This time of the year is very stressful for 18-year-olds waiting for A level results, with the hope of getting the place of their choice at a university. I know. I am the father of an 18-year-old waiting for results next week.
But they may not be the only people suffering stress. Rumour has reached me of at least one university that may not make it to the autumn unless 'clearing' - the process where those who have not got their place of choice scramble for a place elsewhere - goes especially well for it, such is their debt pile.
Our university education system is failing us all if young people's life choices, careers and hopes can be imperiled in this way, but I very strongly suspect that the risk is not facing just one university.
That's what comes from creating an 'education market': failure is built-in. It is not, however, the right-wing ideologues who will pay the price for this. Our young people will.
So I have one simple suggestion. That is that every university should, when offering a university place, attach to it an audited undertaking that they are a going concern for as long as the course lasts. That should concentrate minds.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
“attach to it an audited undertaking …”
Pity we have no reliable system of audit to do this…………..
Cue for a song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywFvjoKcdrE
I totally agree that marketising the Uni system has just created a bums on seat mentality.
Pilgrim Slight Return says:
“I totally agree that marketising the Uni system has just created a bums on seat mentality.”
One way of describing it. I’d call it ‘Kash 4 Kwalifikashons’.
I am so glad I didn’t waste my time getting a degree. And it wouldn’t have cost me financially except in incalculable
(a too-hard sum to add up) opportunity cost terms.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there Andy, and I would add that in my experience students now expect much more to be given the answers, than to figure them out, because they feel they are paying for their qualifications rather than purely being educated.
Just to segue slightly; I was lazy as f*** during my undergrad, but accepted that fact and did a masters (and PhD) to rectify my own shortcomings. The masters cost me 20k of very fortunate inheritance, and otherwise i have no idea how I would have progressed. But I applied myself properly and came out with a distinction and would have only blamed myself for anything less. But if you never get the chance to stumble, or the implication is that you pay this money so you get this thing, then we will end up with sub-par graduates.
I’m afraid I’m already seeing this with students I’ve demonstrate for.
And we’re supposed to be a leading scientific nation…
I completed an MBA at relatively new university (Derby) in 2014.
I have to say that although it did peddle a lot of bullshit we know about modern business and economics (show me a Uni that does not), it was a bloody hard course and it was made quite clear that I was there to provide my own answers (although the support I got in getting to the end was very, very good).
Previously I’d been at the University of Westminster (ex-polytechnic of Central London) in the mid to late 1990s to 2000 and recall I was pushed quite hard.
Maybe not all Universities are the same?
They’re not
Note the TEF
It’s not just the students who lose out, it’s society itself, already losing out on the benefits of the contributions of those who have the ability but lack the necessary finance to nurture and expand those abilities. This surely is the whole point of state-funded education, to allow society to accept the contributions its citizens, properly funded, can make. In trying to turn the clock back to a time before this was understood, the Tories are being anti-social to an massive degree. I’m astonished they’ve been allowed to get this far without precipitating rioting. What are people thinking? Has all ambition simply deserted them?
Who could meaningfully certify continuation over the life of a degree? Seemingly too many uncertainties which an auditor couldn’t foresee.
What I’d prefer is some kind of ‘living will’ arrangement between universities so that if X goes bust, Y agrees to take over the running until all existing education commitments are completed. It would be a mutual arrangement between X and Y, and may even involve a group of universities. X and Y might pay into a contingency fund to ‘self insure’ against costs of a temporary takeover if the worst arises.
Do universities have such arrangements in their contingency plans (or anything similar)?
A living will would permit the idea I suggest
Competition in the market for education is characterized by selection-based competition rather than efficiency-based competition.
The free-market neo-liberals, though, are delighted and enriched. The rest of us are sorely failed by this set-up-to-fail market.
Well said Richard Murphy.
At 4:15 of this excellent 5 minute Steve Keen MMTish video, tuition for the essential public good – education – is addressed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=287Cu5me0Og
Steve is often right
Markets eh!
Few years back I was working with a large Japanese multinational – they had been a client of mine for more than 15 years – & we were working to develop one of their business lines. The time came when they needed to hire an electrical engineer in the Uk. So they put some ads out and we turfed through the answers. I remember interviewing the good the back & the ugly. But one stood out: circa 40ish – went through uni in the 1980s. I will never forget one of the thinsg that he said: “I was the only one in my cohort that did not go into finance in the city”.
It’s not just treating uni as some kind of “market” – it is the way in which the best and brightest (trust me on this – electrical engneering is very hard) are then steered into “joke jobs” – oh sure, they use their mathematical skills..but for what exactly?
& whilst you reflect on that, it might be worth reflecting on the recent power loss in the South East & how that might be connected to the lack of good electrical engineers – the finance rabble having creamed off the best & brightest.