Having just been caught up with the mob on the Strand en route to the bank I feel obliged to share my very own University-finance policy. Vote for me.
I really don’t understand how coalition MPs, and particularly the “Liberal” “Democrats”, have got themselves into this mess. Are they stupid? Possibly. Most likely unimaginative or simply lazy. The square can be circled quite easily in my mind. The budget can be cut without trashing the economic fortunes of the country. Very Simply Indeed.
Instead of raising the cost of everyone’s degree, why don’t we concentrate on subsidising degrees which actually have some sort of relevance and use? The reason the budget is so fucked is because the taxpayer basically wrote a blank cheque to young people and promised that whatever nonsense they wanted to study would be paid for. No, my solution is much more subtle. The taxpayer should concentrate on paying for those degrees which disproportionately benefit “society”. Anything else would be down to individual decisions.
Subjects such as chemistry, engineering, medicine, perhaps even law would be in. Anything with the word “science” in the name would be out, along with Golf Course Management and the many joke subjects loved by the red-tops.
Many of the degree-level courses would be more honestly taught at a more technical or vocational level. Some do not need to be three-year full-time studies. Others can be learned through books alone. Will nobody in the coalition dare to utter the truth that not all “degrees” carry the same moral, intellectual or economic value? Of course not, that would be a bit too difficult for the dullards who run this country.
Well, I think students should be ripped off, and be disillusioned with the world. It’s just preparation for real life. Better to find that out that the whole thing is a bit of a swizz sooner, rather than later. Saves on bitterness. They should introduce some form of Welcome To Reality Degree. Takes five minutes and they can have it for free. Maybe the key points should be:
1. Not All Of *Us* Had 4 Years To Fuck About In The Library And Get Pissed With Our Mates Under Labour Either. If you can even consider it, life has already given you a great deal more than a lot of people.
2. It’s Called Life, Sunshine. It Isn’t Fair. End Of.
3. Now, welcome to being over-worked and underpaid. The highlight of your working year will be the time you get given a pen with the organisation’s logo on, because you chatted up the PR rep in the car park for 15 minutes, despite the fact he looked more than a little like your Dad and kept staring at your tits, and dribbling. This is your future, degree or no degree, sooner or later you will end up prostituting yourself somehow.
4. Watch A Frightening Amount Of your obscenely small salary be sucked into the big black hole of Public Funding, and lots of people all scrabble about for it, because IT’S NOT FAIR WAHHHHHH. Whilst all the time, knowing those same twats are the ones that really enjoy a bit of verbal abuse, usually starting “Yeah, well I pay your wages. Is this what my tax goes on”
5. Debt is part of life if you want things. It’s going to get you. Have less things and you will have less debt. Stop bitching about student debt meaning you can’t get a mortgage. You wouldn’t be able to get one without student debt either. Shut up and put up.
6. If you were real protesters then you’d have thrown yourself under the police horses like the suffragettes did.
Commence Bitching….
Comment of the year, 2010. Brilliant.
It’s this time of Year. Brings out the best in me. Peace on earth and true love to all mankind.
Marvellous Puppet!
Saved me typing all that!
I am available to give speeches for Birthdays, Christenings and Bar Mitzvahs, all for the bargain price of £99.99. I would consider funerals. As long as there is cake and fine wine.
(Sorry for pimping out my attitude problem on your blog, Blue.)
Nothing to apologise for!
So Blue Eyes agrees with Nick?
I agree with Blue Eyes.
You are starting to worry me! I was sitting down tapping out an exactly similar post to this. I have now taped over my webcam and installed another PC security system. I have also wrapped kitchen foil around my head (that seemed to work for all the nutters I used to advise when they thought that MI5 was reading their thoughts). I will still post it, but I’ll now have to leave you a `by line`.
Well Hogs your first mistake is to think I rely on such primitive technology to spy on you…
I’m still trying to work out the `comment junkie` jibe
Sorry, generalised mucking about based on a false premise after you deleted an uncommented-upon post the other day.
Please don’t hate me!
Oh, Clint Eastwood ring tone! Yes, I posted that as a sort of `pot boiler` then thought better of it.
Well you wouldn’t want to sacrifice speed for quality
But isn’t this what the fees policy will actually do.
If market forces make the price of a degree higher, then only those degrees that either
A} Are likely to attract a decent salary
or
B} Are a complete waste and the holder is unlikely to ever earn more than £21,000, even though £21k in 20 years time will be about £6k, which is a PT salary today.
These will be worth doing. the rest will just be debt.
i completely agree that the state, as the sponsor, should be able to direct its resources towards the most valuable stuff. and it is easy to see what it isn’t (golf course management) and where it definitely is (engineering, medicine etc). the problem is that the vast majority will be a grey area. i, for example, was a historian. we don’t ‘need’ lots of historians. however historians tend to make, for example, quite good lawyers (and indeed politicians). how do we judge? should there be a panel? an algorithm?
to reduce this to the absurd, the most obvious way to estimate value would be economic value. and to assume that apart from glitches in the system created by public services we would assume that salary is a decentish proxy for economic value. therefore those who earnt the most in the future should have their education subsidised the most. so free education for the rich. maybe that will go down well?
I agree it is incredibly hard. I never said it was easy! But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, IMHO. The “traditional” rigorous subjects would be a shoo-in if I was deciding. So history, English literature, etc. i.e. those subjects which actually teach people to think, analyse, argue. We don’t need lots of historians or physicists, but we absolutely do need people who are able to think logically.
I would have an open process. Maybe a committee of MPs. Universities might submit a proposal for state funding for X number of students per year for a particular course. Perhaps something similar to the research grant system?
isn’t it easier just to take a quick gander down the list of courses offered by real universities and say yep those are the ones we’ll stump up for (IF you are hard up) and if you want to ‘study’ something else, you’re welcome to cough up the dosh.
Oxbridge doesn’t offer golf course management, or media, or film studies …
Absolutely, Rachel. Those courses are there in bucketloads at the “Bums on Seats` Universities.
I said this on another blog. I agree with your ideas, but I think they are just too politically incorrect & unpopular to get taken anywhere. Will anyone confront the parents of none too bright middle-class kids who think they are a cut above people who do manual work, & are entitled to a place?
I would have to support the coalition’s policy as there is no workable way out of the fact that we have & will in all likelihood continue to have so many students. I am also of the view that if people are deterred from going to university it won’t be because of the policy, it will be because of ideas they have about it, often completely wrong ones.
It’s the easiest thing in the world to be the opposition at this point, all you have to do is slag the coalition off on every occasion. Harder to do the work.
(As US Republicans will find out now that they share responsibility for their country’s government, as a side note).
Watching the LibDems squirm about this one has been quite entertaining.
For most of the 20th century, they were able to promise everything to everyone free of charge and gift wrapped, knowing full well they would never have to demonstrate their policies would work.
Now that they find themselves the junior partner in the coalition government, they are having to face up to the fact that there is no such thing as a free lunch for anyone and that everything that costs has to be paid for by someone.
Many years ago, when I went to university, I was motivated by the prospect of earning more money in my adult life, doing something that I wanted to do. I guess I was lucky in that the state paid for most of it in those days but the downside was the rate of tax that everyone was paying as a result – and very soon I became one of the higher rate taxpayers.
The maths haven’t changed. You can’t have free or subsidised tuition fees AND relatively low rates of tax. Even if the LibDems still think you can.
I was having a conversation with an Aussie friend (in Sydney) on Friday night. He was expressing some sympathy with the protester’s cause (not actions) about paying big fees for uni up front. I corrected him that these were fees to be repaid only once you’ve finished education, were in employment and on generous terms. All sympathy he has suddenly disappeared. “That sounds just like HEX, we’ve had it for years. They should shut up and get on with it” became the new response.
I don’t think I’d be as draconian as you about cutting funding for non-core degrees. How do you define that anyway? But I do think we should push more subjects towards vocational training or the most appropriate method. With a bit of luck people will become more self selecting; they won’t sign up to Beckham studies as it simply isn’t worth the debt. This might be a bit hopeful though….
While agreeing with the broad thrust of your argument, I’m going to stand up in defence of ‘Golf Course Management’.
Every journo in the country bangs on about the need for people to study vocational courses and apprenticeships, and then they take the piss out of those who do. ‘Golf Course Management’ is packed with ‘relevance and use’ if you are going to be a golf course manager.
And it’s good for the country if we have better golf course managers, because our golf courses will be better run – more profits, more taxes payed, more people employed more profitably.
The real problem is that most of our future golf course managers have gone to university and taken poorly-taught degrees in media studies, psychology or performance arts – degrees which, as a result of the current system, have been designed primarily to be cheap to run and impossible to fail.
But does it need to be a three year degree course paid for by the taxpayer? Could not the golf course industry pay for the training of its managers?
Hm… just googled it. It is a slightly strange creature http://www.education.bham.ac.uk/programmes/applied_golf_management_studies.shtml
But it is a partnership between the university and a professional body – of the kind journalists always recommend – and it seems to be effectively a pair of 18 month courses: a narrow vocational course in pro golf, and a broader education in ‘sports science, materials science, coaching theory and business management’.
I just feel that a proliferation of subjects and specialities is no bad thing – the problem with the system is that there are no checks and balances in place to ensure that anything valuable is being taught.
And I think it’s just as easy to get away with teaching nothing of any value in a course called ‘History’ as it is in a course called ‘Sanitation management and dance’.