I read the news today, oh boy.
It would appear that there's a proposal that teaching grant for UK universities should fall by £3.2bn - 79%. The research budget is to fall by £1bn. (source)

79%.

This is blatantly ideological. There's no way that cutting the public deficit merits that kind of savagery in the higher education sector. And while the chances are that my institution will sail through the cuts without even noticing - because we'll be able to charge what we bloody well like - I'm furious at the brutal murder and corpse-desecration of the idea of scholarship and education as a public good.

SO. One thing to do before I die is now to hunt down every member of this government, wrestle them to the floor, and stamp on their pitiful throats.

Fuck me, I'm angry.
/rant
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 12:22, 67 replies)

3.2bn is
about the amount they've reduced corporation tax by. Who'd have thought they'd behave like this?
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Fri 15 Oct 2010, 12:35, closed)

There'll be £700m left
but most of that has been ringfenced: it'll be needed to cover the cost of boarding up the windows.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 12:38, closed)

Hmmm...
www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/documents/digitalasset/dg_188581.pdf

Go to p40. Assuming I've read the figures correctly, the corporation tax cut will mean a £400m drop in income next year.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:20, closed)

I am dead against this
but I do wonder exactly how much money could be saved by not offering media studies degrees? Don't really need one to work in a call centre, anyway.
( DarkSon a time and date will follow this username on, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 12:39, closed)

I don't care what the discipline is.
I spend a lot of time laughing at sociologists, but that's just par for the course.

The value of a university education is, for the most part, nothing to do with the subject: it's to do with independent thought, inquiry and critique. University - in my ideal world - wouldn't be about Smith telling Jones things so that Jones can get a job. It'd be about people of all ages being engaged in scholarship and enriching their lives; many of those people would perhaps be better equipped for the job market as a result, but they'd probably be OK for that anyway - after all, all careers require subsequent training and experience, so I don't see what a degree adds.

The enrichment provided by education is worthwhile in its own right - alongside things like health. It's a public good. I'm not sure that it's the sort of thing that one could - or should - try to evaluate in terms of brute economics. And it should be available to all.

I'm probably hopelessly unrealistic, but that doesn't matter. Most worthwhile ends are probably unattainable in practice, but that's no reason not to strive to get as close as possible.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 12:45, closed)

^^
what she said
(mersault, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 12:48, closed)

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, closed)

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)

I agree but
surely these things should be taught at school? There is no age barrier, as far as I am aware, for independent and critical thought and it seems to me that these are qualities everyone should have. University is optional and should be used for increasing your knowledge in a specific field. Can't help thinking that if you have to spend the first part of your university course learning how to think properly, that's somewhat of a waste of time.
( DarkSon a time and date will follow this username on, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:28, closed)

I'm not sure of that.
I see higher education as being to cultivate the intellect. That's an ongoing process.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:44, closed)

really?
I see them as public institutions, largely funded by the public, to benefit the public. In the most part, that is exactly what they are doing. Sometimes, however, this is not the case. In terms of the expenditure required, it simply isn't worth society as a whole funding an education that will probably never be used. I applaud your ideals, but in the face of a grim economic situation, and a public debt that probably makes the IMF wet itself in fear it makes no sense to to teach a large collection of people research and scholarship skills that will then go to waste while they spend the rest of their lives in a dead end job, scratching unmentionable bits of themselves makes no sense. While I think that every discipline should be studied, and that every avenue to understanding should be explored, I also understand that it has to be tempered with the knowledge that someone is paying for it. No-one likes to pay for anything without a direct and obvious benefit to themselves.
( DarkSon a time and date will follow this username on, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:16, closed)

I'm not sure what your standard of value is, though.
Even if we allow that the cash in: cash generated ratio is unpromising, that tacitly assumes that the value of higher education is wholly financial. That's not something I'd accept easily: I'd want more argument.

And while I accept that noone likes to pay for anything without a direct and obvious benefit to themselves, that's just because we have a natural and understandable tendency to discount the public. It's a tendency that post-war politics has exacerbated. The cuts in the university sector are, to some extent, symptomatic of an atrophied public sector, and a pervasive ideology that ignores the public in favour of the private at all times. And that's disastrous - not just for education, but in all ways.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:24, closed)

I'm not saying it has to be of a financial benefit. I've always felt that the best product of society is the spare production, both in time and resources, that is necessary to allow that society to continue to learn, grow and prosper. When it comes down to it, though, part of that society has to create more than they need or want to allow that to happen, and that's in the nature of an investment by that society. All investment carries risk, but you look to minimise that risk. Th current educational system, I sometimes feel that this has been forgotten - that it is by the toil of others that education is possible. You say it's good for society, and I agree in most cases - but what good to society is an educated individual not fulfilling all the promise that that education brings with it? And you only need so many experts in latin before they stop being experts and become insurance salesmen.

I'm probably being boring and pompous and a whole host of other things, including retarded, but for a lot of the graduates we have today, the cost/benefit ratio doesn't work out for me.
( DarkSon a time and date will follow this username on, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 15:47, closed)

But I didn't say that it was good for society.
I mean: it probably is, but that's not what carries the weight. It's a public good - that is, a good that I think a properly functioning society ought to preserve just because it's good.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 16:19, closed)

how can waste ever be good?
( DarkSon a time and date will follow this username on, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 16:27, closed)

It isn't.
But I'm denying that it's waste.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 20:48, closed)

why bother?
Expanding everyone's horizons is all well and good if everyone can go on to lead a challenging, interesting life. However, the complex machine of society will still require the small cogs - people to clean toilets, flip burgers, etc - and expanding their horizons seems to be a uniquely horrible thing to do. Perhaps there's something comforting in stupidity - not having the mental wherewithall to imagine anything better, and being too dim to even be aware of this deficiency.

What you're proposing is roughly analogous to developing fully-functional AI, then fitting it to a Roomba - giving something an awareness of quite how poor its lot in life really is, for no discernable benefit.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:16, closed)

Your point strikes me as generating an argument for paying loo cleaners a lot more,
rather than depriving them of an education should they want it.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:18, closed)

if only there was a place people could go to acquire all the erudition they'd like - a public building of some sort, which would freely lend you any book of your choice, even going to the lengths of orering them in from other such buildings upon request.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:25, closed)

And maybe it could be next to another building
in which are employed acknowledged experts in their field...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:54, closed)

Difficult times
No doubt things are going to get grim and the expected cuts are certainly "enthusiastic".

But a part of me thinks is this the way to weed out the recently upgraded ex polytechnics offering 3 year partys ending in a largly worthless qualification and getting some of them to revert back to vocational trade courses which were of great value in producing qualified trades people.

looking back over my 20 years in higher education I find myself today, awash with 2:2 sociologists and meeja studies graduates etc but I can't get a decent plumber or brickie for any money!
( RadG Drinking Mojitos in the sun, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 12:42, closed)

I went to a 'recently upgraded ex polytechnic'
I fucked up my A-levels and was in a state. I wanted to do a science course and thankfully one of the better 'recently upgraded ex polytechnics' offered me a place on the course. I worked my tail off over the next four years and got a first class degree. I then did a PhD and I now have a job making massive drugs in the neverending fight against cancer. If there wasn't such a thing as the 'recently upgraded ex polytechnic' I would not have made it. I regard my Uni days as a big second chance which I had to take through my own fucktardiness I admit, but I am ever so grateful that my old 'recently upgraded ex polytechnic' existed. Its not all media degrees and film studies you know (although the earlier sentiment in this thread is bang on when its mentioned that Uni is also about change in scenery, outlook etc.)
(mersault, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 12:57, closed)

^This^
It so happens that your brain seems to respond to science-like critical inquiry and scholarship. Mine doesn't: science interests me, but I can't do it. (And who knows: you, for your part, might be a terrible philosopher...)

It's the inquiry and scholarship that carries the moral weight, though. That's the chassis, if you like - and it may be better or worse (since you could just as well do cutting-edge analysis of the media as pisspoor chemistry). The discipline is merely the colour of the paint-job
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:07, closed)

terrible at philosophy?
Me? Not possible, because I'm a Doctor of Philosophy. Surely that means I must be good at it?
(haberman is singing in the changes, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:44, closed)

I sense you take offense at the term recently upgraded etc ...
But on the other side of the coin, there are many young people walking the streets with no job or skills because in the unruly rush for govt grants many excellant polytechnics dropped their excellant vocational roots and merged with the herd to churn out what are largely worthless degrees, leaving the less academicly inclined with even fewer options.

I am truely glad you got your second chance and the system worked for you.

However I stand by my observation, based on my 20 years in higher education, that too many institutions are chasing too little money.
( RadG Drinking Mojitos in the sun, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:09, closed)

That's really fantastic, well done
And it should have been free for you to do that

Though in the world I was talking about above, you would, unfortunately, have had to resit those A-levels to get in... because no one had any other way of knowing that you who totally failed your a-levels would go on to get a first in a hell of a subject, and that you were therefore worth every penny spent on you by the country.
(MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:43, closed)

It almost was free
I studied between 92 and 99. At the beginning I still got about half a grant and my parents were 'obliged' by my LEA to contribute (about a couple of hundred each term) and I got student loans for 600 quid in the year. When I left my undergrad course I had no grant, a bit of cash from the olds and about 900 quid in loans over the year. No course fees. In some ways I feel for studes these days...
(mersault, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:26, closed)

All I know is that I wouldn't want to be a student nowadays
When I went to university in 1995 I felt hard done by that I didn't get a grant! How times have changed.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 12:52, closed)

Did you not?
I went in '95, but got at least a partial grant. The value was falling by that stage, but it was still there.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 12:54, closed)

I started in 97
The very last year to go through with no tuition fees to pay and grants available up to a couple of grand/year for the worst off.
(MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 12:59, closed)

I went in 1991 and didn't get a grant
:-(
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:11, closed)

No
my parents earnings were over the threshold
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:24, closed)

I *did* get a grant, so here's my perspective
I went to university in the dim, distant early 1980s, and I got a grant, so it was effectively free. It was a "proper" university, and a highly marketable subject, but that was just coincidence - I studied what I was passionate about. I got a good degree and used it to get a job; in fact a career, as I still do the same kind of thing.

So, a perfect example of what our lords and masters want: a vocational degree leading to gainful and tax-paying employment.

And guess what? If I'd had to face a huge debt at the end of it, I doubt if I would have done it...
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:20, closed)

That's cool
I did Biology at Reading. I'm now an Accountant.

*shrugs*
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:25, closed)

3.2 billion....
nails in the University coffin :(
(Lip Up Fatty Fatty Reggae still loves BBQ food on, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:09, closed)

I was just replying to a picture about this on /board/
I'll probably not be able to work in the UK for maybe 10-20 years because of this and it's making it harder for me to find a research job elsewhere. A job I had applied for over here was relisted when they found out about the state of things to take advantage of academics leaving Britain, which nicely shut out us early-career researchers.
( Colonel Boris "...a desperate Buzzfeed imitation...", Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:13, closed)

After you've stamped on their throats...

mind if I take a shit in their mouths?
(fibonacci_cunt cunt, cunt, cuntcunt, cuntcuntcunt,..., Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:16, closed)

Shit first, make them swallow THEN stamp on their throats

(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:21, closed)

Sounds like a plan to me

fucking pricks. I wonder if by some remarkable coincidence it turns out that 700m is just the right amount to fund the teaching of PPE at Oxford and Cambridge...
(fibonacci_cunt cunt, cunt, cuntcunt, cuntcuntcunt,..., Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:25, closed)

it really isn't
PPE and all associated degrees will be absolutely fucked over, anything that is humanities based will also go down the drain.
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 13:37, closed)

My point was

that a lot of MPs seem to be Oxbridge PPE graduates.
(fibonacci_cunt cunt, cunt, cuntcunt, cuntcuntcunt,..., Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:06, closed)

At least it means there will be more graduates.
Now they're effectively paying for a degree, they have a higher expectation of receiving one. Hence some chap (from Wales I think?) taking his institution to court to review his 2:2.
There is no incentive to earn a degree by hard work any more.
( Blind Meach Cautiously optimistic, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:05, closed)

Yeah - I read that story.
I'm pretty sure he hasn't got a leg to stand on; and even if he wins, it'll be because of some particular identifiable failing of his institution rather than just because of his degree - our regs, for example, are clear that disagreement with the judgement of examiners is not a ground for appeal. But I'm keeping half an eye on the story all the same.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:12, closed)

It's a recurrent theme it appears.
My wife teaches/lectures at a uni, and the students expect more and more to be done for them rather than by them.
( Blind Meach Cautiously optimistic, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 15:39, closed)

*couldn't possibly comment*
though you may be right...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 16:20, closed)

Please can I join you?
I typed out a long rant, but decided it went off at too great a tangent. But if you find the politicians, I'll provide the stompy steel-toed boots.
(epinephrine, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:28, closed)

^all of this
I'm particularly vexed about this, seeing as the party I voted for promised not to increase tuition fees.

From an economic point of view we're already seeing a growing disparity between the number of patents lodged by British Universities and those of China and the US (amongst others). What innovations will we be offering to the world in ten years time I wonder?

[edit] Have a click on me, sir.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Fri 15 Oct 2010, 14:40, closed)

Dont get me wrong but...
How many stories have you read on this site proclaiming uni as an absolute doss where they got pissed for 3 yrs and didn't actually do any study? Am I wrong in thinking that most students attend 6-8 hours of lectures a week and then talk shite to each other eating pot noodles, sometimes simultaniously? Is it any wonder that the taxpayer really couldn't give a toss? If you want to take 3 yrs doing something that someone in an actual job could prob get done in 12 months, then yeah! Pay for it your fucking self! Stop thinking the world owes you, look at african and asian kids working 3 or 4 jobs to pay for an education in a useful subect, not media/wanking/the simpsons studies. There are ppl out there prepared to graft and those who are merely delaying the day they have to get a job. Let's see how the admission rate goes down now it has to be payed for!
(SamuraiMongoose, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 23:05, closed)

*Claps vigorously*
finally ....some sense
(M61A1 CUPID- STUNTS, Sat 16 Oct 2010, 0:31, closed)

Generally, I'd dispute the classification of subjects as being useful or not -
see my posts above on this. (There's a big difference between education and training; the university sector is - or ought to be - about the former before the latter.)

And while it may be true that the system is exploited by some, that's not an argument about the system. There'll still be the layabouts, subsidised by the Bank of Mum and Dad; the only difference is that kids from poorer backgrounds won't get the chance to be educated.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Sat 16 Oct 2010, 11:59, closed)