Only the good Uni's should survive.

I agree with all of your points. I've always been of the opinion that we should go back to the old tripartite system where we send those who are academically gifted to grammar schools, those who have more vocational or creative skills to technical/ art schools, and everyone else goes to the bog standard comprehensive.

I think you're wrong there. I disagree, because I believe education to 18 is a universal human right. No question. But this is all you need to be able to move into the world of work and start contributing to society.

However, what tuition fees do is mean students have to make a concious decision about whether investing in their future is worth the size of tax repayments.... it puts a price on either using or wasting three years of life and means they can decide if they can make a good enough investment that they ultimately will profit from it... ie.. can I earn more than i spent on the investment

I agree with you though, far too many people waste their time at uni..... they go to uni because 'its what evryone does'

I agree with you, but it is on earnings over 21k, that's i think the only acceptable part.... meaning you earn 31k, you repay 900 a year. I think you're right that uni's need to be held accountable, and you're right, its not fair on fresh 18y/o's.... but something needs to be done to reduce students doing degrees putting them in fields where they have no hope of repaying..... if that means scaring them a bit, i'm not sure thats too bad.

like i met up with a girl i used to live near last week.... she's doing film studies, with placement, so 4 years of her life, but doesn't actually want to do anything related as a career.... smh

aha it's nice to have someone agree......

tbh i speak from the privileged position of going to a leading private school since I was 4, so a huge investment has already been made into my future..... theres a lot to live up to now fml

Agreed - I think the re-introduction of grammar schools would work wonders, because you can begin sifting from much earlier those who have a chance of uni etc, and start dissauding those who really shouldn't go..... I maintain, everyone should have the access to it, but they need to decide if they are willing to invest in their future, and have to pay for it

The thing with that £21k threshold though that I've never seen anyone else highlight is that it's static. £21k won't be worth the same in 25 years time.

Imagine you signed up for a degree 25 years ago and the threshold then was £10k, then you never really found a graduate level position because like that girl you pointed out you took film studies so you ended up in an entry level job same as every other smuch. Things weren't so bad at first because you were only earning say £8k, but fast forward 25 years to now, maybe you're a 46-year-old team leader making a respectable £30k with a house and 3 kids. You don't owe a penny of that salary to your degree, maybe even worse it wasted 5 years of your life keeping you in education rather than getting a job. Now you agreed to 9% of everything over £10k those 25 years ago, sounded reasonable. But now that is 9% of £20k, so £1800, basically a full months salary a year, that isn't an incidental amount.

That is the situation these people will be in 25 years in the future. £21k in 25 years time will only be worth about £10k in current money, and a £30k salary now will need about £60k in 25 years to provide the same income in real terms with inflation. These people taking mickey mouse courses now are signing up to sacrifice a months salary a year in 25 years just for the fun of being at uni now.

So I don't really get the idea that all ex-polytechnics are crap and no one should go there.

My rule thumb is that you should only invest in university if the qualifications/ skills are required for the job you wish to go into, otherwise it is not worth it.

Totally agree with the last sentence it's not a part of education you should do because everyone does it


However, having thought on it, I do see one reason why the ex-poly's get a bad rap..... they end up charging you the same 9k per year as oxford, cambridge etc, and tbh they don't provide anything like the facilites, education standards, alumni network or kudos the others do. When I look at it that way, it makes ex-poly's like UWE etc seem a tad overpriced

That's very true, there is a big difference in terms of facilities, services, etc because of the disparities in funding the universities receive. I've seen that first hand myself.

Although I would argue that some of the support and teaching practices in ex-polys is on par if not better than some higher ranking universities. During my undergraduate I received little to no assistance or actual real teaching. It was just a couple of lectures each week (which is what it mostly should be, but you'd expect some kind of "teaching" to actually take place). Ex-polys pride themselves on their teaching because it is what attracts the students at the end of the day. RG uni's know that each year they are gonna have thousands of applicants so they don't have to worry about their teaching methods too much.

These threads should just get shut down immediately, like who the **** caaaaares.

Go to uni, don't go to uni, do whatever subject you want. Literally who cares?

Live yo' life and **** errbody else

Universities used to be for the top 20%, and that's how it should be again.

if you actually read the damn thread you'll see we moved on from the thread title as we all agree its crap

iF yOu AcTUAlLY ReaAD tHe THreAd ......... yawn

Poor Nigel, still bitter you didn't go to university.

cheers for the helpful input there mate

I could say the same to you

As a UCL student with friends who study engineering here, you made the right choice. I've not heard one good thing about UCL Engineering.

I chose Manny over UCL for chemical engineering, just because its ranked highly overall doesn't mean Its great for every subject.