Wouldn’t be surprised the Tories hate having well educated poor people as they might understand how much the government is fucking us all over.
Well that’s a bit of a bait-y title guardian.
What the article actually says is there’s plans to raise the grade requirements for university places.
This would reduce the number of students going by dint of those with low grades not being eligible.
The former education tsar is personally linking low educational performance to poorer students and implying that poor students do worse and will be excluded from university.
Whilst there’s certainly a correlation between parental interest, wealth, and child attainment it’s just divisive to couch the issue as they have and a disservice to the poor, but intellectually engaged communities.
There are too many universities, offering too many courses, competing too strongly with each other and charging excessive fees.
This is a known issue in academia.
The value of a degree has gone down as they become more accessible by virtue of lower grades and a willingness to pay £9k a year getting one a place doing something somewhere.
University has become a rite of passage, an experience, not a useful qualification in many places. The need for a degree has eroded non graduate work any white collar job now sells itself as ‘graduate’. A generation of crappy recruitment firms hiring anyone but needing ‘a degree’.
The real issue though is a lack of structured, meaningful opportunities in apprenticeships and skilled trade training for those with low grades and low interest levels in academia who may well attend a new university and do a course like sport science just because there’s nothing else to do.
These are the people that need driving into something more appealing to them.
Will the government address this?
Sadly, I think it’s more likely they’ll just push for the return to low volume university education geared around schools that coach children to score highly on exams and have the ‘polish’ to pass interviews for entry.
No shit. A majority working class lacking in critical analysis and a selfish disposition benefit Tories and their donors. Need a compliant workforce that doesn’t complain or protest when their being skull fucked with blunt objects.
Education for kids from old money.
Making Britain Grate again.
Well that’s a click bait title, the first line in the article says it’s about grades not wealth. Also notice that everyone mentioned in the article has a vested interest in the university system.
>University chiefs think it is most likely that in future loans will only be given to students who have at least a level 4 (the equivalent of an old grade C) in maths and English at GCSE.
This seems perfectly reasonable to me, a grade C in two core subjects is not a high bar.
Yep, the working classes are getting a little too educated nowadays and are starting to make inroads into middle class jobs.
I mean the person this really affects laughably is the white working class child. I’m from a really poor South Asian family, I’m currently in medical school + taking a year out to do a Masters at LSE; the amount of debt I’m in is 100k. If there was a way to reduce university places but increase funding for the poorest I’d be happy with that system. My bf in comparison is from a white middle class family went to a top university in Boston, USA walks away with barely any debt
It does make sense. We will probably need more unskilled labour now that we have stopped those workers from the EU. The replacement points system is aimed at skilled people. So we can expect more professional migrants from outside the EU taking the better jobs, but not so many for the low paid stuff so those are effectively reserved for the British.
I completely agree with capping university places. Already I am shocked at how many people go to universities where they earns degree that they bare had to work for. They went to university to drink and party and hook up on someone else’s dime. The value of their education is worthless compared to skills they might pick up in the working world. And universities are supposed to be a place where make the choice to go sharpen your mind and your knowledge because you want to, clearly those getting the worst secondary school grades don’t want to.
This isn’t how it should go, places should be given to those who earn it the most, who have worked for it.
Background etc should have no bearing on this.
No shit. It’s been trying to starve them to death for the last dozen years.
Which would be fine if there was an alternative, such as a greater number of jobs in trades, more well-paid apprenticeships or companies scrapping the degree requirement for entry-level jobs however we do not live in that world right now. When a degree has become devalued enough to the point that one is required for basic jobs and when companies are reluctant to train staff themselves, young people will continue to see university as the logical step for higher education. You can reduce university places naturally by improving career prospects for non-graduates.
I’m currently 19, and while I have the grades to go to uni, I barely made it, and it very much comes down to my financial situation.
I was homeless for a lot of college, and didn’t reach my potential because I was always focused on making enough money to live on, trying to work. I was on universal credit who still took me in for shit like interviews and work searches and even stopped my payments at one point, all things that took my focus from school. When I was at school these problems didn’t go away either.
I’m taking a year out before going to uni right now, because luckily I do have decent grades, but it came at the cost of my mental health, and I’m still broke. I’m pushing uni back another year for the same reason.
I’m very glad that I have uni as an option, though I have reservations about the student loans (ik how repayments work, but when you don’t have any choice but to take out the maximum amount and your situation is precarious it’s still a worry). But for many like me on their own or just financially insecure it will screw them out of the opportunity. Any adult who’s poor knows money is all you think about when you have none, always in the back of your mind what your next meal will be, how you’ll make rent, all the things you need to buy when you get paid because you couldn’t afford them before. This policy places the onus of accessing higher education despite these barriers on the student. The child.
I read through the article but please add context if I seem misguided here.
13 comments
Wouldn’t be surprised the Tories hate having well educated poor people as they might understand how much the government is fucking us all over.
Well that’s a bit of a bait-y title guardian.
What the article actually says is there’s plans to raise the grade requirements for university places.
This would reduce the number of students going by dint of those with low grades not being eligible.
The former education tsar is personally linking low educational performance to poorer students and implying that poor students do worse and will be excluded from university.
Whilst there’s certainly a correlation between parental interest, wealth, and child attainment it’s just divisive to couch the issue as they have and a disservice to the poor, but intellectually engaged communities.
There are too many universities, offering too many courses, competing too strongly with each other and charging excessive fees.
This is a known issue in academia.
The value of a degree has gone down as they become more accessible by virtue of lower grades and a willingness to pay £9k a year getting one a place doing something somewhere.
University has become a rite of passage, an experience, not a useful qualification in many places. The need for a degree has eroded non graduate work any white collar job now sells itself as ‘graduate’. A generation of crappy recruitment firms hiring anyone but needing ‘a degree’.
The real issue though is a lack of structured, meaningful opportunities in apprenticeships and skilled trade training for those with low grades and low interest levels in academia who may well attend a new university and do a course like sport science just because there’s nothing else to do.
These are the people that need driving into something more appealing to them.
Will the government address this?
Sadly, I think it’s more likely they’ll just push for the return to low volume university education geared around schools that coach children to score highly on exams and have the ‘polish’ to pass interviews for entry.
No shit. A majority working class lacking in critical analysis and a selfish disposition benefit Tories and their donors. Need a compliant workforce that doesn’t complain or protest when their being skull fucked with blunt objects.
Education for kids from old money.
Making Britain Grate again.
Well that’s a click bait title, the first line in the article says it’s about grades not wealth. Also notice that everyone mentioned in the article has a vested interest in the university system.
>University chiefs think it is most likely that in future loans will only be given to students who have at least a level 4 (the equivalent of an old grade C) in maths and English at GCSE.
This seems perfectly reasonable to me, a grade C in two core subjects is not a high bar.
Yep, the working classes are getting a little too educated nowadays and are starting to make inroads into middle class jobs.
I mean the person this really affects laughably is the white working class child. I’m from a really poor South Asian family, I’m currently in medical school + taking a year out to do a Masters at LSE; the amount of debt I’m in is 100k. If there was a way to reduce university places but increase funding for the poorest I’d be happy with that system. My bf in comparison is from a white middle class family went to a top university in Boston, USA walks away with barely any debt
It does make sense. We will probably need more unskilled labour now that we have stopped those workers from the EU. The replacement points system is aimed at skilled people. So we can expect more professional migrants from outside the EU taking the better jobs, but not so many for the low paid stuff so those are effectively reserved for the British.
I completely agree with capping university places. Already I am shocked at how many people go to universities where they earns degree that they bare had to work for. They went to university to drink and party and hook up on someone else’s dime. The value of their education is worthless compared to skills they might pick up in the working world. And universities are supposed to be a place where make the choice to go sharpen your mind and your knowledge because you want to, clearly those getting the worst secondary school grades don’t want to.
This isn’t how it should go, places should be given to those who earn it the most, who have worked for it.
Background etc should have no bearing on this.
No shit. It’s been trying to starve them to death for the last dozen years.
Which would be fine if there was an alternative, such as a greater number of jobs in trades, more well-paid apprenticeships or companies scrapping the degree requirement for entry-level jobs however we do not live in that world right now. When a degree has become devalued enough to the point that one is required for basic jobs and when companies are reluctant to train staff themselves, young people will continue to see university as the logical step for higher education. You can reduce university places naturally by improving career prospects for non-graduates.
I’m currently 19, and while I have the grades to go to uni, I barely made it, and it very much comes down to my financial situation.
I was homeless for a lot of college, and didn’t reach my potential because I was always focused on making enough money to live on, trying to work. I was on universal credit who still took me in for shit like interviews and work searches and even stopped my payments at one point, all things that took my focus from school. When I was at school these problems didn’t go away either.
I’m taking a year out before going to uni right now, because luckily I do have decent grades, but it came at the cost of my mental health, and I’m still broke. I’m pushing uni back another year for the same reason.
I’m very glad that I have uni as an option, though I have reservations about the student loans (ik how repayments work, but when you don’t have any choice but to take out the maximum amount and your situation is precarious it’s still a worry). But for many like me on their own or just financially insecure it will screw them out of the opportunity. Any adult who’s poor knows money is all you think about when you have none, always in the back of your mind what your next meal will be, how you’ll make rent, all the things you need to buy when you get paid because you couldn’t afford them before. This policy places the onus of accessing higher education despite these barriers on the student. The child.
I read through the article but please add context if I seem misguided here.