The Politics Thread .

Quoted from grimsby pete

It would be interesting to find out how many of those people who got a degree got a job in their chosen profession.

Would be hard to get genuine statistics on this but I'm sure bar chart man will tell us, would be surprised if more than 60%

Quoted from Maringer

Germany has technical colleges and a schooling system which trains up less academically inclined workers for the heavy industry which they didn't sell off back in the 1980s. Unlike us. They don't need as many graduates so don't fund them in the same way.

Countries without such a dominant manufacturing sector are more similar to us. Countries such as Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, for example. University fees either non-existent or a fraction of ours.

I do find it rather odd that you are apparently so keen for people to not have access to further education. Should be a good thing, surely? I come from a generation that had (almost free) access to University, just like most MPs in parliament, so I find it pretty disgraceful that I'd be facing a 50k+ debt if I had happened to be born a generation later.

What's odd about wanting to stop taking advantage of these kids with undeveloped brains what good is letting them get into 50k of debt by studying for Micky mouse degrees like golf management, media studies, social science, Gender StudiesPlanning, Tourism and Travel Management, Events management etc etc you
Get my point you could even study Pokemon at Salford university!
What this country desperately needs is a skilled workforce we now have a UK Building boom on the go which should last for many years, but instead of training our young people firms are having to get the Eastern Europeans in.... absolutely senseless. Just take a look around our little neck of the woods loads and loads of building sites I've even seen a sign advertising for builders, not to mention the local offshore work where I've read somewhere we have a skills shortage.

Quoted from Grim74

What's odd about wanting to stop taking advantage of these kids with undeveloped brains what good is letting them get into 50k of debt by studying for Micky mouse degrees like golf management, media studies, social science, Gender StudiesPlanning, Tourism and Travel Management, Events management etc etc you
Get my point you could even study Pokemon at Salford university!
What this country desperately needs is a skilled workforce we now have a UK Building boom on the go which should last for many years, but instead of training our young people firms are having to get the Eastern Europeans in.... absolutely senseless. Just take a look around our little neck of the woods loads and loads of building sites I've even seen a sign advertising for builders, not to mention the local offshore work where I've read somewhere we have a skills shortage.

Our economy relies on the service industries to a great degree (after we shut down/sold off our industry back in the 1980s and 1990s) so it is sensible to have many degrees in these areas. The vast majority of degrees aren't 'Mickey Mouse' in any way, shape or form. The Pokemon stuff was clearly just a publicity stunt - the students at Salford were taking a Business Information Technology course and it makes good advertising for them to say they can 'study' Pokemon Go. You'll agree that IT training is a good thing, especially as we're approaching a time where mechanisation and AI means that many current jobs will disappear over the next couple of decades.

You're quite correct that we require more builders but we're just not training enough of them in great part because our broken housing system means we aren't building nearly enough homes. No reason for the big building companies to go to the expense of training builders when they are deliberately rationing the housebuilding they are doing to keep their profits as high as possible. Government intervention, regulation and investment would be required to get the housing system sorted out but there's no chance of this under the Tories. Pumping up the housing market is their only policy in this field, regardless of the long-term consequences.

Quoted from Grim74

Would be hard to get genuine statistics on this but I'm sure bar chart man will tell us, would be surprised if more than 60%

About 50%:

http://www.independent.co.uk/s.....reveals-9574042.html

I studied French and haven't used it all since graduating in 2002 but having a degree looks good on your CV and opens a lot of doors. Also I think it's heathy to move out of your parents' house, move to another town or city and meet different people. Each to their own though and I do tend to agree that this drive to encourage EVERYONE to go to university is bonkers.

Quoted from psgmariner

About 50%:

http://www.independent.co.uk/s.....reveals-9574042.html

I studied French and haven't used it all since graduating in 2002 but having a degree looks good on your CV and opens a lot of doors. Also I think it's heathy to move out of your parents' house, move to another town or city and meet different people. Each to their own though and I do tend to agree that this drive to encourage EVERYONE to go to university is bonkers.

Agree, my granddaughter has a degree in sports journalism but not one of her fellow students have got a job in their chosen degree,

However as you say it looks good on your CV and it does open doors in other professions.

I've got a couple of friends with Geography degrees who work in IT systems design and another friend with a music degree who sells IT systems.

I studied Computer Science and, though I work with computers every day I don't really use much I learned at University.

Education is a good thing and further education can be a very good thing. Government policy was to attempt to get 50% of students into further education so decrying it seems to be an odd choice.

The main problem is that it seems that the Universities are concentrating too much on 'cheaper' courses rather than the more expensive science-based ones. That's what happens when you encourage commodification of education. Too much concentration on the bottom line instead of what the country needs.

For a lot of these snowflakes doing the Micky mouse degrees (yes there is even a course for this)  puts off the horrors of actually earning a living, many will know that the loans can be just be kicked into the long grass as the future is a long time away and carry on smoking dope and protesting, or even better they will be scrapped by a Corbyn government 😃

Again all thanks to Blair with his stupid idea for 50% of school children to be able to go to university, aided and abetted by the liberal professors who dupe the students with dumbed down and non-academic degrees, promising them high wages for life whilst at the same time peddling their left wing agenda, oh and let's not forget it was keeping down the youth unemployment figures.

Time we went back to 20% max. Fully funded for those who are really intelligent only, let's stop devaluing degrees let's go back to going to Uni meaning something, let's stop bullshitting our kids saddling them with a lifetime of debt only for them end up stacking shelves or serving coffee, and let's kick some of these lecturers off the gravy train only there to indoctrinate.

Grim don't you know that every snowflake is different so it would take a lot of drawing to get them all in a book,


Afterthought ,

How do they know every snowflake has a different shape has anybody ever looked at every snowflake ?

Or was you talking about Micky ?  

Quoted from Grim74

For a lot of these snowflakes doing the Micky mouse degrees (yes there is even a course for this)  puts off the horrors of actually earning a living, many will know that the loans can be just be kicked into the long grass as the future is a long time away and carry on smoking dope and protesting, or even better they will be scrapped by a Corbyn government 😃

Again all thanks to Blair with his stupid idea for 50% of school children to be able to go to university, aided and abetted by the liberal professors who dupe the students with dumbed down and non-academic degrees, promising them high wages for life whilst at the same time peddling their left wing agenda, oh and let's not forget it was keeping down the youth unemployment figures.

Time we went back to 20% max. Fully funded for those who are really intelligent only, let's stop devaluing degrees let's go back to going to Uni meaning something, let's stop bullshitting our kids saddling them with a lifetime of debt only for them end up stacking shelves or serving coffee, and let's kick some of these lecturers off the gravy train only there to indoctrinate.

So what degrees would you get rid of? What would you keep? From my own personal experience I agree that there are some degrees that should be scrapped (two of my friends did Radio Production and for some unknown reason it was classed as a BSc, what the actual fook?!) but equally there are many, many more that are absolutely necessary with nursing being the first one that springs to mind. Although whether nursing should be a degree is a separate debate.

Furthermore, in order to progress quickly in your career path, these days it is expected that you'll have a degree. You don't necessarily have to work in the field that you've studied in either as it teaches you a lot of transferable skills and demonstrate that you're intelligent etc. For example, my best mate studied History at Cambridge but he's now a management consultant for Deloitte. There is no way on earth he'd have got that job without having a degree, wouldn't have even got to the interview stage.

To a lesser or greater extent hasn't it always been the case that a lot of university degrees have never mirrored the real world? A good friend of mine got a degree in the late 70s from a good university in English/American studies. He is now a successful business man with great skills in insurance/risk. The ability to attain a degree sent out a statement to would be employers about someone's application.
I cannot see the point of blaming the fact that "too many" people get the chance to go to uni for the failure of successive governments to deal adequately with the skills shortage. My partners friends husband a millionaire builder and Tory donater was moved to sponsor (pay for!) a bricklaying course at their local college so frustrated was he at the obviousness of the problem. Grimsby college is recognised as being one of the foremost places in Britain to study refrigeration yet I read today that they are having to make deep cuts. It's only a matter of time before those cuts start to affect their ability to deliver the standards necessary to stay at the top of the game.
The blame cuts across all governments who failed to see the writing on the wall. When I left school most of my mates went into apprenticeships in large firms. Nobody came up with a plan of how to address what youngsters would do once the industries that used to rely on large work forces either disappeared or were able to use automation. People laughed when Thatcher beat the miners but as late as the 1970s unemployment in Yorkshire pit villages was way below the national average. In some now youth unemployment is way over 50%. It was Blair's choice to deal with it by offering more uni places. It wasnt perfect but it was an attempt.
The idea that degrees in customer management/entertainment provision etc are worthless in a country that survives mainly in a service industry capacity is really too ridiculous to argue with.