5 ms·

I'm a UK guy in my 50's. I went to uni (the US term for college) in '83. At the time I was in the minority of the population. I was given a grant of £3000pa and

I'm a UK guy in my 50's. I went to uni (the US term for college) in '83. At the time I was in the minority of the population. I was given a grant of £3000pa and was able to make ends meet. I might have lived in, shall we say, the most salubrious of environments, but I emerged without debt. Same thing when I did my masters and PhD a few years after that. I basically caught the tail end of uni, when it was for the minority of folk. I shake my head at the monster that higher education has become. I'm hardly in the loop anymore, but I've noticed that the UK want to nickel-and-dime the students with tuition fees, graduation fees, and whatever fee that they seem to concoct on an ongoing basis. The US seems even worse, with books costing 100's of bucks. Shocking. Truly shocking. The whole thing is a shameful scam, and no-one is calling it out for what it is. The truth is, one rarely /needs/ a university education. It's really just a piece of paper to get you into an office job - if you're lucky. The problem is, now that everyone's got a degree, they're not particularly valuable in their own right. It's a foot in the door to a club that keeps upping its membership fees. Dare I say it, but it was better when a uni education was the preserve of the elite few. Now, I appreciate it that this is going to rankle a lot of sensibilities about "fairness". If fewer people had a uni education, then it wouldn't be considered quite so important, as employers would have to take what they could get rather than insisting on a degree. Plus it would also put an end to a large swathe of the population starting their young adult life with a small mortgage. In my eyes, what we're seeing today is morally unconscionable. Lambs to the slaughter.

strictnein 4y ago
A college degree, home ownership, etc were incorrectly seen by lawmakers as pathways to success as opposed to signals of success.
MarcelOlsz 4y ago
I find myself in a very funny situation where I have a very high paying and great job, that I got without any education. Now that I want to emigrate to Japan, I need a degree, so I am going to study in Finland as real estate is cheap and I can get a degree for free there before moving. I literally just need that piece of paper.
- aksss 4y ago
  I don’t think Saul Goodman went to Finland for his degree. But seriously, it’s dumb. People with years of demonstrated expertise and progressive responsibility denied opportunity to apply for jobs because they simply don’t meet the MQ of the piece of paper. If you go back for it in the US you’ll be confronted with extraordinary cost, silly pledges for DEI, and all the rest.
tppiotrowski 4y ago
Is this a by-product of reduced government funding? I know my state school received less funding from our state over time and that's where I thought tuition and fees had to make up the shortfall [1]. In turn universities increased frivolous spending on housing, sports and facilities that serve little education purpose but are intended to attract more tuition paying students. [1] https://wispolicyforum.org/research/uw-in-the-21st-century-less-money-more-freedom/ https://wispolicyforum.org/research/uw-in-the-21st-century-l...
AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
> Dare I say it, but it was better when a uni education was the preserve of the elite few. I agree, but there is fundamentally no reason this level of education need be restricted to the elite few today even if we ran the clock backwards on everything related to university. We live in the information age now. I can have access, for free, to all the educational material of any university in the world. I can't have access to their equipment[0], and I can't have access to their professors[1], but the only real problem with that today is that I don't get a piece of paper at the end that says I got a piece of paper from a university. [0] Could be solved with some kind of rental program I guess, at least for equipment that isn't ridiculously rare and valuable. [1] How much access do the students have these days? From what I hear, TAs do a lot of the actual interacting with students part.
daveoc64 4y ago
Of course, the current UK student loan system has several features that make it far more favourable to students than the USA: -Tuition fees are capped at £9250 per year (approx $12,100), even for prestigious universities. A typical degree in the UK lasts for three years. -An additional loan is available for living costs. The amount available varies based on household income. -Loan repayment is linked to earnings. You only need to repay while you're earning £27,295 or more per year. If you're unemployed or on a wage below that, you don't have to pay anything back, so the debt is much less likely to cause financial hardship. -Repayments are typically automatically deducted from wages (for workers who are salaried and only have one employer), so there is little admin involved in payment (the repayment rate is 9% of the salary above the £27,295 threshold). -Loans are written off 30 years after graduation. It is predicted that most people won't actually pay off the loan, so it's seen by many as a sort of "graduate tax". Some downsides: -The interest rate is very high (especially given the current inflation rate), and interest starts building up while a student is studying. -Even if the repayment terms are favourable and should be seen as a "graduate tax", rather than a loan, it's still the case that people will have a debt for 30 years of their career. -A lot of the loans look set to be written off (as people won't earn enough to pay them off). This cost is met by the taxpayer.

strictnein 4y ago

A college degree, home ownership, etc were incorrectly seen by lawmakers as pathways to success as opposed to signals of success.

MarcelOlsz 4y ago

I find myself in a very funny situation where I have a very high paying and great job, that I got without any education. Now that I want to emigrate to Japan, I need a degree, so I am going to study in Finland as real estate is cheap and I can get a degree for free there before moving. I literally just need that piece of paper.

aksss 4y ago
I don’t think Saul Goodman went to Finland for his degree. But seriously, it’s dumb. People with years of demonstrated expertise and progressive responsibility denied opportunity to apply for jobs because they simply don’t meet the MQ of the piece of paper. If you go back for it in the US you’ll be confronted with extraordinary cost, silly pledges for DEI, and all the rest.

tppiotrowski 4y ago

Is this a by-product of reduced government funding? I know my state school received less funding from our state over time and that's where I thought tuition and fees had to make up the shortfall [1]. In turn universities increased frivolous spending on housing, sports and facilities that serve little education purpose but are intended to attract more tuition paying students. [1] https://wispolicyforum.org/research/uw-in-the-21st-century-less-money-more-freedom/ https://wispolicyforum.org/research/uw-in-the-21st-century-l...

AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago

> Dare I say it, but it was better when a uni education was the preserve of the elite few. I agree, but there is fundamentally no reason this level of education need be restricted to the elite few today even if we ran the clock backwards on everything related to university. We live in the information age now. I can have access, for free, to all the educational material of any university in the world. I can't have access to their equipment[0], and I can't have access to their professors[1], but the only real problem with that today is that I don't get a piece of paper at the end that says I got a piece of paper from a university. [0] Could be solved with some kind of rental program I guess, at least for equipment that isn't ridiculously rare and valuable. [1] How much access do the students have these days? From what I hear, TAs do a lot of the actual interacting with students part.

daveoc64 4y ago

Of course, the current UK student loan system has several features that make it far more favourable to students than the USA: -Tuition fees are capped at £9250 per year (approx $12,100), even for prestigious universities. A typical degree in the UK lasts for three years. -An additional loan is available for living costs. The amount available varies based on household income. -Loan repayment is linked to earnings. You only need to repay while you're earning £27,295 or more per year. If you're unemployed or on a wage below that, you don't have to pay anything back, so the debt is much less likely to cause financial hardship. -Repayments are typically automatically deducted from wages (for workers who are salaried and only have one employer), so there is little admin involved in payment (the repayment rate is 9% of the salary above the £27,295 threshold). -Loans are written off 30 years after graduation. It is predicted that most people won't actually pay off the loan, so it's seen by many as a sort of "graduate tax". Some downsides: -The interest rate is very high (especially given the current inflation rate), and interest starts building up while a student is studying. -Even if the repayment terms are favourable and should be seen as a "graduate tax", rather than a loan, it's still the case that people will have a debt for 30 years of their career. -A lot of the loans look set to be written off (as people won't earn enough to pay them off). This cost is met by the taxpayer.