Half of UK university students think degree is poor value for money

&gt; Nearly half of all students thought their degree offered poor value for money <i>this year</i> according to a survey that sheds light on the scale of student anger with their universities’ response to the pandemic<p>Emphasis mine on &quot;this year&quot;.<p>&gt; Twice as many students thought their courses offered poor value (44%) than in 2019-20<p>So it used to be better in non-pandemic years.<p>Seems that some people is jumping to conclusions about education in the UK when the article is specifically about presidential&#x2F;non-presidential and other pandemic challenges.

As in most countries in Europe, the value of a university degree is diminishing because the vast majority of population has it. If back in the day,it used to be 10-20% tops, now in some countries it&#x27;s as high as 60-80%, while at the same time competing for jobs that often don&#x27;t require such education to start with.<p>[Edit] I still remember how not so long time ago it wasn&#x27;t uncommon to have masters as a bare minimum when hiring a secretary in my country...

I bet it&#x27;s even worse in the US.<p>For a decade+, people have framed &quot;the college experience&quot; as the reason you should attend instead of getting skills online or on your own. Then they promote their great facilities, beautiful campus, state of the art labs, etc.<p>When <i>THAT</i> is your main value prop and then suddenly take it away, what do you expect will happen?

Mine was terrible value for money. Went to a red brick in the UK and studied electrical engineering in the early 90s. My first job on the market was a start from scratch experience. I learned almost nothing of value at university and my personal experience as a hobbyist was far more useful. Turns out 95% of EE work is gluing bits of data sheets together and scratching head over problems where the idealistic mathematical models don’t work out. I found this depressing and ended up slipping out the side into the IT industry which was full of charlatans which were easy to get an advantage over.<p>My only saving grace was it was free at the time. If I’d had a (larger) pile of debt placed in front of me I’d have done something else with my life.

My sister is going to university in Australia. Despite a successful covid eradication and effectively no cases in her state, her uni tried to make them go virtual all of this year (as well as last year). And what can she do about it? If the professors don’t feel like coming to work she’s shit out of luck. No wonder she and her friends feel like it’s a bad deal.

It&#x27;s somewhat interesting, but &quot;what students think&quot; isn&#x27;t really as interesting as the reality of whether a degree is poor value for money or not. It might be, or might not. I suspect it largely depends on the degree and the institution. Also, just because having a degree is pretty normal right now, doesn&#x27;t mean it&#x27;s not good value: maybe you need it just to do averagely and without it you&#x27;ll struggle a lot in the employment market. I&#x27;m not saying this is true, I&#x27;m just saying the headline isn&#x27;t that interesting compared to the actual reality.

I have a community college diploma and a university degree. I can say that the 3 years I spend in community college learning to code; learning systems, design patterns, various languages, etc... it has served me far better than the knowledge I earned at university.<p>Community college is a second class citizen and it&#x27;s hard to convince people of its merits to society.

I&#x27;m sure that around half of UK university lecturers, admins, and senior management also believe the degree is poor value for money.<p>UK universities mostly exist to print money at the moment...<p>For many students, university is a 3-4 year government funded (student &quot;loan&quot;) binge.

Degrees should be like elementary school. Not something “that you need for a job” but something “our society needs to be better and make better things”. Another tool that we can use to build a better and smarter future.

IMO not surprising.<p>A large part of the value of a degree is, I believe;<p>* fleeing the &quot;nest&quot; and exploring your adult persona in a fresh environment<p>* Socialising and building social capital<p>* Networking<p>Naturally, few of these things are possible in a pandemic.

A university degree in the UK isn&#x27;t even a measure of aptitude, it&#x27;s a measure of patience or ability to slog through shit.<p>My sister is about as bright as a black hole and managed to get a masters degree in Law.<p>My friends wife is also as dense as a collapsed star and was on-track to get a PhD, until she dropped out.<p>These are not measures of intelligence, knowledge or aptitude, just ability to recite in rote and vomit the words of a book or professor back at the institution, and it puts you in debt to do it.<p>As an employer a degree tells me nearly nothing.<p>And yes; some jobs require a degree, but the people that filter through are thick as shit so it&#x27;s not a measure of anything. Just an institutionalised cost of entry.<p>(and I will be downvoted, by people defensive of their degree&#x2F;debt, likely due to a sunk cost fallacy, but I have a degree and I&#x27;m thick as shit too so I&#x27;m speaking for myself also)

I really object to thinking about education as &#x27;value for money&#x27; only. That&#x27;s not to say that education in some countries is outrageously expensive (it is) or that student loans are terrible burden (it is). But the real issue is that modern education is increasingly shoddy, regardless to how much you pay for it.<p>Still, I think it&#x27;s important to have formal education, because most young people aren&#x27;t self-organized enough to learn on their own. Also, universities are important social institutions (yeah, sounds ironic in 2021) where social skills and connections obtained can dramatically influence your life decades after the education is finished.

It’s gone from<p>£0<p>£1000<p>£3000<p>£9000<p>in my lifetime. The education hasn’t improved. Nor has the job prospects. Outside about three outstanding universities, and a few with good specialties, the rest are average at best.

I wonder if this includes the Scottish students who get it for free?

I think that’s a reasonable view. It’s tripled in cost and no way has a degree tripled in value.<p>You can’t create a market for something and provide no additional value.

Imagine how this would change if they were paying $100k+ for their degree in the USA.

Question - is this students who are paying for it now and at school now or is this students who look back ten years afterwards? Tough to see current value from a lifelong investment. Not for or against - just commenting on the bias of the lens of which it is viewed.

I&#x27;m not surprised. After I graduated from uni with a computer science degree it took me 7 years just to get to zero, by which time I was a top 30% earner. Now I&#x27;m a top 10% earner and I still won&#x27;t have paid off my loan for another 3 years. I can&#x27;t imagine what it&#x27;s like for someone with a pointless degree earning a more average salary. It&#x27;s basically just a higher tax because you spend a few years messing around between school and getting your first job.

not a student and I think it&#x27;s poor value

One of the overlooked factors of Tertiary Education is housing costs, and taxes.<p>Ok, I make 30% more with my degree, but all of that is swallowed up by increased rent&#x2F;mortgage costs (since White collar jobs are usually restricted to a few expensive cities), and progressively higher taxes.

In the UK this would not be so surprising. the college wage premium is probably a lot lower there than in the US and wages lower overall . fewer of those good tech , legal, consulting , finance, or ngo jobs or they don&#x27;t pay as much compared to the US.

I think university degree is sort of &quot;Does nothing unless it&#x27;s a really good school but you lose a LOT by not having one&quot; thing. Similar things include your outlook, you inheritance, etc.

Spain is full of people with masters working in super markets or other unskilled labour. It a society that took the education is prosperity to the natural conclusion meaning everyone is highly educated and underemployed, trying to pass the bureaucracy exams to get some dead end job in the public service or unemployed and living with their parents.<p>We need to teach people self-reliance, critical thought, economic literacy and common business sense and support entrepreneurship at the most basic level financially and educationally. Invest in providing professional education (electrician, plumber, mechanics etc.) and provide an aggressive intern plan like what Germany does for their small and medium businesses.

I thought UK university education was extremely cheap or free.<p>I shudder to imagine what they would think about paying hundreds of thousands for a US education...

My degree has nothing to do with my career. I value the experience and learned a lot, but don&#x27;t think it was good value for money.

1. More and more people are getting degrees, making them less of a differentiator.<p>2. Knowledge is more and more readily available and is not limited to degree holders.<p>3. Politics is infecting universities with propaganda.<p>4. Universities are coming up with useless degrees in order to attract students.<p>5. Universities focus too much on degrees and grades and not enough on knowledge.

What does &quot;think&quot; mean? A belief? Did each one sit-down and estimate future earnings with, without, and the opportunity costs of time and money?

If the median student thinks it break-even, is it perfectly priced?

Depends on the degree and the university.<p>Either way, the debt is hanging on their heads (with interest) and it is a complete scam. (Last year definitely showed just that)