Vince, useless degrees would have been a better target

libertarian

Fraser,

As someone who works in the careers industry I couldn't have put it better myself. You are 100% correct

Hugh Janus

Ys, another exceedingly soft interview from James Smug-McNaughtie. Brillo recently did an excellent demolition job on Saint Vince, but it seems that the remainder of the interviewing fraternity just can't get it together.

I support the coalition, but Cable seems to me to be the weak link. I would have welcomed an announcement that university places were being reduced, so as to put an end to so many useless and increasingly expensive degrees, many of which are quite superfluous to our needs.

fredb

I've lectured to a few classes for post-grads on vocational degree courses like these, and overseas students outnumbered domestic ones by at least 5 to 1. They are clearly money-making exercises intended to scam foreigners who think a British HE qualification sets them up for life (and cheaper than studying in the U.S.) I wonder how long, if our academic currency continues being devalued in this way.

Duyfken

Is there any structured check on the subsequent careers (or lack thereof)of those who have graduated from such courses, in order to gauge the usefulness or otherwise?

strapworld

How strange. First the normal caustic comment about Vince Cable (who I have no liking for) yet it is not his fault the BBC did not ask him the questions Mr Nelson wanted asked, is it? As for him living on Mount Sinia- was that really necessary?

But I cannot recall anyone in the media speaking out against journalism courses in universities at anytime. Please acquaint me with the articles condemning them you have penned Mr Nelson please!OR any of Fleet Street's finest?

I have a particular beef against these courses. My youngest son obtained a first class degree in journalism and has found it impossible to get a journalist position.

Now I have a particular background where I knew many correspondents/journalists, media news interviewers etc and four editors personally. They are now, like me, enjoying retirement. However I sought advice prior to son embarking on said course asking if it was better to start as the junior reporter and not go to university and only one advised against university!

That said the way the media in particular use 'personalities' to do the job journalists used to fill, in sports particularly the radio/television and newspapers rely on former participants rather than a journalist.

So your last sentence in this piece is worth greater exposure. Far too many young people are having their dreams abused by a cycnical education system AND a media controlled by people who ignore the promise and new thinking that young people could bring to the failing newspapers/magazines and radio/television programmes, by using inarticulate sportsmen and women who have achieved fortunes in their sports and who now deprive young people of a role.

So it is not just Vince, Mr Nelson. You too are part of the problem in my view!

Simon Stephenson

"There are plenty hard questions to ask. The main one is what I regard as a national scandal: young people being missold useless degrees that benefit neither students nor society."

But Fraser, this type of dishonesty and unreality is the building block of our entire society. Nothing any more is structured around cold reality. How can you seriously expect one small section of society suddenly to break away and fly in the face of the thought processes that govern how everything else is done?

Be bold! Focus on addressing the illness itself, not just the low-hanging fruit that are its signs and symptoms.

Stepney

Bang on the money Fraser but I'd add just a couple of points:

You've got to be very careful to sort the wheat out from the chaff - some of the vocational degrees are exactly what the economy wants - post-grad employment rates for the much derided Golf Course management are 100%.

We need more STEM graduates for sure but someone needs to consider the usefulness and employability of the other degrees. As an employer I would take a graduate in Multimedia Arts over an Economist every day of the week because those are the skills this company needs.

Nickle

So graduate earn 100K more than non gradutate net of tax.

That means at their marginal rate, they are paying about 67K in tax over and above non graduates.

Well, Vince Cable, it looks like Graduates are already paying over the odds for their degrees, and now you want to tax them extra.

The man's an idiot

AndyinBrum

My platoon Sargent in the OTC had the best line ~ BA in Underwater Basket Weaving

Robert Eve

You have hit the nail on the head Fraser!!

Gawain

Oh dearie me. You have been reading to much economic theory. Economists do not understand that history is a poor guide to the future. The old practical routes into professions and trades have largely been destroyed. As you say yourself only the rich and well connected have that access now. A degree has become the only route into a career. And who are you to judge the uselessness of degrees ? The most useless and harmful degree at the moment is Economics.

Mycroft

Totally agreed, there are far too many university courses which are lacking in academic rigour and have no cultural content; the rot starts, though, at an earlier stage, with easy option courses at school. The result is that many people leave university no better educated than when they came in, and also no more cultivated.

In2minds

Fraser, stop knocking education, remember Martin Bright is on study leave this summer.

Jim Easby

Degrees?

For many young people the NuLabour degree factory has been a scam on so many of the young to get them to finance their own "youth unemployment benefits" under the guise of receiving some useful and remunerative training and taking on a debt in the process.

There are not the "graduate " jobs and there never were the jobs (of any type) for the age group. The 50% gradutes target was just to hide the appalling forthcoming youth unemplyment statistics to which NULabour had no solution. The economic crash has just blown the scam earlier than Bliar/Brown planned for.

Steven

Your analysis is, for the most part accurate, especially the point about connections being far more important than a 'piece of paper'. However, you miss an important point, namely, a good proportion of school leavers simply need to grow up, mature and broaden their horizons before they are remotely of value in the workplace. Frankly speaking, even then we have to educate them in the basics of worklife. "what? I don't just get everything handed to me?". Almost any degree and time at any institution affords school leavers this time and experience. If you not well connected, college provides a good opportunity for you to begin establishing a network. None of this is reflected in the piece of paper but as an employer I am more focused on the person than the paper. Using college, any college, to become a better person is well worth it.

Leon Vestey

Excellent, Mr.Nelson.

Vukujebina

I went back to a respected university recently after a decade working as a journalist, aware that many non-media employers now demand a masters. I learned quite a lot, but mostly because I'd already worked in the relevant areas - what shocked me was the poor general quality of both other students and the course. It was all a bit 'pile 'em high'.

BBC R4's Analysis did a great programme on 'Cinderella' degrees last year. It's well worth having a listen for a first class example of a malfunctioning market that is sensitive to the whims of teenagers.

dearieme

"We need more STEM graduates for sure": do you have any evidence for that proposition?

Ex-CRD

I hope no one ever tells Fraser about all those people who did history/English lit/French/etc degrees who didn't then become historians/writers/translators/etc. Actually, come to think on it, what did Fraser read at university, and why isn't he doing *that*? As whatever it would mean he's dong it couldn't be any intellectually lazier than coming out with stuff like this.

Andy Carpark

There is practically no trade or profession worthy of the name that cannot be taught on site with day release to figure out the theoretical framework, if there is one. David Livingstone qualified as a medical doctor through night school.

Universities should revert to their original, semi-monastic function of training the next generation of academics, preferably in molecular biochemistry or microelectronics, or any of the few brances of science that actually need three or four years of scholarly seclusion.

The rest of the illiterate, innumerate, slack-jawed, bloody students should be herded out into the rice fields to do some honest toil. The one thing Mao Tse Tung got right.

local local

VOUCHERS!

Privatise the whole higher education and post 16 training set up and give all 18 year old a book of vouchers.

David Lindsay

How about returning to a sensible number of universities, with a sensible number of people at them? No, that is not a call for smugness on the part of older institutions. Very far from it.

Why are universities still under Business, and not returned to the restored Education Department? And why is the review of these things in the hands of Lord Browne of BP?

AngloWelshDragon

The graduate tax assumes that a graduate's success is entirely due to having a degree. This is patently rubbish as many factors dictate how successful a career will be including personal ambition and drive, inate talent, appearance and manner, having family/friends in the same industry who can give you a job/an internship/advice. It is these factors that mean two people with the same degree from the same university will have entirely different earning potential.

Is it then fair to tax one more than the other? I guess that depends on whether the Graduate Tax is intended to pay back the cost of university education or instead is just another tax on the successful.

AndyinBrum

I forget, but I'm sure Rice can't grow in the british climate. Or are you suggesting we start a compulsory 3 year gap year in China for all undergrads?

Ahmed Khan

I agree, there are too many useless Degree’s offered. For many years our Universities were the envy of the world. Even today degree’s obtained from our traditional ‘Red-brick’ universities are respected throughout the world.

However the problems stem from Maggie Thatcher’s (advised by Sir Keith Joseph) decision to award university status to Polytechnic’s and other further education establishments. This resulted in these ‘new’ universities offering degree courses in useless courses such as ‘Car Salesmanship’ and ‘Flirting’ (yes Flirting).

The whole aim of Thatcher’s policy being to increase the number of graduates, which sadly backfired and even more sadly was not even noticed by the Major or Blair Governments.

HJ

Andy CarPark:

"Universities should revert to their original, semi-monastic function of training the next generation of academics, preferably in molecular biochemistry or microelectronics..."

My degree is in microelectronics. I left the industry 6 years ago - the semiconductor industry has collapsed in the UK thanks to Labour's anti-industrial policies.

The Bellman

@AndyinBrum: Or the - perhaps apocryphal - Colour Sergeant at Sandhurst, who enquired of a particularly idle officer cadet what degree he had read. When the officer cadet informed him it was archaeology, the Colour Sergeant exclaimed: "Sir, I wouldn't live in a house *you'd* built."

nickp

Friend of mine's son works part time at his dad's web site business then studies search engine optimisation at college. The lecturer regularly gets it all wrong, and admits it, but says the boy must stick to the academic way, not the real world-way, in order to get marked properly. I've heard this many times...that what the young people are taught actually differs from what they will be doing in their careers, so they have to be retrained anyway when they start work.

Bin the degree courses or link them in with business so that they work seamlessly to create a qualification with meaning. Oops, that would be an apprenticeship, then.

Previous comments remind me of the old saying: those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. those who can do neither become journalists.....

Fergus Pickering

Oh come on, Andy Carpark. That's just a bad-tempered noise. Herded out WHERE to do WHAT? Honest toil, my backside. Or qwere you being ironic? I seem to be missing irony these days. My daughter did a vocational degree (Occupational Therapy) and is toiling away like anything, minstering to the mad, of whom, you will be delighted to learn, there are a good few and rising. Who says Britain no longer leads the world in anything?

Marbury

"Journalism is a trade, people are judged by their output. You really are only as good as your last story." I agree with much of your analysis, but that bit is patently false. There are too many patently inadequate journalists being published for it to be true. What you're missing out of the picture is social capital. More than ever, people get jobs at sought-after employers - including the Spectator - on the basis of family and friend connections. What the "extra 7k a year" statistic doesn't tell you is that many of those people would be earning more than the average even if they hadn't been to university, because they are better-than-averagely connected.

PayDirt

So, if there is agreement that Uni is a useful general educational experience, who is going to pay for this extension of school days? At the moment student debt must feel like a millstone round the neck, unless a lucrative job is forthcoming. I imagine a lot of depressed graduates out there. If it is in society’s interest to continue education after 18, it’s no good loading the 20-somethings with onerous debt. It is all arse-backwards. For courses that cater for society’s real needs, doctors, engineers, etc and for sufficiently promising candidates let’s have scholarships. All others should have to work to earn enough dosh to pay for Uni, maybe they’d be better students for that.

Frank Sutton

The idea that a degree will get you a career - and one that pays better - is a con already being perpetrated on young people.

A lot of degrees today have no more use in getting a job than 3 a-levels were a generetaion ago.

The diffferemce is, the graduates start earning three years later, thousands in debt.

Now the sage of Twickenham proposes to tax those lucky degree holders. That will be on top of the repayments on the student loans they took out to get that degree.

Education - just say 'No', kids.

Sir Compton Valence

Some of the strands in this graduate tax are so ridiculous that one wonders if it has been suggested solely to allow Lord Browne to specifically rule it out in his review of higher education funding.

Would the additional tax be open-ended, leaving high-earning graduates to pay not only the cost of their own tuition but the fees of others? There has to be a ceiling, otherwise it is rather a departure from the present system.

Also, the whole things runs counter to what the coalition is trying to do in other areas as it would create a branch of the state to collect money from people which would then be passed to another branch of the state - the universities. As things stand, the universities cut out the middle man when they take fees.

Also, why work in Britain once you graduate if you're going to be further penalised in the tax system?

This is all so completely bonkers and corporatist that it must be a red herring - except that Vince has put it forward ... so who knows?

Noa

I missed the interview.
Is Cable merely proposing to recoup student loans by taxing graduates for their repayment?

Or is he proposing a discriminatory tax on all graduates and their earnings?

The latter seems bonkers, but wthen penalising graduates for sacrificing an earlier start to their working career and income by personal study and investment is also unjust.

One option to the undergraduate funding issue would be a preferential tax code for parents. As a parent I am prepared to pay for or contribute to my childrens' education. however the tax system accords no recognition or relief for my performance of this responsibility.

Stepney

For the more dim-witted amongst you - STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.

The Armchair Blue

This is what I have been saying when I started University myself (not that long ago). Though I think the worst one has to be a BA in creative writing, as if a degree will give you an imagination.

Noa

Fraser

An interesting and cogent perspective as usual. Your view that no one ever learnt their trade through a degree is correct.

You note though, that Jasmes Naughtie, a noted and capable journalist who no doubt has a degree or several, failed to display sufficient investigative rigour with Vince Cable.

Surely that is the key point; that an innate ability can be good but can be much better when effectively combined with a logical ability to challenge and reason enhanced through academic study?

Media reporting and journalism is often of poor quality; unassertve and unquestioning in nature.
As the Naughtie example surely confirms, it is not axiomatic that a degree is inferior to direct work experience, especially if the graduate has funded themselves, as most do, through working whilst studtying.

Dimoto

Actually, a graduate tax is precisely the opposite of what is needed to drive out the bogus degree courses - it would subsidise such courses.

As for Media Studies, yes, it is the largest con of all. The courses are ridiculous (10 hours of lectures [discussions ?] per week ?!) nearly all trivia, no structure, no skills teaching, just garbage.

Of course, media is a huge industry, and a serious degree course could theoretically, be demanding and useful. But most are designed as parking spots for feckless and aimless youngsters - suits all "stakeholders".

However, as we know, the whole industry is corrupt, full of nepotism and cronyism, and with very poor standards, (BBC a leading example).
"Media" students should be told up front that they have less than zero chance of finding paid employment with a reputable company. I know of cases of "Media" grads in their 30s, still doing unpaid messenger jobs in the vain hope that one day they will get their "opportunity". Tragic.

Vukujebina

Two quick points about journalism: 1. Too many English graduates and not enough expertise in business, economics or sciences (NB media studies graduates don't get jobs in the industry); 2. As a sign of how screwed up journalism courses are, Cardiff teaches one part in its prestigious post-grad course in Famous Journalists - almost every one of whom is a self-publicising gobshite rather than a talented and skilled hack. In short journalism is treated as a strand of instant showbusiness rather than as a craft that needs slow, unspectacular and careful application. This is symptomatic of an education system that tries too hard to pander to the whims of its youthful and naive consumers.

libertarian

@Gawain

Afraid you are quite wrong. A degree not only isn't the only route into work it's actually one of the least effective these days.

In a digital world it is really easy to demonstrate ability

@strapworld

please give us a link to your youngsters blog

mongoose

It's not just the subject area of the degree but also the rampant grade inflation that's come into higher education. Mediocre students expect upper seconds nowadays and a lower second is considered a failure. Nor are many masters degrees or doctorates what they used to be. Employers know all that, and some students too realise they've been sold a pup. The mis-selling also applies to the academically inclined students who must now feel like a fish out of water.

Ahmed Khan

@Stephany - Are you from Planet Earth??? For goddness sake get a life.....

JohnAnt

Indeed - why on earth is it 'unfair' that a graduate in media studies who opts e.g. for part-time acting or working in a donkey sanctuary should have to repay the cost of his/her studies? Why penalize a banker or lawyer or industrialist for choosing and being competitively accepted for their post-degree careers?
If there is no further risk attached to becoming a self-indulgent, preachy drifter after university, youngsters will do it big time.

Liberty

We cannot afford to send 45% of our 18-21 yr olds to residential full time education. The vast numbers, range of abilities and interests that this represents reduces standards, the cost forces lower quality of teaching and university personnel and the system for paying for it is over-complex, too expensive and too focused on the graduates and their parents.
We are the only advanced nation that sends such a high proportion of our young people into residential higher education. Residential education is to create a critical mass of our elite minds to create the future elite of the nation that have shared values, education and experience. The notion that this can be extended to include such a huge range of ability is ridiculous and rooted in Marxist notions of equality that have no place in the real world. People prefer the company of their intellectual peers. They always have and always will. A nation can only function with respect for hierarchies of merit, ability and function. It cannot function with equal respect for all. that is the way of chaos.
So higher education should be divided into education and vocational training. Education should be confined to the top 20% or so of students. They should only do degrees, masters and doctorates and research. No vocational subjects such as law, education, nursing degrees, etc. which should be done in graduate schools attached to schools, hospitals, law firms, etc. or post A level colleges. Post A level occupational qualifications should be done at local, non-residential colleges, we could call them polytechnics.
If firms and professional organisations defined entry criteria, managed and partially financed all vocational training students would live at home or hostels, they would do a lot of sandwich courses, evening classes and distance learning. That would cut the cost of HE enormously.
To cut the cost of higher education and training further make all universities independent, free to raise money as they wish from endowments, selling research and charging students although they should give preference to home students who should be subsidised by vouchers.
A voucher system is hugely cheaper to administer than the present means tested one which is highly bureaucratic, prone to fraud, unfair at the edges and difficult to control because once the student gets the grant they can do as they wish. In an audit of a south London university 40% of students did not turn up although they had received loans. Needless to say they were predominantly on low level, vocational degrees. We can write off most of that money.
Nor is it fair to load the cost of education on the student and their parents during a particularly expensive time in their lives. All of us are beneficiaries of higher education so all should pay towards it, the biggest earners to pay the most so pay for it through taxes. Now two can graduate with the same degree and the same prospects but one can have a debt of 30k and the other debt free. If graduates earn more they pay more tax and so offset the cost.

Dorothy Wilson

Fraser: I have considerable experience of working with people in career development/change situations and would endorse all you say. I could actually write a book on this topic but for now would make just a few points:

• The aim of getting 50% of our young people into university is just daft. Some people have the attributes to enjoy study and some to progress to senior positions. Some though have abilities that are more suited to practical work. They would be better doing courses based on the old HNC/HNDs in up-graded colleges of FE. There is no reason why, as they mature and develop, they could not complete a degree at a later stage.

• Our young people have to make choices that can affect the rest of their lives at far too young an age – 14 to decide GCSEs and 16 to decide A levels. At that age most of them do not really understand themselves and the way in which they fit into the world.

• It is not just people with micky mouse first degrees who have problems getting work. I’ve interviewed a good many with MBAs and PhDs who are virtually unemployable. Their CVs are are littered with academic prizes and qualifications. Unfortunately, they have little empathy with people and thus cannot communicate. They also have problems making decisions. The cost of their was dashed dream – not just to the taxpayer in providing their education – but to them in terms of time and emotional effort only to find they cannot get a job hardly bears thinking about.

• A few years ago I acted as a volunteer mentor for a Young Enterprise programme at one of our local universities. It was a disaster. About 50% of the students would have been better on a vocational course. The academic staff would have been sacked had their worked in commerce.

• I am currently doing some volunteer mentoring on a programme to try to get unemployed women scientists and engineers into the workplace. Each of them has a first degree and some Masters’ in subjects that are supposed to be in demand. Most of them are from ethnic minorities. What is the point of allowing these supposedly highly skilled workers into the country if they end up unemployed?

Added to all this, the way in which employers promote and develop employees leaves a great deal to be desired. We need to do some very serious thinking about the way in which we develop the potential of the people of this country if we are to compete.

Sorry I've sounded off so much!

The Masked Marvel

The BBC is full of Media Studies graduates. Certain schools have feeder programmes which lead students directly to the BBC. Explains rather a lot, really.

Neil Wilson

I've got a book of vouchers. I call it my wallet and the vouchers have Her Majesty's face on them.

They are the only vouchers you need in a free market.

Iain

This is quite a pompous article I think. It is easy for you to say this after you have completed your own journalism degree at City University. It is doubtful you would be in your current role without it. A good degree from a red brick university is required to get an interview for most roles. As you say in journalism, as in most other roles or trades you then need to perform.

Puncheon

I have followed this debate with interest. Today I saw the pathetic graduates of my local (new) university parading through the town in their idiotic garb with smug grins - I'm a graduate. What the discussion seems to amount to is that we need to find a sensible way of taking young people away from home to learn about life and grow up. This sounds like an argumenmt for national service, not necessarily military but social as well. Almost the entire academic world has become corrupted and corrupting in its quest to attract undergraduates and make money. Even Oxbridge has 'studies' course, ie with all the hard bits taken out. What we need is more vocational experience opportunities not endless pseudo-subjects invented by academics to further their careers. The slogan chosen by my local 'uni' is "Bring your Dreams". Yes, and let us turn them into deluded fantasies, is what I've always thought. The masses always arrive at the waterhole about 100 years after the aristos have discovered it.

Tom FD

Well put Mr Nelson. What did I get for my vocational degree? No job, just a general loathing of my chosen subject and clinical depression. Wish I'd just got on with finding work while there were actually still jobs out there instead of graduating into a non-existent jobs market - or chosen a more interesting area of study at the very least.

lola

Just put a full stop after 'useless' in your headline and delete the next 7 words.

There, easy wasn't it?

Move on nothing to see here.

James

Spot on Fraser. Uni has turned onto something my peers part through whilst waiting to stumble across some direction in life. Why not simply cut funding for all these "mickey mouse" degrees and marvel at the amounts of tax money saved?

Rhys

A good way to reduce costs and also improve the quality of courses offered would be to move as soon as possible to undergraduates NOT being admitted to start University until after they have spent at minimum two years after school in a job. Any job. If they can't get a job locally then all right they can travel abroad and live off part time casual work or whatever.

By the time they are 20 they will be in a much better position to really think about what course/s of study they wish to pursue, if any, and because of the additional life experience and maturity they are far less likely to drift into enrolment on attractive sounding but pointless 'degrees' which neither confer earning-power value nor broaden the mind.

If some Universities and Colleges retrench or go under entirely as a result is that a bad thing?

Meanwhile, on the subject of Graduate Tax - do its proponents realize that the great majority of graduate students now are from the EU, paying local, UK - subsidized fees.
How would a graduate tax work or be enforced in their case when they return to, eg Romania or Turkey ?

hadrian

How uncomfortably accurate your assessment of these virtually bogus degree courses must be for those with a vested interest in their continuance. I had almost referred to them as 'academics' but there were to demean the genuine article.
I well recall my old lecturers and professors way back in the Sixties and up into the Seventies bemoaning the absurdity of expanding access to university education for those patently uninterested in/unfit for the tough, rigorous disciplines the old Arts and Humanities courses demanded of folk. It was predicted that standards would dip and that catastrophically. That they have done so, one need only look at the unmitigated junk that passes for literature courses nowadays. I have come across top rated Enlish students who couldn't spell to save themselves, whose grammar was lamentable and whose knowledge of the canon of English literature was abysmal. The worst aspect was those students who actually gloried in their ineptitude and ignorance and scoffed at the very idea of having to spell and punctuate properly. In fact it maddens me these ignoramuses think their degrees are on a par with an old M.A. and what we had to master.
Many of these people would be far more gainfully employed in the business world and doing real work!
So I agree- scrap half these mickey mouse courses, Mr Cable.