The Tory agenda to privatise everything and put money in the pockets of their rich chums continues apace into 2017. The NHS and Education are being chipped away at. Soon we’ll be metered for air!
The new bill proposes to make it easier to set up new universities and compete with the old ones. The new ones can offer degrees supposedly on a par. Except that they will be run for profit and money creamed off into the pockets of rich investors.
Is this really what we want? To exploit our kids to make rich people richer? Does everything have to revolve around making a profit out of people?
Surely education and health should not be profit making businesses?
The universities in the UK are so ridiculously expensive as it is especially for a foreign student. When I was first applying I was thinking about coming to the UK but when I heard how much it costs I decided otherwise. It’s sad that something like education which should be a basic right and available to everyone is being used to make the rich even richer.
I thoroughly agree. Education is a right. A country should value the young. Their education is fundamental to the prosperity of the future!
Yes exactly! How do they expect to better their country if a large amount of the youth can’t even afford basic education!
What’s to agree about? A non national wanting to float in here, get the university at a bucket cheap price and float off again. I really don’t think so.
The same rules apply for everybody.
I don’t think the same rules do apply for foreign students Andrew. It is not a level playing field. I think we need to encourage bright foreign students to come to Britain. A fair rate should be charged but not too much. They don’t all flit in and out. Many stay and they are the brains that we need to attract.
Really? The ones that pay the most are east Asians, who cannot stay. £9-10,000 a year is sfa these days in relation to potential earnings.
My city is swamped with them and judging by their shopping choices (particularly females) which are visible to all as we can see their designer label bags on the tube, they’ve got more money than they know what to do with.
They’re the kids in HMV records walking out with armfuls, driving very nice motors, never out the electronic stores, filling out the VIP couches at all the big gigs.
Not forgetting the expensive flats they choose to rent rather than doss in the students residential blocks.
You don’t think that’s a bit of a stereotype? Where did you get those stats from?
You see it for what it is, whether it’s stereotypical or not isn’t the point.
There not stats but just general knowledge of how it is and what you hear from friends who run university courses. One runs the academia for architecture at Edinburgh and 2 others run the 3rd & 5th years at Glasgow. Another runs the radiography at the general hospital. There’s loads of foreign students on these courses. Plus there’s 2 big student accommodation compounds just up the road from me, and I’m only 150 yards from the main thoroughfare that runs through the west end.
Must be stats somewhere! I’m not sure what it’s like in Scotland but that does not seem the case here. I think there’s different rules!
Stats exist certainly with shopping trends – who is buying what, their nationality, linked to credit card data. It’s not coming through on the hotels stats, so it could only be students. Plus the simple fact they’re on the streets in droves in your face, particularly near the university complexes or halls of residence.
Suffice to say huge swathes of former university students are not hanging around having completed courses, otherwise I think by now we’d have a rather large Korean population which we patently do not have, nor could have as they don’t qualify for residency.
Glasgow is a University city and always has been since 1451 and originally home to 2 of the best in the UK. The Science Park, a massive sprawling development set in a semi-rural environment and affiliated to Glasgow University is like nothing else in the world.
There’s 5 or 6 universities operating in the city today.
The rules are UK wide, no difference.
I’m not sure that’s true. I think the Scottish education system is different to the English. Different rules and payments.
Where do I start here? What are you on about?
We’re talking about Universities. They do honorary degrees and doctorates. There’s nothing Scottish/English about it except the credibility of international renown of having gone to Glasgow Uni to study medicine as opposed to some new place in Southend-on-Sea.
The rules will be different. A student will be required to have the highest school certification exam passes in order to get onto a course in a university of centuries old repute as opposed to the place in Southend. The course fees may very well be higher due to the standard of practice and facilities as found in such a university as opposed to the new place in Southend. Yes, there will be differences for very good reason, but nothing to do with nationalism as you infer.
For christ sakes, weren’t you running a senior school?
Why don’t you have all this down to pat?
Andrew – the costs for a student are different and complex depending on where you come from and where you want to go.
http://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/university-tuition-fees/
As I said – Scotland is I believe on a different system to England. I don’t think in the 5 years I’ve been left that it will have changed.
I not too sure what your angle is as you’ve just given me foundation to exactly what I had said.
Did you read your link yourself?
The fees in Scotland for a UK national are exactly the same as that in England at £9k.
Whether a student gets in is another matter and depends upon their school exam results.
I wouldn’t expect to get into Glasgow to do architecture with just 3 scraped through A-levels and I’d have to lower my sights a bit to a university with very little pedigree.
The Asians pay the most and always have, hence, why as many as possible are taken.
They may have been brought in line but my understanding is that the Scottish parliament has powers over education and the fees and examinations. That is all I am saying. Too busy to check right now.
Put it this way, if you were an Architecture student and went to London Uni and I went to Glasgow, we would both sit exactly the same RIBA part 1 and part 2 examinations.
The very same can be said for medical examinations, too.
The same can be said of the fee structures for UK nationals, EU nationals and other nationals – the structure scales are the same.
The differences you refer to are with school education, but there really can’t be much in it.
Oh there is quite a bit of difference in the curriculum and organisation. The Scottish system is superior in many ways.
The House of Lords disagree with it and will block it because there’s too many tin-pot so-called universities already.
Let’s hope you are right Andrew. Another crazy Tory idea. How to screw more money out of people.
Not really a Tory idea as it was Labour that started all this changing former technical colleges into universities.
However, I’m all for charging foreign students who float in and out again.
Blair did a lot of silly Thatcherite ideas. Such a shame that he wasted the opportunities he had. But this new reform of Higher Ed is a Tory think-tank idea straight out of stupid-land.
Charging foreign students a ‘fair’ rate is OK as long as it isn’t exorbitant. People who study in a place tend to set up home there and I’m all in favour of drawing in the best brains and expertise into Britain. We need to encourage foreign students to study here.
There’s always the requisite blame factor, isn’t there? However, if this case you are incorrect as it was nothing to do with Thatcher as they didn’t start this change over from tech colleges to universities until years after she had left government. Neither was the introduction of foreign students in mass numbers during her tenure either.
Please produce evidence of this purported tendency to stay in the place where they studied. That sort of automatically diminishes full potential of what to do with their degree – there’s that many these days that they’re no big deal anymore.
It’s a big world out there, plus our climate is crap, so there’s almost zero attraction with that.
No doubt a few Commonwealth residents do stay, but nothing like what you intimate.
All I have is anecdotal evidence on doctors and friends and I don’t have time to investigate statistically – I’m busy knocking walls down. Haven’t got much time.
Well said, Opher.
Thank you Cheryl.
The USA higher education system is going in the same direction.
For me education and health should be purely for the benefit of people not part of any profit turning industry.
I despair of what is happening in the UK and the US. It seems to me that the money-making machine transcends all reason.
It is precisely what is happening. The system got destroyed when it allow terms like “customer service” “profit” and “ROI” to pollute the system. Now, the gig is increase enrollment every year which clearly means increase profit every year. No company can grow forever including higher education.
I think the driving force is that politicians want things on the cheap and like to farm it out. Quality goes out the window. Education becomes narrow and target driven. Despicable!!
Have external forces like the demand for accountability in public higher education have lead to more private higher education enrollment?
Can you follow me?