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

I have a biography style book on Einstein and his influence on Physics that you may be interested in looking up. I can't remember exactly what it says but I seem to recall it mentioning Einsteins early education ane even producing a copy of one of his report cards. It is called '100 Years of Relativity'.

Yes, but everything really has a chain effect. While a top university might not judge a person, directly, based on their GCSEs, a bad grade can prevent a person from going to a decent sixth form. A more affluent family will be capable of offering personal tutors to compensate for a bad sixth form. Thus, it will be more easy to become an A*A*A* person if you're rich.

Thanks . But Einstein was actually a plagiarist.

You do understand what I'm saying right? That universities can look at their data of degree performance and find out that students whose parents are on £100k+ and got A*A*A* performed only as well as students whose parents are on £10k- and got A*AB? And so make offers correspondingly? And so the fact that 'it will be more easy to become an A*A*A* person if you're rich' is compensated for?

I mean, sure getting poor GCSEs might dissuade some otherwise bright students. I don't claim this will eradicate ALL inequality or privilege, but it will certainly remove a large portion of it.

Very interesting stuff there but I'm inclined to disagree. I tend to judge books on Amazon by the reading the 5 star and 1 star reviews and for me the 1 stars have it.

Agreed. However, I think by asking for A*A*A* students, you are asking for utter perfection. As you have stated, the exams are flawed; an intelligent person can miss out on a grade through careless mistakes. Your method might remove some inequality, but it nonetheless increases the possibility of overlooking the next Einstein - who may mess up an exam. Now if you're saying that we should change the exams, then that's a different thread.

Yep, the book is terribly written. Still, take a look through the net for supporting sources.

For the third time this thread, I'm not saying it should be A*A*A* students only. I only used that as an example.

Personally, though, I find it difficult to understand how someone can truly study degree level material without at least an A in their most relevant A Level (e.g. English for an English degree, Physics for a Physics degree, etc).

Tomorrow maybe (tired now *yawn*).
What concerns me is (especially as someone keenly interested in Physics who is currently deciding wether or not I want to devote my life to it) that if whatever supposed evidence in that book is true why there hasn't been some big uproar about it. I highly doubt he was able to somehow trick the entire scientific community. What credentials does the book's author have? I suspect this is simply a case of scientists 'standing on the shoulders of giants' which is of course, nothing new.

Its probably a thread worthy topic.

true - education is a privilege, not a right
it is basically a gamble to invest money in something like education
and you can't give everybody money to gamble

No you are wrong. As quoted from the UN 'Education is a right, like the right to have proper food or a roof over your head. Article 26 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to education”.'

Also we need to invest in our young as they will reap rewards for the country in the future. Funding all areas ensures all areas will see rewards in the future and maintain a diversified economy.

I highly doubt photographers and farmers need a degree to be able to do their jobs. They are going to uni for the sake of going.

Not really for the sake of it - by sending everyone to uni, the entry requirements for decent jobs have been inflated way beyond what they need to be and it is ever tougher to work your way up from the bottom. If anything uni is more of a necessity for those looking to go into less productive fields, since at least with productive fields your contributions can be quantified and you can move up that way.

Technically speaking, photographers and farmers (and most jobs, in fact) require zero education beyond the basic reading and writing, 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.

The ******* with sending everyone to uni is that it is privatising education by the back door and mortgaging people's futures. In a mature economy with bad demographic trends such as ours you have to artificially inflate the price of basic necessities.

So they diddled everyone in the generation before us with Right to Buy, so everyone had to get on the bandwagon before house prices went out of their reach and then they spend the rest of their lives working to pay off the mortgage to the worst landlord ever: the bank.

Now that little scam has been and gone, the price of simple shelter has gone stratospheric and new class divides are opening depending on whether your parents can leverage their own house to help get one for you, they are trying to do the same with tuition fees. Make it so everyone has to go to uni to get a foot in the door and you get to collect rent off them for the rest of their lives for the privilege of being given a passport (not a plane ticket or a road map, mind) to just the possibility of upward mobility in the job market.

Good point for the education up to 18, because I highly value having at least a basic education in most of the general areas of life such as literacy and numeracy (as well as history, languages etc). In terms of university, I actually think building up a portfolio or getting work experience is much more important than a degree for those areas.

For the rest of your rant about university conspiracies and scams:

I have a biography style book on Einstein and his influence on Physics that you may be interested in looking up. I can't remember exactly what it says but I seem to recall it mentioning Einsteins early education ane even producing a copy of one of his report cards. It is called '100 Years of Relativity'.