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Would you be a student these days?
Having seen the shenanigans in town today, it made me think about what i'd say to future Brodiej's if they asked about whether or not it was a good plan to go to university. In my day, it was free, bar the additional living costs (which in Leeds) were around £80 a week...so completely affordable whether you were loaded or not (most just borrowed it including me and took a summer job). However, I wouldn't say the academic side of things put me in a better shape when moving into the job world. Undergraduates appeared to be a "chore" for most professors who in my opinion only cared about publishing papers rather than supporting students. Had i been paying tuition fees i would have been furious. I secured my first job before leaving, and ever since then in my career the grade i achieved and subject i studied have been completely irrelevant. I can't argue against the life experience of going to uni, but given that the potential minimum debt you'd come away with these days being around £40k, i just couldn't say its a good thing to do anymore. Plus.....how do you get a mortgage with a £40k debt round your neck? Also, i don't get the argument that its everyones "right" to go to uni. IMO, its not about restricting access through fees, it should be on performance and achievement of individuals. If you're thick you ain't going!
PS: There's a great bar at the top of the Milbank tower where the crusties were kicking off today. Wonder if they made it up there? Probably would have been nice to kick back after all that.
PS: There's a great bar at the top of the Milbank tower where the crusties were kicking off today. Wonder if they made it up there? Probably would have been nice to kick back after all that.
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@ ADGS. I'd never really thought about the work ethic of non-paying vs paying students and i think you're absolutely right. My decision to go was based on tradition, not really knowing what i was doing (still true by the way), and choosing a subject i was good at. If i was structuring my life around a degree choice now, i would take completely different A levels, all with a specific vocation in mind etc.....as it transpired i just went and did what i thought i was good at (big mistake). In my time, you weren't educated by schools about the implications of what you were doing. You just went to uni, thats how it was. No other viable alternative. Students these days have been forced to consider their choices through tuition payments, and i bet they are much much better than the unfocussed crop of 1996! Better results, more focus, more drive. I'm sure employers will have noticed this.
@Ali. Yes, this is true too. I still find the content of the course marginally interesting, but i can see some skills that i developed as a result of undertaking essay/dissertation writing in my job today. However, within a year of work i probably learnt more than in the 3 years at uni. I can specifically remember interviewers who just weren't interested in the "presentation skills" and "working within a team" examples that i quoted. It was all about what had been achieved in the real world.
I don't think the existing/proposed system is fair and needs a revisit, but to its credit, i do believe that introducing fees has probably meant that graduates today are worth more to business than the slackers (me included) of the nineties who graduated having had a "great time", but were no clearer on what they were going to do for the next 45 years.
Here's a question. Given the introduction of fees, the subsequent proposal to raise them, the requirement to pay them off, the potential requirement to buy a house before the age of 40, how would you get people to think less about what they do after education, and to become more intellectually curious and broad minded when they're in it. In short, i think its very difficult these days. People see it as a stepping stone to somewhere else rather than a place to become a more rounded individual. Society loses as a result.
Don't tell me, those that didn't go read the Guardian right? What a lame way to end that thread.
Then again, from the corporate feudalist viewpoint by which we've been ruled these past couple of decades, I suppose that's the ideal outcome. Nice anxious little suburban consumers.