Cakebutty Posted November 6, 2011 Posted November 6, 2011 Hi folks, Please find details below regarding a public meeting this coming Tuesday on the value of higher education. I've pasted the details from the poster. It's organized by Sheffield Salon and may be of particular interest to A Level students, teachers and undergraduates.... Comments/questions welcome, though even better if you bring these to the debate on Tuesday night! Thanks Cakebutty In the age of the £27,000 degree, is higher education still worth the candle? Does a degree represent good value for money? Will it get you a job? Can you get a refund if it doesn’t? Or is there another yardstick, valuing knowledge as an end in itself, rather than being simply a leg-up on the greasy pole? Either way – for good or ill – Higher Education isn’t what it was. Whilst the Labour Party has pledged to cut fees to £6000, it seems that the idea that education is something that you should have to pay for is well entrenched. The establishment of AC Grayling's private New College of the Humanities, set to open in 2012, was seen by many as another step in the same direction, offering courses for £18,000 per year; but to its founders it also offered a route away from state control of the academy. Many in academia have complained of suffocating bureaucracy and the strings attached to state funding, and some see institutions such as the NCH as a badly needed way to establish beacons of academic excellence, where scholars are free to pursue their intellectual passions. But is this retreat to the private sector an abandoning of the struggle to preserve the humanities in publicly funded institutions? Is an education in philosophy or particle physics a commodity with a price like any other? Has the focus on funding and fees distracted from the bigger discussion – what is the point of the University in the 21st century? On the eve of the national demonstrations against student fees, join us to flex your opinion in the first of a series of robust public debates – in Sheffield – around issues of contemporary life. Speakers will include Dennis Hayes, Professor of Education, University of Derby, founder of Academics for Academic Freedom. Donald McLean - Vice-Principal of Longley Park Sixth Form College Thom Arnold, President, Sheffield University Students’ Union. Anthony Arblaster, retired Reader in Politics, University of Sheffield. Tuesday 8th November 2011 The Exhibition Space, Jessop West Building (opposite the Hendersons Relish factory), University of Sheffield, 1 Upper Hanover Street, Sheffield S3 7RA 6.30-8.30pm. Admission: £4/£3 concessions. All welcome. For more information please visit: http://www.sheffieldsalon.org.uk
jazzlord Posted November 6, 2011 Posted November 6, 2011 Higher education is a wonderful thing, but I feel it's being dumbed down by a substantial minority of slacker toffs who have this smug sense of entitlement to a subsidised Humanities degree... because that's what people of their class do, for a larf, before joining the family business or some city firm. They are clogging up the system for those of us who want to learn and get the most from our time at university. Why have affluent mummies and daddies been getting their little Tarquins' extended gap-yahs from reality at highly subsidised prices? My view? Make 'em pay every penny at the market rate and see off that puts them off. If it doesn't, and they still insist on littering seminar groups with their moronic sub-Brideshead personas, then at least it will help subsidise the bursaries and maintenance grants of those of us who are there for an education!
muddycoffee Posted November 6, 2011 Posted November 6, 2011 I believe that next year the student intake will crash. The universities will have to have a rethink or their finances will become unsustanable. The only way to get back to a sensible system is to subsidise the top ten percent "the best brains". As it is now, only the richest and the poorest will be able to afford a university place. This means many people in the middle with talent and potential will miss out on a degree.
jazzlord Posted November 6, 2011 Posted November 6, 2011 We shall see. I'd rather have smaller class sizes with motivated individuals than the way it is now, so a reduced university population is not necessarily a bad thing. Although my point above was a bit of a rant, I'd still stand by it as the 'best brains' with talent, potential and a passion for their subjects are being seriously held back at the moment... either because they can't get a place at the top universities or, as I said above, subjects are being filled with individuals who are there on the strength of good A level grades but no talent, potential or motivation. Working class kids don't really seem to get a look in at Sheffield Uni, and in their absence, everyone else has been taking full advantage of highly subsidised degrees. Overseas students have been, for years, paying full whack for the privilege of a UK university education and it's far more than even the £9000 per year students will be paying next year. Their fees give an idea of the true market value of a degree and I've got no moral objection to those UK students who can afford them, having to pay for them. My real concern is that kids from ordinary backgrounds get a chance, if they really want it, to shine in higher ed or in good and genuine modern apprenticeships.
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