University

[pinkheather]

As it is the time of year for the annual university qualifying results [las week in Scotland] does anyone on here think like me on this issue. It appears that more and more people qualify to go to university surely that lessons the impact of a degree and are some degrees just bums on seats. When i was at school a long long long time ago none of the lads and lassies that i was at school with went to any kind of further education. The boys worked on farms took apprenticeships or joined up at 15 i dont know what the girls did most got married and brought up families i expect. I am not saying anything against university but i get the feeling that people are going just because it seems to be the thing to do and are not taking trades. A good tradesman is making a lot more money that most university graduates with the probable exception of legal and medical degrees. I know that good self employed tradesmen around here are making 50 60k a year and plumbers probably more. Can we have some opinions on this please i will always back the good skilled man to make a good living over most graduates. You can tell by my posts i left school at 141/2 served my time, joined up, back on the tools.

 

[Gimp]

I think more are able to get to uni due to accesibility, at one time it was only the very wealthy who were able to really reach their goals and aims of further education, If people want to follow their dreams whatever it may be then good for them.

I must admit I dont really like posts like these, people work damm hard to get into uni. I myself wish I had gone, just for the personal goal. Its not always about how much money you can earn at the end of it? Its the life experience. My brother went to Uni, and did Geography. He now runs a mainly ebay based business with a nearing 7 figure turnover !

 

[popularfurball]

Sadly I think it's going back to only the wealthy again gimp

Vocational training certainly wasn't promoted at my school and very few considered it an option. I went to a state school, but thankfully, a very good one.

 

[squidsin]

I wouldn't go to uni if I had my time again - all it did was get me into debt. I was offered a job on a paper before I went, which would probably have worked out better for me in the long run, as no employer ever has ever asked or cared about my degree. That said, when I'm hiring, I expect degrees from good universities with a 2.1 or higher, as degrees don't have the same cachet they used to. To be honest, I don't really care about degrees and if potential employees showed a bit of naus and sent in some fantastic articles they'd written, I wouldn't care if they had failed everything with one GSCE to their name! Never happens though, we just get the same uninspiring CVs that all say the same things.

I'm wandering off topic. I believe university education should be available to everyone and hate the way it's increasingly geared towards well-off middle and upper class kids. Many working class kids, understandably, without parents to help them out financially, are going to be put off by the idea of starting working life with tens of grand worth of debt hanging over them. I totally agree that trades need to be promoted more, but worry we're heading backwards towards an increasingly classist society once more.

 

[Joyscarer]

It's a fact that a much higher percentage is going on to university, so yes, with more degrees out there the degree is becoming very common and isn't held in the regard it once was.

I for one think its a waste of time trying to get everyone to hold a degree because generally a degree doesn't make for a better calibre of employee. Nor does it automatically open doors for better jobs and there aren't enough degree level jobs for graduates to go into with retail staff and call centre staff having a high proportion of graduates in comparison to years ago. Mind you, it's still the case that having a degree and allying for entry level jobs will see you getting turned down for being over qualified and lacking experience so graduates can gin it harder to get a job.

Vocational qualifications are specifically aimed at developing working skills and I hope that the trend back towards such courses continues.

 

[juliecwuk]

I worked really hard for my degree. I got a first in Environmental Geoscience. Had a job secured even before leaving Uni, which I am still doing now for the same company. I'm glad I went but I don't need the degree for my job, though it helped me secure the job easier.

Saying the above i don't think I would go to Uni now, my sister is doing Medical Engineering in Uni, and I think for the professions she wants to go into she would have to have a degree...and for other professions then yes obviously u need to go to Uni. But me personally I think I would choose a vocational training profession and skip Uni! Especially now with the costs of feed etc, gosh I dread to think how much debt my sister will graduate with!

 

[Ruskii]

I know people keep saying it it's a big debt hanging over their head, but I really struggle to see the problem with this debt. It's not like the government is going to foreclose on your house, you only pay a small percentage back when your earning a certain level wage.

 

[squidsin]

I know people keep saying it it's a big debt hanging over their head, but I really struggle to see the problem with this debt. It's not like the government is going to foreclose on your house, you only pay a small percentage back when your earning a certain level wage.

But the thing with being in debt is that the debt might be called in one day. Maybe not by this government - maybe that's not even legal - but it's a worry for some people. A lot of people are raised with the idea that any kind of debt is bad, even shameful, and our whole economy is in trouble because of the amount of debt the country is in. So it's no wonder, in my opinion, that a lot of people think debt = bad. I do!

 

[Frances144]

My daughter has worked damned hard to get into Oxford.

Thank you very much.

I am very proud of her and your post denigrating her effort and achievement, despite her huge educational special needs, which she overcame, smacks of sour grapes tbh.

 

[pinkheather]

I dont think anyone is down crying a university degree and some people who are academically minded university is probably their best option. But what made me think about this was i live not far from a very posh private school and am friendly with a lot of the masters and i asked them the same question and they felt that too much emphasis was put on a university education and not enough on vocational training. These islands used to produce some of the best apprenticeships in the world and Scottish engineers and tradesmen could be found all over the planet but i dont know if that is the case now. One of the reasons why we have slipped so far down is because we do not put enough emphasis on vocational training or so i am told. The Germans who are far more practically and vocationally minded are light years ahead of us that is why their manufacturing base is in a much healthier state that our pathetic base. I sometimes fear that we are going to make exactly the same mistakes over and over again and not get our children into the right areas to lift the country out of the mess its in. Nearly all of the Poles that have arrived here on our building sites have a much greater handle on it than our youngsters, it just makes me wonder if our education system is geared correctly. We still in ssome places look down on skilled men and women which saddens me as these are the people that create the wealth with their skills.

 

[Cortrasna]

Of course one shouldn't decry those who have struggled to get through university. It is a great achievement who ever you are, wherever you come from, and whatever particular university you manage to get in to.

But is it not a fact that certain universites hold less kudos than others. Dropping Oxford or Cambridge into the conversation still seems to hold some rather old fashioned and outdated 'one upmanship'? Whilst that attitude still prevails then I do think that having a university degree from one of the 'lesser' unis still has a slight air of 'well its a degree, but is it a worthwhile degree?'

I hasten to add this is not my opinion, just reflecting that sadly the old class system still rules whilst we choose to view some higher education as slightly better than others.

The UK is rather a small place, there are only so many jobs that require degrees - but an awful lot of practical skills are still in short supply - hence the huge influx of Europeans more than able and willing to fulfill the void. If our own youngsters where more keen to take up training of this sort then it might be a lot better for all of us as a whole IMO.

 

[pinkheather]

My daughter has worked damned hard to get into Oxford.

Thank you very much.

I am very proud of her and your post denigrating her effort and achievement, despite her huge educational special needs, which she overcame, smacks of sour grapes tbh.

This post was to encourage debate on if our education system was geared in the right direction and not a personal attack on people who attend or have attended university. As for the comment about sour grapes how wrong can you be as my own daughter attended university and like many others found her degree not of much use in the workplace, however as she was brought up with other values and skills, she has never been out of work and has used her practical skills to find work in many different countries. If you read the post i did not make personal attacks on university education i mearly asked the question if it was given too much of a priority over other types of education and that a good 714 tradesman has the potential to earn much more than most graduates. As an example the farrier i sometimes get is a female with a degree in zooligy but admits her earnings are 3 or 4 times greater than if she had worked in the field she has her degree in. I am sure all youngsters work hard to get to university but i pose the question of is it perhaps more about bums on seats and a way of raising revenue for these institutions rather than making youngsters employable with the right skills.

 

[joosie]

For a lot of people, going to uni is about more than just getting a degree. It's about the whole experience and how it prepares you for the life ahead of you. So does it necessarily "matter" if the degree leads to employment or not - does it matter if you finish uni and then have to do extra training to get into your chosen career - does it matter if like me you go to uni and then fall into a line of work where your degree is completely irrelevant. If you make the most out of your time at uni and get enough out of it then there is more to it than just academic / employment concerns.

I was always quite an academic type and did well at school and college, so going to uni to further my education was the logical next step. I wasn't interested in vocational training, I wanted to pursue a specific interest and it really wasn't a concern whether my degree would be relevant to my future or not. I also thought that going to uni would be great for my independence and self-confidence - I've always been very shy, and have a small comfort zone when it comes to socialising, so I hoped that moving away from home and starting a "new life" from scratch would help me become a little braver and more self-assured.

I flew out of the UK on the day of my graduation (July 2006) and have been working with horses since then. So in work / career terms my degree hasn't been relevant at all - and I doubt now that it ever will be - but I still don't regret doing it. My time at uni wasn't wasted, I was involved in a lot of things and really made the most of it.

The most character-building aspect of uni for me was the whole money thing. My parents were both made redundant not long after I made my uni applications, and then found very low-income employment, so they couldn't contribute financially. My student loan covered my rent / bills / tuition fees but I didn't take the full amount offered to me (less to pay back!) so for everything else the money had to come from my own pocket. I always had several part-time jobs on the go, and had to fit in work around study and my other commitments. It was quite stressful at times! So many of my fellow students had financial support from their parents, didn't need to have a job, and always seemed to have plenty of cash to spend... rather discouraging for those of us who had to struggle for money for 3 years.

I had to submit a portfolio of writing, attend an interview which included a 10-minute presentation and some practical tasks, and get three A's at A-level to get onto my journalism degree. You know, journalism, one of those "mickey mouse" courses that are really easy to get onto (...apparently...!). On my course I met a lot of very intelligent, creative people who would clearly have a bright future ahead of them whether it was the degree that got them there or not.

 

[squidsin]

For a lot of people, going to uni is about more than just getting a degree. It's about the whole experience and how it prepares you for the life ahead of you. So does it necessarily "matter" if the degree leads to employment or not - does it matter if you finish uni and then have to do extra training to get into your chosen career - does it matter if like me you go to uni and then fall into a line of work where your degree is completely irrelevant. If you make the most out of your time at uni and get enough out of it then there is more to it than just academic / employment concerns.

I was always quite an academic type and did well at school and college, so going to uni to further my education was the logical next step. I wasn't interested in vocational training, I wanted to pursue a specific interest and it really wasn't a concern whether my degree would be relevant to my future or not. I also thought that going to uni would be great for my independence and self-confidence - I've always been very shy, and have a small comfort zone when it comes to socialising, so I hoped that moving away from home and starting a "new life" from scratch would help me become a little braver and more self-assured.

I flew out of the UK on the day of my graduation (July 2006) and have been working with horses since then. So in work / career terms my degree hasn't been relevant at all - and I doubt now that it ever will be - but I still don't regret doing it. My time at uni wasn't wasted, I was involved in a lot of things and really made the most of it.

The most character-building aspect of uni for me was the whole money thing. My parents were both made redundant not long after I made my uni applications, and then found very low-income employment, so they couldn't contribute financially. My student loan covered my rent / bills / tuition fees but I didn't take the full amount offered to me (less to pay back!) so for everything else the money had to come from my own pocket. I always had several part-time jobs on the go, and had to fit in work around study and my other commitments. It was quite stressful at times! So many of my fellow students had financial support from their parents, didn't need to have a job, and always seemed to have plenty of cash to spend... rather discouraging for those of us who had to struggle for money for 3 years.

I had to submit a portfolio of writing, attend an interview which included a 10-minute presentation and some practical tasks, and get three A's at A-level to get onto my journalism degree. You know, journalism, one of those "mickey mouse" courses that are really easy to get onto (...apparently...!). On my course I met a lot of very intelligent, creative people who would clearly have a bright future ahead of them whether it was the degree that got them there or not.

I am a journalist - with an English and Art History degree! Should have done a proper journalism degree really but my parents (wrongly) wanted me to do something 'conventional' and for perhaps the only time in my life, I listened to them! Then started my journo career working for free until someone finally paid me! Also empathise on the cash front, I didn't get any financial help either so worked all the way through uni too, in Pizzaland and the local pub. I didn't really enjoy uni so I think that's given me a rather negative outlook on the whole concept of a university education. I also think my teachers weren't actually very good. The lectures were uninspiring and dry. If I was to go now, and pay for the privilege, I'd be kicking up a fuss about that. But of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing!

 

[Trewsers]

I think a lot more people get to go to Uni nowadays. Back in my day it was much more uncommon. One one of the 5 of us managed it. Well, that was back in the 1970's for one of my brothers. The rest of us either got jobs straight from school or went to polytechnic college or dreaded secretarial college. I can't comment as to whether it's easier to get there today or not, as I don't have kids. And of course I'd probably want mine to have the chance to go there if they wanted to - I wouldn't force it though. I got forced to do a hideous college course which has borne no relation whatsoever to what I do now. I am working class though - and had low expectations of my career to be honest! I am not and was never under any illusions about how things would turn out. I wonder if there are enough jobs for all these graduates? Around here not. Otherwise they wouldn't be working in Maccy D's etc all year round - not just holidays.

 

[eventerbabe]

As a teacher, i see and hear the pressure on kids to get into university. And it doesn't matter if they are not academic enough to get into uni, because their friends are going then they want to go. I have industry professionals in to talk to our pupils. Some have degrees, some have gone the vocational route. One very successful oil executive went straight into work and studied on the job. I think it's important to show young adults just what routes are open to them. My bug bear with universities is them rejecting 'home' students in favour of those not from scotland so they can get more fees. I also baulk at my former university wanting higher entry requirements for their chemistry degree than edinburgh want for vet med. Total joke. So i'm seeing my academic pupils being demoralised because they are being asked for AAAAA for a bog standard BSc. Yes you will earn more going the vocational route BUT that isn't for everyone. Neither is university. It's swings and roundabouts. What is important is finding the CORRECT positive destination for each individual.

 

[Joyscarer]

This is why I'm glad out daughter can see things from both sides when she's old enough. I went to uni and hubby did an apprenticeship and worked bloody hard on the job to get to where he is now.

 

[eml]

I did a degree, post grad and further professional qualifications. ( ..and even more to enter the horse industry in my 40's a) I am however old enough to have done most of it on a full grant and no tuition fees when only 2% at the most went to University !

These days there are far too many courses offering 'university' qualifications which will not get people jobs they could not have got at 16/18 with in job apprenticeships. These kids leave university believing they are 'graduates' and so will get 'managerial' roles.

Sadly they are not and based on my knowledge in the horse industry they are less useful than the apprentice served workers. They then go back to work in colleges and eventually become the teachers and the cycle becomes so ingrained that businesses find 'graduates' unemployable. Kids and parents pay a fortune for a degree as apprenticeships are seen as 'exploitation'. Apprenticeships cease to exist, private businesses withdraw,so colleges become the only training providers. Sounds scary for the future...no it is the reality these days at least in the horse industry and I am sure a lot of others.

I know of several internationally well regarded private training yards that are closing as people want the important 'degree'!. They will end up less employable and with fewer employment opportunities but never mind the Government can claim a high percentage of Degree level people!!