm entitled a discount on hoola-hoops :P

Mentioning supply and demand is stupid as has been mentioned. The supply of STEM degree teaching is higher as a result of the increased demand.

We should be encouraging people to do STEM degrees and other "good" degrees not punishing them for it. If someone wants to spend money learning how to take photographs then fine, but to charge them less for that is silly. So what happens if an individual does a degree for cheaper as its a "worse" degree and then goes on to do really well in life? Should they have to pay more money to the uni?

What happens if someone does a STEM degree and then doesn't get a job? Should they be entitled to a rebate?
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by evantej
The Conservative's position on tuition fees is that it is the person who benefits the most from their education so they should pay the fees not society. The fact STEM courses still receive government subsidies (i.e. costs above £9000 per year); students pay the same tuition fees as others; and students go on to work in higher paying jobs is inconsistent with this position. The fact STEM graduates earn more means there should be no government subsidy and their tuition fees should be higher than students in other areas.

The difficulty is finding the sweet spot between the cost of delivering the course and putting off applicants as the higher earnings are only ever prospective. This is what has happened with teaching qualifications. The government have significantly increased the amount of tax-free bursaries to attract graduates to teach in certain subjects where there are shortages. This is now a perennial issue where it is presumably cheaper to deal with chronic shortages by offering a small number of individual financial incentives rather than improving the overall wage and working conditions of the profession to make it more appealing. I am not convinced everyone who does not go into teaching because it is 'underpaid'.

The icing on the cake is the fact that non-STEM students are routinely humiliated for their choice of subject when the reality is that they are the ones actually subsidizing STEM students to have better facilities, more contact time, and have better paying jobs when they graduate. You could not make it up.

I do not see us moving back to a position where everyone studies for free. The fairest solution would be a significant reduction in the tuition fees for non-STEM students and STEM students paying higher fees. That would be consistent with Conservative policy.

In reality, the real winners are STEM employers who contribute very little to the education and training of their employees yet reap all the benefits. Conservative cuts to corporation tax only make things worse.


The funding position is more that 50% of the population, instead of about 10% in the old days, now go to university - and who ever said 50% of the population was "university material"?
Ally that to the fact that many of these students are studying the equivalent of "Comparative Morris Dancing" and the State can no longer afford to uniformly subsidise degrees, particularly those whose economic or social utility is not obvious - to be polite - BSc in Applied Golf Course Management [Birmingham] anyone? A BSc for Goodness' sake!
STEM degrees are however unquestionably useful, and therefore still attract indirect subsidy.
It's all a matter of choice. The State chooses to subsidise certain courses it sees as socially or economically useful, if you choose to pursue one that is not viewed in that way that is an issue for you, but don't complain about it.
Your argument that, because you choose to follow a course of study valued by neither society or employers, somebody else should help to pay your fees verges on the needy. It's £9000 a year, take it or leave it, if it's neither financially or emotionally worth it to you, go do something else.
In terms of your comments on STEM employers, it's five or six years between an engineer graduating with a Masters and getting their Charter as a fully fledged, fully trained professional engineer - during which their sponsoring company has considerable input.
Original post by Ringstone
the State can no longer afford to uniformly subsidise degrees, particularly those whose economic or social utility is not obvious - to be polite - BSc in Applied Golf Course Management [Birmingham] anyone? A BSc for Goodness' sake!


Which has a 94.4% employment rate...
http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/undergraduate/courses/sportex/app-golf-mgt-studies.aspx#EmployabilityTab

...and the typical salary range £16k-£26k is almost exactly the same as Maths at Birmingham £16k-£27k - oh, and Maths has a higher unemployment rate
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by jneill
Which has a 94.4% employment rate
http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/undergraduate/courses/sportex/app-golf-mgt-studies.aspx#EmployabilityTab

Typical salary range £16k-£26k is almost exactly the same as Maths at Birmingham £16k-£27k - and Maths has a higher unemployment rate


How many of those jobs are actually as golf course managers?
Original post by yudothis
How many of those jobs are actually as golf course managers?


Destinations of AGMS graduates up to 6 months after their course
Assistant Golf Professional
Coach
County Development Officer
Development Coach
Event Manager
Golf Associate
Golf Coach
Intern
Golf Professional
PGA Golf Professional
PGA Teaching Professional
Promotions Assistant

Further study
1 x Sports Coaching qualification

Examples of current employers:
Ryder Cup 2018 (France)
Titleist
TaylorMade-adidas golf
Professional Golfers’ Association
Motocadddy
GolfBreaks
IMG
Faldo Series
PGAs of Europe
Colt Mackenzie McNair
European Golf Association

Golf clubs and resorts across 17 other countries across the world (See FAQs for more details)

Alumni profiles: http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/sport-exercise/our-students/agms-profiles.aspx
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by jneill
Destinations of AGMS graduates up to 6 months after their course
Assistant Golf Professional
Coach
County Development Officer
Development Coach
Event Manager
Golf Associate
Golf Coach
Intern
Golf Professional
PGA Golf Professional
PGA Teaching Professional
Promotions Assistant

Further study
1 x Sports Coaching qualification

Examples of current employers:
Ryder Cup 2018 (France)
Titleist
TaylorMade-adidas golf
Professional Golfers’ Association
Motocadddy
GolfBreaks
IMG
Faldo Series
PGAs of Europe
Colt Mackenzie McNair
European Golf Association

Golf clubs and resorts across 17 other countries across the world (See FAQs for more details)

Alumni profiles: http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/sport-exercise/our-students/agms-profiles.aspx


That is not bad actually!
Original post by yudothis
That is not bad actually!


Which is exactly the point. :smile:

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Original post by Gatewaymerge
Another thing is that STEM students have 30 hour contact times while humanities have around 5 hours max. We got to standardise the price of lectures.


Different subjects have different amounts of independent-learning perhaps. (Though I'm not implying more contact time is worse; simply that different subjects have different approaches.)

For example in a joint language degree like German and Arabic. I imagine there'd be less contact time than medicine or something, but I don't think a degree in this is less valuable to the economy than a degree in medicine specific to those languages.

(I work on the premise that contact hours are the amount of face-to-face hours you have with a lecturer etc; say if I'm wrong.)

Original post by Lh030396
Yes, I do think that the more prestigious the university the higher the fees. Clearly Oxbridge should be charging more than Anglia Ruskin...
And I'm sorry but I have to disagree with the notion that 'a degree is a degree.' That's just not the case these days. I wish that it was, but in this day and age of economic hardship more importance is placed on the practical scientific and mathematical subjects than the philosophy-type degrees...


What about languages?
Original post by chazwomaq
And yet you're paying it...


Lol tru
Reply 129
Original post by jneill
Destinations of AGMS graduates up to 6 months after their course
Assistant Golf Professional
Coach
County Development Officer
Development Coach
Event Manager
Golf Associate
Golf Coach
Intern
Golf Professional
PGA Golf Professional
PGA Teaching Professional
Promotions Assistant

Further study
1 x Sports Coaching qualification

Examples of current employers:
Ryder Cup 2018 (France)
Titleist
TaylorMade-adidas golf
Professional Golfers’ Association
Motocadddy
GolfBreaks
IMG
Faldo Series
PGAs of Europe
Colt Mackenzie McNair
European Golf Association

Golf clubs and resorts across 17 other countries across the world (See FAQs for more details)

Alumni profiles: http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/sport-exercise/our-students/agms-profiles.aspx


How many of those students were already in the golf industry and wanted a degree for career enhancement?
If anything it should be the other way around. A degree the country will benefit from as a whole should be cheaper then those it won't. STEM subjects add to the economy. Anyone taking a degree that is fluff should pay more. It'll encourage more degree level on the job training for jobs that frankly don't require four years study to do.

I only went thought the first page here but to be clear the "fluffy" degrees aren't things like history that can transfer to good professions like law. I'm talking the very clearly useless ones.

The rest should be priced the same. If your earning potential is less then you have picked the wrong subject. That's on you.
(edited 7 years ago)
Well in a way we already do have a system where you pay back an appropriate amount depending on how good a job you get afterwards - that's how the student loan system works, just like a 'graduate tax'. If you study a mickey mouse degree and get a rubbish job, you probably will end up paying the equivalent of a couple of thousand pounds a year in tuition fees max, because the loan will get wiped off before you pay it back...
Original post by Maker
How many of those students were already in the golf industry and wanted a degree for career enhancement?


I've no idea. Ask them...

(It doesn't counter the point that this degree has economic utility.)
I am not going to get pulled into this debate on whether a degree in golf course management does or does not have economic utility. In all honesty because I have no idea about whether it does or does not.

The thing that I speak of is statistical probability and generic trends. Which shows that prestigious universities and stem subjects pay more.

obviously their will be some none stem subjects that Pay well and some non prestigious universities that via whatever means help their graduates get into higher paying or more promising job roles.

however this just detracts from the central points. The fact is that overall university prestige and stem subjects earn their graduates more and are also more rigorous then their counter parts.

I guess the advice would be to research whatever you want to do know the facts and the figures, and make a sensible choice from there.

Salary and economic future is not everything but if your decisions are not sensible in terms of economics don't try to expect others to give you discounts or subsidize you.
Original post by Luke7456
The fact is that overall university prestige and stem subjects earn their graduates more and are also more rigorous then their counter parts.


The best predictor of your future earnings is your parents earnings. Students from wealthier backgrounds tend to go on to earn more... and wealthier students also tend to be over-represented at "prestigious" universities.

Be careful with your cause and effect...
Original post by jneill
The best predictor of your future earnings is your parents earnings. Students from wealthier backgrounds tend to go on to earn more... and wealthier students also tend to be over-represented at "prestigious" universities.

Be careful with your cause and effect...


intelligence is genetic
IQ is strongly correlated to earnings and success.
what came first the chicken or the egg?

however that is going off topic obviously their are a lot of highly intelligent people from poor backgrounds just as a generic rule higher intelligence is likely to be more represented in wealthier back grounds.

On top of this wealthier parents can will and do use their resources in ways to help their children get onto stem subjects and more prestigious universities. heck take a look at the private tutor industry they would never be able to command that money if people could achieve the same results without even bothering to go to university just by osmosis because they came from privilege.

There is a disadvantage to coming from a poorer back ground for sure, and unless we change society in ways that would radically alter it for the worst it would be literally impossible to completely overcome this.

However in order to get the most prosperous society we can we should strive to make sure that everyone has the opportunity for success, and that we reduce disadvantage as much as realistically possible.

The best way to do this is by making sure that everyone can make informed decisions not by living in a delusion that a Theology degree from Chester is worth as much as a maths degree from Oxbridge.

Better support, more resources into nutrition and education and a decent family back ground will give young people more chance of getting into Oxbordge UCl or Imperial the UKs big four. However when an employer comes to making the decisions they will say wow an Oxbridge maths degree not wow how big is your parents mansion again.
Reply 136
Using some basic economic principles, the idea posted in the OP will simply serve to reduce the number of people applying for STEM subjects, as many people and their parents will lean more towards the cheaper degrees as all they will think of is having less debt, thus reducing the number of qualified scientists and engineers in the future. Those who would have been pioneering scientific innovation and driving economic growth would be replaced by people who cannot find a job due to excess supply in areas such as journalism and other cheaper degree-related fields. Effectively, you'd damage the economy massively in the long run. In addition, it would be excessively difficult to determine what degrees and courses at which universities would be charged at what price - does a degree like economics class as STEM even though at some unis it involves very little maths? What about business, which often produces highly paid graduates?
Reply 137
Original post by jneill
I've no idea. Ask them...

(It doesn't counter the point that this degree has economic utility.)


Keep telling yourself that, you might make yourself believe it.
Original post by Luke7456
The best way to do this is by making sure that everyone can make informed decisions not by living in a delusion that a Theology degree from Chester is worth as much as a maths degree from Oxbridge.


I've already given you chapter and verse on Golf Management at Birmingham do you want me to show the social utility of Theology at Chester too?

Mathematical Sciences at Oxford : 92% employed or in further study after 6 months
Theology at Chester : 100% employed or in further study after 6 months

I'm not saying everyone should study Theology. I'm saying you need to stop talking down about courses that you consider somehow beneath you. It's not a good place to be.

Oh, and by the way, if everyone did Maths at Oxford (or more generally STEM at the Big 4 universities, whatever that means) their "prestige" would be lost anyway...
Original post by Maker
Keep telling yourself that, you might make yourself believe it.


You don't consider the golf industry has economic utility? A £4.3 billion business in the UK alone?

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