University Degrees, etc.,

[rsmith7]

Dec 8, 2010 18:22:15 GMT 1 abacus9900 said:

Tertiary education must be an improvement over no education at all, surely. Even though people may not possess the ability to gain a first class degree it still gives them an an ability to be employed in jobs that require a good education; we can't all be high fliers and I would have thought that a better educated population is, in general, more economically beneficial to the country than a less educated one.

Perhaps you should look to the excesses of the bankers in order to explain why this and other countries are in such an economic mess.

Wrong

The reason for any country's ills is socialism.
Full stop

[abacus9900]

Rather, you seem to think that all these things are worth trading for a life of unwork ... which in fact is more impossible to escape from than any 'dead-end-job' ever was.

There's nothing wrong with honest work of any kind, but unless you provide people with new horizons you condemn them to hopelessness and cynicism. You and others here would ration self-realization to those best able to pay for it, rolling back the progress made over decades and reestablishing an elite who, because of an accident of birth, have access to a good education which allows them to reach their full potential. There will be those that overcome such financial disadvantages, and good for them, but there will also be people who, for one reason or another, find the costs now imposed almost insurmountable to overcome in order to participate in higher education and for these you and the rest of the cynics here are prepared to see their lives destroyed.

Good for you.

[abacus9900]

The reason for any country's ills is socialism.
Full stop

What would the banker's have done without the aid of socialism?

[abacus9900]

The difference between you and me is that you seem to equate worth and self-respect with going to university, I don't. I see it as achieving what you are capable of achieving. Many current university courses are not worth the paper they are written on, and employers know it. But the students aren't told till this until it is too late.
I want there to be a true educational progression system, where people can step off at any point when they have achieved their goal and for that goal to be recognised as worth something. Parity of educational esteem, if you like.

I'm sorry, but the structure of modern education as taught in schools in this country is heavily geared towards academic achievement and university. What choice do kids have if they do not aim towards a university education, even if they are not really suited to it? What alternatives are on offer? Very little, in my view, so that people just get swept along in the tide of wanting to go to 'uni' and unless you provide people with genuine alternatives to a university education, which they might stand a chance of really succeeding at, they see little choice other than ending up on the scrap heap at 18.

[Progenitor A]

Dec 10, 2010 11:24:05 GMT 1 abacus9900 said:

....... there will also be people who, for one reason or another, find the costs now imposed almost insurmountable to overcome in order to participate in higher education and for these you and the rest of the cynics here are prepared to see their lives destroyed....

Come come abacus!
How are the costs of a University Education to be 'insurmountable' to anyone when the poorest will get 2 years free tuition and a loan to cover the remaining years that must only be paid back gradually when they are employed and earning over £21k?

I do not follow your logic