Model Boat Mayhem
Mess Deck: General Section => Chit-Chat => Topic started by: Neil on October 30, 2012, 01:47:19 pm
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I thought that at least the Deans, Principals and heads of our nations' Universities were educated people even if ALL our polititions were Ostriches ( you know, the ones that bury their heads in the sand), but I heard on the news today that they are all bleating because the numbers of students are rapidly falling and therefore their universities are all running at a loss.............because of a lack of the little blighters willing to put themselves into lifelong debt for a bit of paper!
What do these so called educated persons expect when they are so greedy that they put up their fees to a minimum 9 grand a year,( those fees include digs, books food etc on top of their tuition fees) and then DON'T even guarrantee the graduates a job at the end of their debt ridden 3 years minimum.............if they hadn't all been greedy and opted to charge the full amount that the government allowed......they might be in different boats ( our link to model boats), and be having to lay off staff, left right and centre.............seams that they themselves should be in receipt of their own Darwen awards for their own idiocy and short sightedness.
Doesn't take a mastermind, genious or 1:1 Honours distinction graduate to see that this would happen............wonder what comes next in our grab it all, give nothing, rip em off society,
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Not exactly rocket science, but using the same misguided reasoning the answer no doubt will be to put up tuition fees to make up the projected shortfall. Are we moving gradually back to a society in which only the offspring of wealthier families can aspire to higher education, ie the families that can better afford to subsidise their children's future.
Odd how it has taken so long to reach this surprising conclusion. Like most "surveys" and "expert think tanks" it seems to take many months and tons of money to arrive at a conclusion that anyone in the street could have told you beforehand.
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Gentlemen, I'm sorry but both of your arguements and resulting conclusions are wrong. Unfortunately, your calculations were made using the outdated 'Commom Sense' method, and not the modern (and infinitely superior) Shareholder and Profits formula.
Shame on you...
Andy
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you must realise that being university types in higher education, they are only capable of using higher maths - which deals only in the theoretical, so in reality they can only theoretically ever make a profit - which proves the validity of their maths, when they dont make a profit, because the profit was only theoretical.
Grendel
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The other problem is the "degree" has been devalued as there are so many more people getting them
When I went to university in the early nineties, there were only 6 or 7 others from my school (over 2000 students) that went on to university
When My Brother was a t school (same school a few years before me only 2 went
I'm betting in the last 10 years its a lot more.
Most degrees now mean nothing to an employer unless its from a Red Brick university
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Some 30 or so years ago, at a time of scant employment, it was deemed a brilliant idea to reduce the number of unemployed by increasing the time that young people remained off the register by becoming students. Since there is only a very finite requirement for real world qualifications, we wound up with letting academics indulge in academia for its own sake, with BA degrees being invented for all sorts of useless spurious dross, these being fed to people who in preceding years would have spend the previous 5 years or so (2 Years gathering A levels, 3 for the degree course) in gainful, experience gathering, employment.
The academics thought this was great, as it ensured that they had steady, highly remunerative, jobs that were usually better than actually working for a living. A fools paradise, as you can only put that problem off for so long before something horrible happens. I expect that many of the spurious BA's went into banking and similar, where having a degree, and the assumed level of ability to learn that was implied, was more important than the subject of that degree. This last was explained to me at a careers meeting at my son's school by a pair of well spoken, well dressed prats about 25 years ago.
Does that count as a rant?
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Nearly!!!!
Bob
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The big mistake was to get rid of the Polytechnics in my view. Only a relatively small proportion of the population are suited to genuine top level academic study which is likely to be economically useful - for research and development, or things like surgery for example. That is why, in my day, the country could afford to give them grants rather than charge them for tuition. The Polys offered the opportunity for part time day release study in practical subjects whether in office based or manual working environments.
The student benefitted by earning a normal wage/salary while studying for one day a week and getting practical work experience for the other four. The employer was usually willing to subsidise the study day as they got the benefit of the extra knowledge gained by the student which could be applied to their business. There was frequently a condition that the student should stay with the employer for a specified time after getting their qualification to repay the employer's investment but this seemed to work OK in most cases. In the meantime the student was also saving up for the house deposit!
The problem these days is that it is assumed that an academic qualification must trump a practical one even if the former is in something useless like film studies where the student stands little if any chance of getting a job. The reality is that we need plumbers, mechanics, technicians and the like as they are vital to keeping everything working.
The old Polys have all 'promoted' themselves to University status, devaluing the coinage in the process. The Country has not benefitted from this change.
Colin
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The old Polys have all 'promoted' themselves to University status, devaluing the coinage in the process. The Country has not benefitted from this change.
+1
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The big mistake was to get rid of the Polytechnics in my view. Only a relatively small proportion of the population are suited to genuine top level academic study which is likely to be economically useful - for research and development, or things like surgery for example. That is why, in my day, the country could afford to give them grants rather than charge them for tuition. The Polys offered the opportunity for part time day release study in practical subjects whether in office based or manual working environments.
The student benefitted by earning a normal wage/salary while studying for one day a week and getting practical work experience for the other four. The employer was usually willing to subsidise the study day as they got the benefit of the extra knowledge gained by the student which could be applied to their business. There was frequently a condition that the student should stay with the employer for a specified time after getting their qualification to repay the employer's investment but this seemed to work OK in most cases. In the meantime the student was also saving up for the house deposit!
The problem these days is that it is assumed that an academic qualification must trump a practical one even if the former is in something useless like film studies where the student stands little if any chance of getting a job. The reality is that we need plumbers, mechanics, technicians and the like as they are vital to keeping everything working.
The old Polys have all 'promoted' themselves to University status, devaluing the coinage in the process. The Country has not benefitted from this change.
Colin
Exactly my point
but put much better
Another thing re the "devaluation" of university degrees.
When I did my thesis poor spelling and grammar would get you marked down, nowadays it doesn't
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Personally, I think it all started to fall apart when Universities and Polys were told that they had to play on the open market. Introducing market forces often leads to a degradation of quality. We have lost the centres of excellence that fed the minds of the young, we are now giving their brains the intellectual equivalent of McDonalds to digest. That is what market forces do for you.
Perhaps we should turn tertiary ed over to Tesco, they will make a profit. But is that what education really needs?
my 2 cents
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Personally, I think it all started to fall apart when Universities and Polys were told that they had to play on the open market. Introducing market forces often leads to a degradation of quality. We have lost the centres of excellence that fed the minds of the young, we are now giving their brains the intellectual equivalent of McDonalds to digest. That is what market forces do for you.
Perhaps we should turn tertiary ed over to Tesco, they will make a profit. But is that what education really needs?
my 2 cents
Thats worrying
this more so
(http://i532.photobucket.com/albums/ee322/Essex2Visuvesi/blogtesco.jpg)
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You can laugh, but Tesco has already dabbled in this sector.
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A degree in Shelf Stacking.
Liverpool U Tesco Dairy Centre
Collaborations
Tesco/Manchester Business school
Tesco/University of Westminster
Tesco/Institute of Logistics and Transport
Lifelong learning centre Welham Green
There is a Cambridge Tesco University Library
There used to be a way to use clubcard points to pay for OU courses, this ended in July.