www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... urses.html How can two E's at A level be adequate to enable entry to any meaningful university course in law or architecture? The country has gone mad.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... urses.html How can two E's at A level be adequate to enable entry to any meaningful university course in law or architecture? The country has gone mad.

This is widespread. You can ring up half-decent universities during clearing and get in with grades well below the normal offer.

Likewise, universities will accept pretty much anyone onto a masters degree, regardless of their previous degree grade.

It's a fraud on the system, and the student themselves. I really don't think someone with E grades at A level and a 2:2 law degree from Leeds Met is likely to go on and qualify as a solicitor or barrister.

Not worth funding these sort of people through university. They just use it as a 3 year up.

1. Its what happens when you cut the universities completely adrift of state funding, of course they are bound to accept anyone with the credentials to get a student loan or pay cash, of course they are.

2. Ultimately we aren't "funding people through university", they are borrowing money, which has to be paid back, up to £40k for some of them.

And the interest on that loan compounds. The rate for loans this year has been set at a rate of 6.6%. That means if you got the £9K loan plus borrow a further £4K for the subsistence loan for three years you would have to earn £33K a year on day one after graduation just to meet the interests payments.

That is you would not be paying down any capital on the loan even earning £33K a year. You would be paying £90 a month out of your salary and would not be paying down the loan.

Anyone on less than £33K a year would see their debt increasing not decreasing.

Of course the government never highlighted this when it went on its propaganda offensive when they came up with this stupid idea. No, instead they said (and keep saying), parents don't have to pay, students don't have to pay until they graduate and its all right and proper that "postmen" (or whoever) on low wages should not have pay taxes toward undergraduate education when in fact the amount they did pay was a pittance anyway.

How the hell the Lib Dems went from abolishing fees to this ludicrous system I will never know.

And therein lies one of the many problems. Most people who leave university with cack degrees are simply not going to earn over the £33K required to make any meaningful payback on their loans.

I think the loans are written off after 25 years.

It's 30 so this is basically a graduate tax not a loan.

What is more those do go onto very well paid jobs [iwill[/i actually pay the loan down which means they will end up paying [iless[/i for their university education than someone who ends up on a middle income.

Fair point.

Ultimately though, it is only right that those who receive the benefit of the education pay for it.

In a lot of the "professions" its the employers who are actually the main beneficiaries of university education, for free.

And that is why many of them sponsor people through uni.

Indeed. Labour have a lot to answer for on this.



Yup. And as everyone benefits...

I know masses of people who have left university with degrees such as 'business studies'.

Many of them are working in run-of-the mill jobs that do not require anything more than a sensible school leaver. They receive no extra financial reward for their degree, nor does their degree have any tangible impact on their job.

I don't see how we, as a society, benefit from these people having degrees. Does it mean they are likely to make more intelligent conversation in the pub or something?

Unless you do something super specialised (medicine, law etc...) or elite (PPE at Oxford) the chances are your first degree will be irrelevant after 5 years.

Most prospectuses these days try to sell their "university experience," rather than education. I think that refers to giving students a platform to get p***ed and act in an immature manner without having to worry that they come out without a "qualification".

Needs to be more academic vigour. I know people who went through 3 year degrees sitting no more than 2 or 3 exams.

Essay-based assessments are often little more than an exercise in detecting plagerism.

Unfortunately its often the employers who enforce that misconception by insisting on such qualifications for even the most mundane of jobs - when was the last time you saw a job advertised for an "office junior", or heard of an employer willing to take on a 16 year old and give them a five year on the job apprenticeship and pay for their day release or night school training ?

The misconception is that a 21 year old will leave university ready trained for the world of commerce in whatever field they choose, which as most of us are all too aware is a gross misconception, albeit a very cheap option for the employers.

Many ?

Are you sure about that word "many" ?

I see precious little evidence of it being "many", "a few" I would agree and only in certain professions, its certainly not "many".