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Students face fees of up to £9,000

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MartinW View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote MartinW Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Nov 2010 at 9:12pm
Glad I'm too old to worry about this stuff. Smile Apart from worrying about it for my daughter that is.
 
Me... I'd do open university. And save a ton of money.
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Hot_Charlie View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hot_Charlie Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Nov 2010 at 10:16pm
Originally posted by MartinW MartinW wrote:

you can even go with non at-all you'll be spending a year getting up to speed first.

As far as I know, and I'm no expert, you can't go to university and do a "full" degree on no qualifications at all. If you could, thousands of kids around the country wouldn't be panicking like hell, when they check their A-Level results.


That's where the "foundation year" comes in, to make up for the poor/lack of A-Levels.

I'll really start worrying about uni again in about 16 years time! Some sort of equilibrium may exist again by then. I can understand everybody should have a chance of further education if they wish, but the reality is it's like putting a large proportion of the population in school until 21 or 22, and somehow that has to be funded from the nation's already empty pockets.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote twright Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Nov 2010 at 11:01pm

Hopefully it shouldn't affect those who have already started three/four year degree courses!  Not that that is at all helpful for future students though.  Student life is expensive enough - I am currently at a London university and decided to save a little by living at home and commuting rather than living in halls.  I still end up paying around £700 every six months to renew my Oyster Travelcard for my train and tube journey there and back every day!  And that's due to rise substantially next year too. 

Kind regards,
Tom
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MartinW View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote MartinW Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Nov 2010 at 8:55am

That's where the "foundation year" comes in, to make up for the poor/lack of A-Levels.

 

Which sort of negates your point. If you are making up for a lack of A-Levels, then you may be physically residing in a campus... but you aren't doing a full degree for that particular year. So you may as well have gone to night school or any other part time college and got the required A-Levels.

 

When we refer to “going to university” in the context of this discussion, we are referring to going to university to do a “full degree”. And to go to university to study a “full degree” requires reasonable A-Level results... except in the scenario Luke mentioned, where that individual has prior qualifications/experience and the university in question has put in place the provision to admit a certain number of those students.
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roachy View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote roachy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Nov 2010 at 10:32am
Originally posted by twright twright wrote:

I still end up paying around £700 every six months to renew my Oyster Travelcard for my train and tube journey there and back every day!  And that's due to rise substantially next year too. 

 
Well shouldn't we all be thanking Boris for maing our lives miseries.
Word has it that the new London buses he's trying to get bought will end up costing 50% more than a standard double decker. And this'll probably translate into a 50% hike in fares, which will infuriate most London bus users, who're on it for the commute and don't care whether it looks cool or not.
 
We should also thanks Boris' party for this as well - because the Thatcher government deemed it illegal in the 1980's for councils to subsidise public transport. Where I lived (South Yorkshire) this actually translated into a five-fold rise in bus fares overnight when it happened!
Luke Roach
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roachy View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote roachy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Nov 2010 at 10:34am
Originally posted by twright twright wrote:

Hopefully it shouldn't affect those who have already started three/four year degree courses! 

They were trying to get it to affect us, but as such our "contracts" with student finance have already been "signed" so we're not affected.
 
The only way you or I would be affected would be if we decided to do a Masters at a different university to the one we did the BSc/BA at.
Luke Roach
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote roachy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Nov 2010 at 10:35am
Originally posted by Hot_Charlie Hot_Charlie wrote:

That's where the "foundation year" comes in, to make up for the poor/lack of A-Levels. 
 
Like I said before though - you still need the same academic ability as those with full A-levels, otherwise you'll just fail the first year of the actual degree course.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote roachy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Nov 2010 at 10:44am
Originally posted by Hot_Charlie Hot_Charlie wrote:

They used to be called "unconditional offers". Normally they were awarded to candidates who performed well at interview (I wasn't interested in any university that didn't interview), who were predicted high grades anyway. The people who you see in the Daily Mail complaining at how they've got 3 As and failed to get into Oxbridge are the ones who fail to get their clever little heads round this fact!
 
Not the same thing. Unconditional offers still exist, but the Matriculation offer at Cambridge certainly isn't unconditional.
Unconditional offers are almost always made to those that already have their grades.
 
With regards to the 3 A's students, there are probably ten times as many people got 3 A's as there are places at Oxbridge, so they shouldn't expect to get in. Most people that actually end up in Oxford/Cambridge have multiple A*'s in their A-level results.
 
It's the same thing here at Imperial - although most offers were A*AA or AAA a lot of people here have at least 4 A-levels with at least 2A*'s. There are only a handful of courses that have AAB people in them.
 
Originally posted by Hot_Charlie Hot_Charlie wrote:

Some universities which used to have excellent reputations as Polys in subjects such as engineering are now existing on the droves appearing to spend 3 years on a more menial subjects.
 
And a lot have gone the other way. Check out the maths department at Sheffield Hallam and I think you'll find its absolutely fantastic. Sure, it hasn't got the same academic output that the "better" universities have but they've got top-notch teaching, the best resources money can buy and most of their students go on to be very successful even though they didn't graduate from a "better" university.
Originally posted by Hot_Charlie Hot_Charlie wrote:

The fact is the University system's now far too big to be sustained. Fact.
Not really. Its using too much money, and the money has to come from somewhere, but who are we to decide which courses are useful and which aren't? Or who should go to university and who shouldn't?
Luke Roach
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MartinW View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote MartinW Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Nov 2010 at 12:53pm
Interesting... so it will actually make the governments finances worse. What a clever government they are. Wink 
 
Some of us warned you before the election. Wink Smile
 
I agree with the article, and you wouldn't have to pay as much tax as you think. In return, everybody would have the right to further their education. And the country would be better for it.
 
Trouble is, it would take a government with guts.
 
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The fair way to fund universities? Income tax

 
Tuition fees are not the fair option - they are the easy option
 
The first generation to be faced with the government's proposed £9,000-a-year tuition fees will be those who'll start university in 2012. That's primarily going to mean those currently in lower sixth form, and I didn't see many of the cast of Skins taking part in Wednesday's protest march.

That said, if the government had just told me I'd have to pay £27,000 for a qualification that's going to be vital to my future, I'd be a little peeved as well - not least because the same government has shown scant interest in, say, getting house prices down from their stratospheric heights.

Those of us born in the late seventies or early eighties have long complained of being shafted by our forebears. It's now clear that the generation that comes after us is going to feel far, far more sore.

The Liberal Democrats will claim, of course, that this vast increase in fees is the fairest way of funding universities. As Vince Cable asked only the other day, "Why should a young postman contribute through his tax to pay for an already privileged group to avoid earning a living for three years and then emerge with higher earnings potential?"

The problem with this argument, though, is that those making it overwhelmingly are those who didn't pay a penny towards their university education.

If they were really so concerned about fairness, they'd be searching for ways to impose fees retrospectively so that all of us had to put our hands in our pockets, rather than deciding that the burden should lie exclusively with those too young to vote.

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Leave all that aside, though, let’s consider the most worrying thing about the trebling of tuition fees: that is, that it may actually make the government's finances worse.

Lord Browne's review of university funding, after all, assumed that around 40 per cent of tuition fees would never be repaid: some graduates will simply never earn enough to clear their debts.

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the interest rates charged will be capped, will make it all but impossible to privatise the student loan book. After all, what bank wants to take on loans that look like that?

In other words, raising the fees means that government will have to lend more than ever to students; that it will in turn have to borrow. And that debt is just going to sit there on the government's balance sheet.

And all this from a government whose raison d'etre is to sort out Britain's debt so that it isn't a burden to our kids.

There is, of course, a perfectly good way of ensuring that bankers pay more for public services than postmen. It's called income tax.

Raising that, though, would take a measure of political courage that no mainstream British politician has exhibited for some time. Much easier instead to pass the burden onto the young. And if they respond by breaking the odd politician's window, well, it's not a problem. The politicians can afford it, after all. 



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Hot_Charlie View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hot_Charlie Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Nov 2010 at 6:44pm
Originally posted by roachy roachy wrote:

[
And a lot have gone the other way. Check out the maths department at Sheffield Hallam and I think you'll find its absolutely fantastic. Sure, it hasn't got the same academic output that the "better" universities have but they've got top-notch teaching, the best resources money can buy and most of their students go on to be very successful even though they didn't graduate from a "better" university.


That's my point, the departments that places have reputations for still tend to be rated as excellent (I'm a graduate of one of them), it's just they get lost in the mire mediocre courses now offered.

Quote
Originally posted by Hot_Charlie Hot_Charlie wrote:

The fact is the University system's now far too big to be sustained. Fact.

Not really. Its using too much money, and the money has to come from somewhere


To big to be sustained in other words...

Yes, in an ideal world everyone should have every opportunity. We don't live in an ideal world...
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hot_Charlie Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Nov 2010 at 6:53pm
Originally posted by MartinW MartinW wrote:

Which sort of negates your point. If you are making up for a lack of A-Levels, then you may be physically residing in a campus... but you aren't doing a full degree for that particular year. So you may as well have gone to night school or any other part time college and got the required A-Levels.


Tuition fees still apply to a foundation year.

Quote When we refer to “going to university” in the context of this discussion, we are referring to going to university to do a “full degree”. And to go to university to study a “full degree” requires reasonable A-Level results... except in the scenario Luke mentioned, where that individual has prior qualifications/experience and the university in question has put in place the provision to admit a certain number of those students. </SPAN>


Come on Martin, you know I know what we're referring to by "going to university". Unless A levels have got massively easier (lets not go there), then people are going there with quite poor A-levels.

Back in the day I went with a C,D & E... Mis-spent yoof! There were fellow students on the campus who were straight in (no foundation years etc) with far worse (and not just those doing Alien Psychology with Applied Basket Weaving!).
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Marmite Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Nov 2010 at 10:14pm
If people want to go to university, they should pay for it. If they can't afford to pay for it, they could always look at other options, scholarships, apprenticeships or working and starting uni as a mature student. There's more than one way to skin a cat
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hot_Charlie Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Nov 2010 at 10:23pm
Originally posted by Marmite Marmite wrote:

There's more than one way to skin a cat


Can I get a degree in that?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote roachy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Nov 2010 at 11:42pm
Originally posted by Hot_Charlie Hot_Charlie wrote:

Back in the day I went with a C,D & E... Mis-spent yoof! There were fellow students on the campus who were straight in (no foundation years etc) with far worse (and not just those doing Alien Psychology with Applied Basket Weaving!).
 
But most people have to work really hard to get into university, and work really hard when they're there.
Studying Fine Art at Oxford is more wishy-washy than studying Engineering at Lincoln yet if fees go up to £9000 it'll be those disadvantaged kids that would usually study at places like Lincoln that don't end up going to university, while the Fine Art students will just get their daddy to pay for it.
Now this isn't stereotyping - something like 90% of Fine Art  students at Oxford are private-schooled and less than 15% studying at Lincoln are, so for this particular example it holds.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote MartinW Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Nov 2010 at 9:55am
Tuition fees still apply to a foundation year.
 
So what? Smile we were talking about qualifications required for a full degree.  My point, is that we were discussing your claim that super low qualifications are all you need to get into uni. No, they aren't, you need more for a "full degree" at most universities, for most courses. And a full degree is what this debate is about.
 
Yes you can go to uni and do a foundation degree, with lower qualifications, but thats an extra TWO years of study. And at the end of it, it's not as universally applicable.
 
Plus you would be paying extra, a foundation degree plus a full honors degree, with the associated extra cost thanks to the Conservatives.
 
Foundation degrees focus on a particular job or profession. They are intended to increase the professional and technical skills of current or potential staff within a profession, or intending to go into that profession.
 
Therefore, considering that many students don't adopt a career thats at all related to the degree they studied, a foundation degree is limiting.
 
A foundation degree is the equivalent of two thirds of a full honours degree.
 
Come on Martin, you know I know what we're referring to by "going to university". Unless A levels have got massively easier (lets not go there), then people are going there with quite poor A-levels.
 
I assumed, like I think probably everyone else, when you claimed 40 ucas points were enough, that you were referring to a "full honours degree" and not a foundation degree or special scheme.
 
"Going to university", and getting a qualification that is just two thirds of a degree, is not what most in this thread had in mind. 
 


 
 
 
 
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote MartinW Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Nov 2010 at 10:23am
then people are going there with quite poor A-levels.
 
My son is at university, my daughter will be going to university and has just signed up with UCAS. And no, in our first hand experience, those going to university to study for a full honors dergree... will require decent A-Levels. Of course there will be foundation degrees, and special schemes, and it will vary dependent on course and university, but generally speaking, no, I disagree.
 
My daughter is projected to have reasonable A-Level results, not superb but not bad either. But far above the 40 UCAS points you cliam... and she is struggling to find a university.
 
And you can absolutely guarantee, that now the Conservatives have taken this step... it will be even more competitive to get a place at university. With fewer places, entry requirement will rise further. That fact, plus the enormous cost, will prevent a considerable number form going to university.
 
Couple that with the fact that these measures will actually cost the government even more, due to the fact that 40% of students won't earn enough to pass the payback threshold... and the measures are ludicrous.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote roachy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Nov 2010 at 1:09pm
Originally posted by HotCharlie HotCharlie wrote:

then people are going there with quite poor A-levels.
But they're still having to work hard to get there, and while they're there. University isn't for clever people - its for people that want to be there, for those willing to try, and for those that it'll actually make a difference to.
 
Originally posted by MartinW MartinW wrote:

My daughter is projected to have reasonable A-Level results, not superb but not bad either. But far above the 40 UCAS points you cliam... and she is struggling to find a university.
Odd isn't it how the tories are advocating making A-levels harder now even though it was them that made them easier in the first place? All that harder A-levels will do is crowd a lot of "marginal" students (ie those that have to work really really hard, and only just get the grades they need) out of going to university.
 
Originally posted by MartinW MartinW wrote:

Couple that with the fact that these measures will actually cost the government even more, due to the fact that 40% of students won't earn enough to pass the payback threshold... and the measures are ludicrous.
Which probably means that 40% will be paying back money which for a degree which hasn't even earned them enough in their life to justify going to university in the first place (indeed, they won't be paying it all back but they'll certainly be paying some of it back).
 
Originally posted by MartinW MartinW wrote:

that now the Conservatives have taken this step...
 
I dread the day when Gove really starts to get involved in education matters. He is one of the few people in the world that I would genuinely, given the chance, hit in the face with a baseball bat.
He's apparently from a more "working-class" background than the rest of the (diamond-encruseted) cabinet but seems just as clueless as Gideon whenever it comes to serious matters.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote roachy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Nov 2010 at 1:19pm
Originally posted by Marmite Marmite wrote:

If people want to go to university, they should pay for it.
We do pay for it. We already pay an awful lot for it, in fact.
Originally posted by Marmite Marmite wrote:

If they can't afford to pay for it, they could always look at other options, scholarships, apprenticeships or working and starting uni as a mature student. There's more than one way to skin a cat
Scholarships are nowhere near sufficient to cover students, especially at places like my university.
 
Apprenticeships? Seriously? If I was poor and wanted to do physics what could I get an apprenticeship in?
 
Starting as a mature student just won't work for most people because they won't be able to save enough for it. Right now universities cost about £8000-£10000 a year, and if you start work straight out of sixth-form you'll never be on more than £20k even if you work every hour god sends. Deduct tax and living costs and you can probably save about £5000 a year if you're lucky (and have a bit of support frokm the parents maybe), meaning you'd have to work for about 5 years just to pay for university. Would you even be still interested in pursuing academic after spending that long working?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote roachy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Nov 2010 at 1:37pm
Originally posted by Hot_Charlie Hot_Charlie wrote:

To big to be sustained in other words...
Yes, in an ideal world everyone should have every opportunity. We don't live in an ideal world...
No, I never said that. It's using too much money, but there are other ways to stop this rather than just cutting numbers.
 
The whole idea of government is to try and make a more ideal world is it not?

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote MartinW Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Nov 2010 at 2:34pm
Incidentally, how does the Scottish system work? Have any on your friends considered going north of the border Luke?
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