Taipan wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2024 12:51 pm
FFS, another 180!
Links are to twitter/x video of Starmer and Rayner championing their free education for all, by scrapping tuition fees, which of course has turned out to be yet more bollocks from this shower and indeed, they have put them up, not scrapped them!
Education is the key to many of the problems we face in todays world. Both here and abroad even and perhaps especially in 3rd world/developing countries. A good education system would also address some of the underlying problems with multiculturalism, immigration, ghettoisation and rampant crime we face here in the UK.
The problem is not a simple matter of "free is better", the meta-problem is that once education becomes a business, the structure of such a system is inevitably transformed from a service industry to a commercial entity. It will be structured for the purpose of profitability rather than educational excellence.
In fact, I think that is the key problem with the current system where most headmasters/deans are really little more than accountants. They really could not care less what they are teaching (hence the proliferation of useless further education courses, PhD in breakdancing anyone?). They care even less about the quality of graduate they are churning out.
This current government is a disaster for the UK.
“No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.”
Plato
Taipan wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2024 12:51 pm
FFS, another 180!
championing their free education for all, by scrapping tuition fees, which of course has turned out to be yet more bollocks from this shower and indeed, they have put them up, not scrapped them!
The Tories haven't really got a great record on tuition fees. True, they didn't introduce them - but they did triple them. And they presided over a payments system with horrendous interest rates.
Worth noting that dropping fees was a LibDem policy until they joined the coalition government.
Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, said on Friday the tuition fees system was “broken”, but repeated the insistence by her party leader, Keir Starmer, that Labour would not be able to afford to scrap fees altogether.
Starmer’s decision to drop the promise to end fees caused anger among students and on the Labour left.
Screwdriver wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2024 1:45 pm
The problem is not a simple matter of "free is better", the meta-problem is that once education becomes a business, the structure of such a system is inevitably transformed from a service industry to a commercial entity. It will be structured for the purpose of profitability rather than educational excellence.
Took the words out of my mouth.
Look at the proliferation of pointless degrees which offer no real prospect of employment, let alone practical benefit in a career. And yet, the default now is for all kid, regardless of academic ability*, to go to university.
*I don't mean that as any form of disparagement: this country needs more kids leaving school with practical, vocational training. Tried getting a tiler or plumber recently?
Last edited by gremlin on Tue Nov 05, 2024 1:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Taipan wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2024 12:51 pm
FFS, another 180!
Links are to twitter/x video of Starmer and Rayner championing their free education for all, by scrapping tuition fees, which of course has turned out to be yet more bollocks from this shower and indeed, they have put them up, not scrapped them!
Horse wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2024 1:48 pm
Worth noting that dropping fees was a LibDem policy until they joined the coalition government.
I believe this was already being dropped prior to the coalition. The ConDem axis certainly put the final nail in the coffin, as well as Nick Clegg's political coffin.
Screwdriver wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2024 1:45 pm
The problem is not a simple matter of "free is better", the meta-problem is that once education becomes a business, the structure of such a system is inevitably transformed from a service industry to a commercial entity. It will be structured for the purpose of profitability rather than educational excellence.
Took the words out of my mouth.
Look at the proliferation of pointless degrees which offer no real prospect of employment, let alone practical benefit in a career. And yet, the default now is for all kid, regardless of academic ability*, so go to university.
If they were free, more folk would do them rather than getting a job.
With fees, only the genuine folk would do them.
Perhaps
Taipan wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2024 12:51 pm
FFS, another 180!
Links are to twitter/x video of Starmer and Rayner championing their free education for all, by scrapping tuition fees, which of course has turned out to be yet more bollocks from this shower and indeed, they have put them up, not scrapped them!
Tuition at unis used to be free, but access was restricted and competitive.
Once the floodgates were opened the country could no longer afford free tuition, hence the fees.
If it was free again numbers would need to be restricted, along with a lot of redundancies in university staff. It is always difficult putting the genie back in the bottle.
Yorick wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2024 1:52 pm
[
If they were free, more folk would do them rather than getting a job.
With fees, only the genuine folk would do them.
Perhaps
Quite. Working class folk who don't know how to use a grapefruit spoon and don't even bring their own pony to university. How ghastly.
Yorick wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2024 1:52 pm
If they were free, more folk would do them rather than getting a job.
With fees, only the genuine folk would do them.
Perhaps
This is true although without the incentive for making money out of as many students as they can cram into the classroom, there would be more emphasis on education than profit.
It used to be the case that there would be entrance exams and if you didn't qualify for further education, you didn't need it.
A compromise could easily be found. Sadly, it has become a cash cow for all of those involved in the system, including the new tax regime being imposed by our new Marxist government.
“No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.”
Plato
Yorick wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2024 1:52 pm
If they were free, more folk would do them rather than getting a job.
With fees, only the genuine folk would do them.
Perhaps
This is true although without the incentive for making money out of as many students as they can cram into the classroom, there would be more emphasis on education than profit.
Pretty much.
University is a business now. The 'traditional' places still care about ground breaking research, quality education and all that good stuff, but as soon as you opened the tuition fee floodgates you opened up the option for profit too.
As for "X" while it is a hotbed of conspiracy theory and nutjobs, I love it. It's always throwing out gems and it's like having a finger on the pulse of our wider society. Here's a good one...
“No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.”
Plato
Yorick wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2024 1:52 pm
[
If they were free, more folk would do them rather than getting a job.
With fees, only the genuine folk would do them.
Perhaps
Quite. Working class folk who don't know how to use a grapefruit spoon and don't even bring their own pony to university. How ghastly.
Cousin Jack wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2024 1:54 pm
Tuition at unis used to be free, but access was restricted and competitive.
Once the floodgates were opened the country could no longer afford free tuition, hence the fees.
If it was free again numbers would need to be restricted, along with a lot of redundancies in university staff. It is always difficult putting the genie back in the bottle.
Point of order: it wasn't "Free".
It was paid for by the government, via (iirc) your local (or maybe county?) council and there were hoops to jump through to get the grant (and the grants differed depending on what the course was iirc).
I got my Engineering degree paid for, well - the tuition anyway: the living expenses I paid for via a Student Loan (fully repaid after about 15 years iirc!) and if I wanted more cash in pocket I'd have found a menial job (many did), however a) I didn't need much extra cash (I wasn't a heavy drinker), and b) the Engineering courses were virtually a full-time job in themselves so there wasn't a lot of time available for a job.
I was somewhat fortunate that for the first 2 years I found lodging on campus in a subsidised Halls (the beer was very cheap )
I've no idea how people do it nowadays.
Last edited by Rockburner on Tue Nov 05, 2024 2:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Yorick wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2024 1:52 pm
[
If they were free, more folk would do them rather than getting a job.
With fees, only the genuine folk would do them.
Perhaps
Quite. Working class folk who ... don't even bring their own pony to university. How ghastly.
It is described as the sport of kings, with the royals among those eager to wield a mallet on the polo field.
But a group of pupils from a state comprehensive school has shown the elite how to play the game.
The four teenagers from St. Bartholomew's in Newbury, Berkshire, are the first from a comprehensive school to take on pupils from the fee-paying sector and win.
Rockburner wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2024 2:52 pm
I've no idea how people do it nowadays.
We (unsurprisingly) have loads of recent Engineering grads at work.
They have massive debt (50-60k plus annual interest), that's how. They're never gonna pay it off. They pay 9% extra tax until they pay it off, which they almost certainly never will because it gets written off after ~25 years. Only people who move into banking and earn 6 figure salaries do
Mr. Dazzle wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2024 3:50 pm
Only people who move into banking and earn 6 figure salaries do
Even better, be a bit of a thick shit at school, miss out on A levels and degrees and all that malarkey, somehow blag an interview at a bank aged 16, wing it for the next 40-odd years, get the salary and have no debt to pay back*.
*Mind, when I left school, it was grant, and given I was thick as mince, I wouldn't have got to uni in my wildest dreams.
Mr. Dazzle wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2024 3:50 pm
Only people who move into banking and earn 6 figure salaries do
Even better, be a bit of a thick shit at school, miss out on A levels and degrees and all that malarkey, somehow blag an interview at a bank aged 16, wing it for the next 40-odd years, get the salary and have no debt to pay back*.
*Mind, when I left school, it was grant, and given I was thick as mince, I wouldn't have got to uni in my wildest dreams.
One of the worst moves was turning Polytechnics into Universities. It was all part of reducing the responsibilities of the Local Authorities that funded them. As they were they could respond to local needs in the technical skills arena, so places like Sheffield Poly were in many ways better at responding to the changing needs of local industries. Same with colleges of Further Education and Technical Colleges (my old local one is now part of the University ).
That and making things like nursing into graduate only jobs have all been pretty negative moves. There used to be specialist colleges for stuff like physiotherapy too.
(There is also a view that increasing the school leaving age and expanding FE was a (short term) fix to keep unemployment numbers down).
Doubt is not a pleasant condition.
But certainty is an absurd one.
Voltaire
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