Tuition Fees: England vs Germany
Discussion
This article describes the higher education situation in Germany and highlights that university education is free there while student pay up to £9,000 per annum in England.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-34132664
The key point of interest for me is that in Germany only 27% of young people go into higher education while in England it's 47%. I'm not an expert on the subject but have long thought that too many people go to university and then end up working in jobs they could have gone straight into from high-school. The article mentions a recent CIPD study that seems to back this up.
So, are too many people going to university in England? What should we do with them instead? How about more apprenticeships? Or something entirely different?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-34132664
The key point of interest for me is that in Germany only 27% of young people go into higher education while in England it's 47%. I'm not an expert on the subject but have long thought that too many people go to university and then end up working in jobs they could have gone straight into from high-school. The article mentions a recent CIPD study that seems to back this up.
So, are too many people going to university in England? What should we do with them instead? How about more apprenticeships? Or something entirely different?
Old news, have a look at EU countries, some offer free degree courses and postgraduate Oones. Let be honest UK people unis are just there to churn out numbers, a lot in the EU are there for proper development.
You can even do free courses online, I was looking at a few, in english too.
You can even do free courses online, I was looking at a few, in english too.
cptsideways said:
I think you will find Germany has a very high Technical/Engineering degree level as opposed to keeping youngsters off the streets liberal woolly education degrees.
You'll also find the quality of German creative industries, art output (including music), television output and general cultural richness rather staid. I'm an engineer and spend all day with other engineers, I'm quite glad of the woolly minded folk when I clock off.
REALIST123 said:
youngsyr said:
Sending so many young adults to university is also a very effective way of lowering youth and total unemployment figures, albeit with unknown long term consequences.
But surely that only works for one intake, 3 years? Hardly a worthwhile political expedient.That's would have a noticeable impact on the unemployment figures.
woowahwoo said:
youngsyr said:
There are 1.75m undergraduates currently in the UK, ignoring foreign students that might be in that total, if you were to halve that number to get closer to the German level of participation (UK 47% vs Germany 27%), you would add 875,000 young people (plus the people involved in educating them) to the job market at any given time.
That's would have a noticeable impact on the unemployment figures.
Yep, it's almost like a three-year, largely self-funded unemployment schemeThat's would have a noticeable impact on the unemployment figures.
AJS- said:
I suspect it's more to do with Germany having a fairly good apprenticeship system that has been established for a long time rather than the price incentives.
Agreed.An apprenticeship almost seems to be considered the dirty option in this country, IMO. Many turn their nose up at the idea of such work instead of "further/higher education", I was called a drop out by my friends when we left school in 2004 and I went on to do an apprenticeship and college day release where as they went on to full time college/sixth form.
Axionknight said:
woowahwoo said:
youngsyr said:
There are 1.75m undergraduates currently in the UK, ignoring foreign students that might be in that total, if you were to halve that number to get closer to the German level of participation (UK 47% vs Germany 27%), you would add 875,000 young people (plus the people involved in educating them) to the job market at any given time.
That's would have a noticeable impact on the unemployment figures.
Yep, it's almost like a three-year, largely self-funded unemployment schemeThat's would have a noticeable impact on the unemployment figures.
However, this report gives the following figures:
Report said:
baseline estimate is that each £1 of loans issued will cost the government 43.3p in the long run. Around 60% of this ‘government subsidy’ arises because some loans will never be repaid in full, while 40% arises because, on average, loans are offered at an interest rate below the government’s long-run cost of borrowing. We estimate that the average loan issued per student over the life of their course is £40,286, and thus that the average loan subsidy amounts to £17,443 per student. For an intake of 300,000 students, this would amount to a total cost to the government of £5.2 billion.
http://www.ifs.org.uk/comms/r94.pdfAJS- said:
I suspect it's more to do with Germany having a fairly good apprenticeship system that has been established for a long time rather than the price incentives.
Although I never mentioned this in the post, it was on my mind. Germany are very successful with apprenticeships but they seem to do them properly with rigorous standards and 'blue-collar' work still having a certain prestige that it seems to have lost in the UK.I would much rather my kids chose to do a decent apprenticeship rather than opted for a questionable degree at a lesser university.
mcbook said:
AJS- said:
I suspect it's more to do with Germany having a fairly good apprenticeship system that has been established for a long time rather than the price incentives.
Although I never mentioned this in the post, it was on my mind. Germany are very successful with apprenticeships but they seem to do them properly with rigorous standards and 'blue-collar' work still having a certain prestige that it seems to have lost in the UK.I would much rather my kids chose to do a decent apprenticeship rather than opted for a questionable degree at a lesser university.
Take a look here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_syste...
The German educational system is fundamentaly different from the british.
It is quiet usual that a teen chooses an apprenticeship first (for about 3 years), only
to do some further studies later. So 27% going into higher education after school is not fully comparable to british figures.
Those apprenticeships are combined with wide spanning academic education in vocational schools, resulting in young people having irl experience combined with theoretical knowledge that makes them superior to the ones who have "only" done a bachelors degree, from an employers point of view. (This is why every fulltime student over here really strives to do a master thesis.)
Only backside I can see is that the system a little more costly for the companies and the state but it looks like it pays of in the long run.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_syste...
The German educational system is fundamentaly different from the british.
It is quiet usual that a teen chooses an apprenticeship first (for about 3 years), only
to do some further studies later. So 27% going into higher education after school is not fully comparable to british figures.
Those apprenticeships are combined with wide spanning academic education in vocational schools, resulting in young people having irl experience combined with theoretical knowledge that makes them superior to the ones who have "only" done a bachelors degree, from an employers point of view. (This is why every fulltime student over here really strives to do a master thesis.)
Only backside I can see is that the system a little more costly for the companies and the state but it looks like it pays of in the long run.
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