I'm all for this
As long as it is only the top 10% academically who go to university. University was never meant to be a substitute for or and extension to 6th form. Trying to make it so means it stops adding academic value to the country and gives no advantage to those who go, only a disadvantage to those who don't. And makes it cost so much that anyone who goes has to pay for their education because the country can no longer afford it.

And so the socialism of making sure there is no way you can discriminate between anyone by allowing anyone to do better or awarding higher grades to anyone and making sure everything is completely inclusive regardless of ability turns to pure capitalism when it the system can no longer be paid for.
(MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 12:57, 1 reply)

But why limit it to the top 10% academically?
Isn't that a bit like restricting the NHS to the 10% of the population that's healthiest? Moreover, the chances are that the top 10% will be overwhelmingly from privileged backgrounds already.

Why not just say that it ought to be there for anyone who can benefit from it?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:04, closed)

Because it's not school
It is a place to, as you said, become better at learning, to research, to learn, to further the knowledge of yourself and the country. It was designed to take in the brightest minds and further develop them.

It wasn't designed to take every mind and develop them up to a certain level and spit them out again, like school does.

I'm not sure about your analogy with the NHS. Everyone *needs* the NHS, not everyone *needs* to go to university, and not everyone should go. A lot of people aren't "academic" in the sense you were talking about, and making them study in an academic environment is stressful for everyone concerned.

Unfortunately, getting 50-60%, with the aim of 90%, of kids to university means everyone needs to go or they will fail and be looked down on.

Combine this with uncapped tuition fees, and you find that what you actually do is create a nation of slaves, even more than we already are.

A person with a massive debt cannot just walk out of their job. In many cases, they cannot choose their job. They have no spare cash to enjoy themselves with. Moreover, all their wages for the next however many years are due to be injected back in to the system. That person no longer has any choice in how they live their life.

The proposed system makes the weight of the system push down on everyone a few years earlier - so you get the mid-thirties debt stress from the age of 18 - and maybe even never see your own house.

And, I suspect, this is great for a system that thrives on having a nation sat at home feeling a bit stressed and rarely going out - only being able to afford to watch a TV and read newspapers full of the things they want you to think.
(MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:22, closed)

^this^
I agree with much of the above MrOli
( RadG Drinking Mojitos in the sun, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:27, closed)

Thank you sir
Glad these aren't just my personal paranoias :-)
(MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:36, closed)

I'm not sure what the original intention of universities was, and I'm not sure it matters.
You don't need the NHS qua NHS, though: the justification for the NHS is that health is a basic good, and should be available to all to the greatest extent possible. Education seems to me to fit in that bracket.

And noone's talking about making kids study. I don't care about the targets. If everyone had a degree, that'd be fine by me.

I do agree with you about fees, and the abolition of the grant, though - though your "what they want you to think" codicil looks a bit tinfoil-hat to me...
:)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:41, closed)

No one's making kids study?
Apart from being told their lives will be shit if they don't go get a degree.

There's also the reality that if 90% of kids end up with degrees, how does that help the people who are picking them for jobs? Apart from to know to turn away the 10% who don't have them.

Kinda reminds me of Homer Simpson "Hey, you know those little dohickeys to go on aerials to help find your car? Everyone should have those!"

Result: The university system is devalued, the kids are cheated, the employers are no better off and everyone is enslaved to the country, their bosses, their peers by (pointless - devalued) debt for the rest of their lives.

So who's going to be first against the wall when the revolution starts? What revolution? Everyone's too stressed, scared and busy trying to pay off their debts to revolt... Nice quiet life for the people at the top, don't you think?

/Edit: I agree, education is a basic right. That right is supplied by the school and college system. University is a entirely different, and it should be your choice to go there. Sadly, it no longer is.
(MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:51, closed)

I didn't say it was a basic right.
I said it was a basic good. And, like health, I don't see why there should be a quota or time-limit.

I'll also go to my grave arguing against the pernicious belief that a university education is about getting a job.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:56, closed)

Yep, and I'll agree with you all the way on that
But you also can't have every single person walking that path when they fundamentally don't want to, do you?

All those people who are being forced to should have the choice to pursue a different, as fulfilling, path.
(MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:08, closed)

I do believe that you're arguing against a position that no sane person holds...
Of course people who don't want a degree shouldn't have to - just as those who don't want medical treatment shouldn't have to accept it. I'm not quite sure what you're driving at.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:10, closed)

I'm advocating a system which is more exclusive
attracting and accepting only the best at a smaller rate, and which is therefore affordable for the country and free for the people who have the academic means to be accepted.

The people who are not suited to pure academia should be at technical colleges, art colleges, apprenticeships or go straight from a-levels in to work. And, up to a certain point, these things should not incur cost either.

The current system treats university as an extension to school, and as such, requires huge resources and does those who go through it few favours.

And I'm going even further to say that if it means that 90% of people go, 90% of 21 year olds will owe the government £20-30k, which is great for government control of the populous but a pretty lousy start for the 21 year olds.

Don't have to? You tell a kid who knows they wont get a job if they join the 10% who aren't going to uni that uni is not something they *have* to do...
(MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:25, closed)

(This actually wouldn't be too dissimilar to how the world worked about 20 years ago... ;-) )

(MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:31, closed)

^ this
is pretty much exactly how I feel about it.

Yes, everyone should be entitled to a good education, but that education need not necessarily take the form of academic study, and in fact I'd contend that the majority of the population are not suited to that form of education. As MrOli says, there are technical colleges, apprenticeships and on the job training too. Each of these is as valuable as an academic study course, for someone who is suited to that particular form of education.

It's not often that I disagree with Enzyme, but I do this time. On parts of his argument, at least.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 18 Oct 2010, 13:22, closed)

While I agree to some extent with your argument
I think your 10% quota does seem somewhat arbitrary.
(fibonacci_cunt cunt, cunt, cuntcunt, cuntcuntcunt,..., Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:02, closed)

lol, yeah, that is plucked straight out of the air
I was just trying to illustrate a point.

Wouldn't it be great to have a system which was decided entirely on aptitude, not how much money you have or how much risk you are willing to (or are forced to) take?
(MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:06, closed)

It would also be great if

Tony Blair got cancer of the smugness. Sadly these things don't happen in real life.
(fibonacci_cunt cunt, cunt, cuntcunt, cuntcuntcunt,..., Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:08, closed)

Oh, that would be great
They could cut his smugness out and exhibit it in a jar at the Tate.
(MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:32, closed)

Because
if you send a moron to university they are still a moron. If you send someone who needs their appendix removed to hospital then they no longer need their appendix removed (one way or another).
(For subjects primarily requiring talents other than general intelligence substitute the relevant skill, like musical ability for someone studying music)

How will the funding levels compare with what they were before all the polytechnics became unis and they tried to get everyone to go to uni? That, I think, was the huge mistake. "University for all" is supposed to mean "University for all, regardless of their means and background" not "University for all, even simpletons"
(teebie jeebie, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:33, closed)

But isn't that covered by the
"available to all who can benefit from it" comment?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:45, closed)