Should University Attendance Be free?

[Sutcliffe]

People can claim welfare state support for the majority of their lives and give nothing to society.

 

Others choose to sacrifice the first few years of their productive working life in order to plan for the future and prepare themselves to fill qualified that society needs. They only use state resources for a short time, then pay back through career contribution and taxation over many years. If society needs these roles, why do the students have to pay?

 

The answer is that the government's ridiculous 'higher education for all' policy resulted in unnatural and unnecessary growth of the university system, with a new class of scrounger - those who do silly, useless degrees with no vocational output.

 

Degrees in golf club management? Football studies? Litrature and current affairs? What rubbish. Some of these brainless courses give out a degree for less than 10 hours of study a week – while doctors, engineers, architects and lawyers have to work themselves into the ground to graduate.

 

There should be nationally identified quotas for required qualifications to meet the needs of industry, education and the public sector. Those courses should be provided free, and only those who want to study ‘silly’ subjects should be charged – but they should be charged the full cost.

 

Similarly, there should be age limits. ‘Mature students’ are just people who either should have worked harder in school first time round, or tend to be the unsettled types who can’t decide what they want to do with their lives and tend not to be able to hold a job down anyway. By all means let them pay their own way, but the public purse shouldn’t pay for unsettled types to change their mind and jump from one course to another throughout their lives.

 

So, what should be available in terms of free higher education?

[Rich]

Thing is though, these days most decent paying employers virtually slam teh door in your face without a degree... or if you're in any way disabled but that's another rant for another thread... This is wrong I know, but it's a fact of life..

 

OK I don't have a degree, OK I failed School, but that wasn't entirely my fault, should I be punished for the rest of my adult life by only being able to take crappy low paid jobs cos I'm not qualified to take a high paid one?!

 

And yes before the Daily Mail readers start, I am planning to look for proper non-voluntary work in teh New Year.

[Sutcliffe]

Thing is though, these days most decent paying employers virtually slam teh door in your face without a degree... or if you're in any way disabled but that's another rant for another thread... This is wrong I know, but it's a fact of life..

OK I don't have a degree, OK I failed School, but that wasn't entirely my fault, should I be punished for the rest of my adult life by only being able to take crappy low paid jobs cos I'm not qualified to take a high paid one?!

And yes before the Daily Mail readers start, I am planning to look for proper non-voluntary work in teh New Year.

So, if you want to improve your prospects, it would be better for you to retake your school exams and try to get yourself enrolled on a degree course which will be attractive to employers, rather than some silly subject.

 

As for being 'punished' for not being qualified, surely you can see that the employer must employ the people best qualified to do jobs, and if you're not qualified, that's hardly being punished is it?

[Heyesey]

Point of order; university education is NOT free. Lecturers have to be paid wages, university buildings have to be built and maintained, books have to be bought, etc. etc.

 

 

The poll should be about who pays for them; the student, or the general taxpayer for him. Having a system, as present, where anyone who uses that degree to make a decent amount of money pays *back* the cost of his education, is a pretty fair one, provided it doesn't pay for "utterly useless degrees" as you mention above.

 

Now we just have to decide what counts as utterly useless. I'll get back to you in about ten years on that one

[fluffy&pink]

Ha Ha! Im a student and i have never paid a penny tuition! Study nursing, its free, although, there are no jobs!

[Sutcliffe]

Ha Ha! Im a student and i have never paid a penny tuition! Study nursing, its free, although, there are no jobs!

Which in itself is a terrible situation - a truly noble profession which the government has totally betrayed.

[poppins]

Ha Ha! Im a student and i have never paid a penny tuition! Study nursing, its free, although, there are no jobs!

 

Then get a job overseas, hard to belive that the UK dosen't need nurses!

some other country could use you.

[D2J]

I wish I had got some qualifications behind me as this would stand me a better chance of finidng a job in the one thing I enjoy the most, the IT industry. I can happily put down on an application I know how to etc but I've no qualifications to back this up, just my self taught needs.

 

I've had some jobs in the past where I have talked myself into the role without the need to have a BSc or MSc on my CV including one job in an industry I never thought I would get to work in..

 

I'm currently contemplating distance learning etc but its down to lack of funds

[md25]

I have a masters in maths and enjoy talking about circles someone employ me please

[Sutcliffe]

I have a masters in maths and enjoy talking about circles someone employ me please

Is .99999 recurring the same as 1?