Should universities be allowed to increase tuition fees?

I like to make two comments on this:

1) Levying fees has allowed academic pay to spiral massively, and this should be stopped.

Don't believe me? Check out the pay scales. A friend of mine who's been a lecturer in sociology for 2 years (after 2 years post doc experience) makes more than I make after working for 12 years for global consultancies and in the IT departments of FTSE100 companies.

This makes a complete nonsense of Universities' pleas that they're poor and underfunded!

2) Too many people now go to University.

A degree should be difficult - it shouldn't be something that 50% of the population should be able to get (as Blair aimed for). The difficulty of a degree course should be pitched so that maybe 10% of the population will be able to successfully complete it.

However, degrees should be one of a range of academic and vocational qualifications available. Ideally every child will have some post 16 (and ideally post 18) teaching and training - but let's get the balance right between practical and academic courses, and an appropriate spread of difficulty across a range of qualifications in each area. This helps employers get a good idea of the quality of candidates and ensures all students and trainees are appropriately stretched by their studies.

We need to stop dumbing down our scholastic and academic courses while creating better opportunities for those who do not wish to go - or would be ill suited to going - down the university route.

I was interested in this arical as it posed some questions that the Government has traditionally shyed away from asking. Trade Colleges, Apprenticeships (the traditional variety) were the bed rock of our working class skilled labour force. With the demise of tradtional manufacturing jobs, killed off by poor management decisions to chase volume (therefore competing with low cost economies) rather than opting for a more sustainable high quality engineered product, as the Germans and Swiss did.

Modern Universities are businesses, they will follow the sources of funding and develop their offering accordingly. It is time for a new Government, and not necessarily formed from the existing three man parties, to set the Education Agenda based around Academic Excellence and Vocational Excellence. treating both with equal respect.

My son has recently graduated from a major university and has described the whole process in some detail. He has spoken to other students doing different courses and from different universities. Most students feel very disillusioned with their universities, their lecturers, their courses and the value of a university education. Many seem to conclude that it is one big game, the objective of which is obtain a degree by saying and writing whatever is expected by the lecturers even if it’s irrelevant nonsense or simply a matter of opinion. The main objective of the universities is to obtain as much money as possible from students, parents and the government. At the end of the game everyone is expected to pretend that a first class degree makes the graduate infinitely superior to those that obtained a 2:1 or a 2:2. In truth though, having a degree of any sort really doesn’t prove very much. Some courses are more valuable than others and obviously we want our GP’s to have a medical degree and we want the engineers running our nuclear power stations to have a degree in nuclear physics but that doesn’t change the fact that the whole university system needs to be radically scaled back and redesigned.

Saw an article in The Telegraph today about someone with a "2:1 in Journalism/Football and Society". Despite applying for lots of jobs he is getting nowhere. What do people expect when they do subjects like this?

I have two sons, one did Geology (Imperial College) and the other Agriculture (RAC Cirencester) and easily got good jobs by direct approaches to companies that weren't even advertising vacancies.

My real concern here is that we are encouraging our children to enter into the debt culture at such an early age. My daughter, currently taking a 4-year course, is on schedule to leave uni with a £30K debt. This is before she has found a job/partner/mortgage.

If she should find a partner with a similar uni debt, then the combined problem would be c.£60K .

I would prefer the Continental approach where the great majority go onto University but very large numbers are failed after the first year (failure attracts no shame by the way). Consequently, those who continue are more committed, academically gifted, and probably do better out of a 2.1/1st.

At present the Government has encouraged so many more teenagers to apply, yet the moment the failure rate increases there is an immediate assumption that the relevant course/Dept is teaching 'badly'. I should add that in the current academic climate there is a tendency amongst many 'lower A level grade' students to assume that 'bad teaching' equates to not being spoonfed.

As for payment, in most parts of the world there is an automatic assumption that you pay a lot more for H.E. I do not see why England should be any different. It might even encourage students to work harder, choose more vocationally relevant degree courses, and really make them think whether they should be doing a degree course in the first place.

I have to agree with both Gaz and Gary Wilson. Some good points and good ideas there.

It seems self evident to me that re-establishing the Technical Colleges - call 'em Technical Universities if you must to save face - would be a good start. Increasing the manufacturing base

is impossible without a trained workforce.

Then let's have the resurrection of Grammar Schools.That's the way to narrow the social mobility gap

Do all this and in twenty years or so the UK could be a new place, and better equipped to compete with the Asiatics.

First question last: The Polytechnics were universities with a different name - concentrating on degree courses with some research too.

Vocational courses did and do take place in Technical Colleges (often now given a 'City College' or similar tag).

An interested government could put more investment into City Colleges and aim to strengthen their offering towards German standards in this segment (it would take a lot of funding and commitment).

But these colleges are for people that want vocational courses. Many more people aspire to professional jobs for which the universities offer the appropriate education and training.

The key snag is that UK Ltd has offered, and does offer too few professional jobs to absorb the universities' output.

One response by several universities over the last 30 years has been to develop Science Parks. These strengthen universsities' relationship with new technology firms and sometimes provide opportunities for new businesses to develop as spin-offs from university research.

While some graduates want to become successful entrepreneurs (across all fields, not just scientific ones) such opportunities fit the bill for maybe just 1 in 100. So there is still a big mismatch between graduate output and opportunities in the UK economy.

But universities do more than this. They are reckoned to produce many community and civic-aware citizens who are equipped to make more effective contributions to society.

Also universities are one of the UK's export success industries. Overseas students pay higher fees and many, as graduates, take their often positive experiences of the UK, and its universities, back to their home countries where some become influential in industry and government.

FEES

Universities, new and old, would like to charge more, and one expects will do, as soon as they are allowed.

Modern British universities in an academic sense are largely a con. As has been noted above; attendance is a lifestyle choice. There are several problems in producing meaningful courses:-

1-Course standards are reduced to ensure a reasonable pass-rate on a much increased entry. Far too many students attend; the reality is that a modern degree (unless it has some real technical expertise) is equivalent to 5 O-levels of 30 years ago.

2-Universities at the prestige end of the spectrum are not really that interested in student teaching, they are far more concerned about their research ranking and research income. Academic staff are recruited (and promoted) largely for their reseach "potential" and educational ability assumed to be OK! This means universities are full of academic staff who think their chief mission in life is their reseach and students are a bit of an inconvience -- hence the stories of university courses where students have very limited contact with academic staff, feedback on course-work is limited or non-existeant, and research students/fellows conduct tutorials/seminars. No wonder you have disillusioned graduates.

3-A more frightening consequence of research emphasis arises in some technical subjects. For example in engineering most academic staff lecturing in engineering have never worked professionally in real engineering. To get on an interview shortlist you need a reseach based CV and you will not have this if you work in industry. Hence subjects are taught by people who have no real "feel" for or experience in the subject. By analogy are you concerned that somebody teaching medicine has never worked with real patients!!!

If you think I am alarmist -- the above comments are based on 20+ years experience as an academic in a well-known Russell Group university (until I gave up in dispair).

Too many universities, too many graduates with irrelevent degrees of dubious quality.

Every man/woman and his dog now seems to have a degree, which completely devalues the product.

Until the educational establishments gear their activities to the demands of the economy, degrees, with a few exceptions, are an expensive irrelevance.

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