Is the University bubble about to burst?

[sancho panza]

13 hours ago, Craig said:

No doubt. They do own half of Edinburgh's Old Town, so they could always flog that if need be...

I think the old UNi's will have options to deal with their awful decisons but much like councisl buying car showrooms for invesment purposes,the chickens will come home in the end,the likes of Edinburhg will jsut have more choice.

On another matter,I heard Leicester Uni decided to ditch the old pulbic/private partnership and borrow £500mn itself so ti could capture all the upside from building sutdent halls.....................cue covid.Halls looking likely to be empty,half built,contracts in place.....................but lots like De Montfort and COventry have followed Leicester and the like,jsut without the balance sheet to back it up.

[sancho panza]

13 hours ago, Harley said:

A scam between the then (and all since) government and the HE sector.  Bottom line is the taxpayer pays the loan write-offs while the sector trousers the massive increase in revenue, profitability, and earnings.  The old system would have been cheaper.  But then that wizard of finance (take your pick) wanted temporarily lower unemployment and the taxpayers could eff themselves.

Nah problem.  You can collect your honours on the other thread!

WHen life starts imitating forum banter........................I jest not.

I agree old system would have been cheaper but would have menat saying no to a few people.

[DurhamBorn]

Dont forget as well a lot of uni's and charities rely on dividend income for a part of their income.

[sancho panza]

8 minutes ago, DurhamBorn said:

Dont forget as well a lot of uni's and charities rely on dividend income for a part of their income.

A good pojint.I was saying to my Mum earlier how between councils pssoibly going under and Uni's getting hosed,there's goijg tobe a lot that needs bailing out.

I can see the unis having to offload a lot of assets if Craig is right,places liek Edinburhg could be relaesing a lot onto the market.Leicester Uni could be in big toruble if a lot of 2021 intake doesn't turn up and defers.

Huge deflationery potential.

[DurhamBorn]

4 minutes ago, sancho panza said:

A good pojint.I was saying to my Mum earlier how between councils pssoibly going under and Uni's getting hosed,there's goijg tobe a lot that needs bailing out.

I can see the unis having to offload a lot of assets if Craig is right,places liek Edinburhg could be relaesing a lot onto the market.Leicester Uni could be in big toruble if a lot of 2021 intake doesn't turn up and defers.

Huge deflationery potential.

Yep,uni's are similar to the church in that they convince people to part with lots of money for them when they sit on massive assets and massive land holdings,lots of it stolen from the ancestors of the people now funding them.The left saw uni's as a way to stop ordinary people wanting their industries back and keep them voting left for longer.A right of centre government should be happy to see a lot shrink.

[sancho panza]

15 minutes ago, DurhamBorn said:

Yep,uni's are similar to the church in that they convince people to part with lots of money for them when they sit on massive assets and massive land holdings,lots of it stolen from the ancestors of the people now funding them.The left saw uni's as a way to stop ordinary people wanting their industries back and keep them voting left for longer.A right of centre government should be happy to see a lot shrink.

Yeah thats my view.Govt will bail people's tummies out first,then homes second,josb thrid.Unis and councils are way at the back of the line,Everyone knows how inefficient they are.

Amazing how deep some of these unis have got themselves in trying to get 100% of the upside.

Places like Leicesr and Coventry are domianted by the Uni's.

[Guest]

On 19/05/2020 at 22:35, gibbon said:

Not really a contest for a business owner. Take on a bright keen school/college leaver you can mould into your company or some 30 something year old phd know-it-all socialist who's never done a proper full days work in their life and who expects £50k out the gates. 

Lots of top companies are now poaching the best bright sparks straight out of school and putting them on proper apprenticeships. In the future it'll only be unemployable weirdos who go to uni, let alone spend decade or so there.

Where has this idea that people are 30something when they finish their PhD come from? I was 24 when I finished mine 10 years ago and had my pick of jobs, but it was in an industrially useful subject.

[sleepwello'nights]

On 19/05/2020 at 19:20, SillyBilly said:

A significant number become unemployable and have to pick up gig after gig on campus. Bit of supervision, tutorials, admin, campus management whatever. I had a mate (no longer) who still works in the labs so far as I am aware at our old university. He wasn't even a good chemist but went through the foundation year, then undergrad, then masters then PHD (which seem to take him an age to get). That left him about 30 having never had a proper job. Seriously, unless you are an unadulterated genius many corporates won't touch you at that point. We stopped speaking as on the very rare occasion I saw him it was like going back in time 10 years except we were much older, he hadn't grown up at all in my eyes. He also went rabidly left wing which is quite understandable given his entire adult life had been on a university campus, that obviously put him at odds with my Dosbodian views.

A career in Politics for him then.  

[Guest]

On 20/05/2020 at 07:24, MrXxxx said:

A PhD doesn't give you any increase in salary above someone with an MSc...if anything its less, as the MSc has three years additional `on the job` experience.

Depends on the job, a PhD is training to be an independent researcher, so if you want to be one of those (especially to lead a research team) it's usually necessary. I was leading a research team in industry by 30, never would have got that job without having done a PhD in the subject. The step up in wages from lab scientist to leader of a research team was large - higher basic pay, bigger % bonus plus car allowance and long term incentive shares which vest after 3 years meaning more than double the total compensation all in.

Academic training isn't right for everybody, but it does work for some people.

[sleepwello'nights]

On 21/05/2020 at 09:45, CVG said:

Boots? They don't sell shoes.

Thanks I was struggling with that. I just take things too literally. 

[Guest]

On 20/05/2020 at 09:12, eek said:

The only thing a degree is worth is:-

The name and reputation of the University in the industry you want to be in.

The degree certificate at the end of the day.

I use the technical knowledge gained in my undergrad and PhD every work day.

[sleepwello'nights]

1 minute ago, Darude said:

I use the technical knowledge gained in my undergrad and PhD every work day.

That's a valid point for a vocational degree.

I never went to university. I was expelled from grammar school before taking my "O" levels. They let me sit then, unsurprisingly I never passed any of them.

Despite my political bias against left wing socialism I've actually prospered because of the policies introduced by labour administrations. After a series of low paid jobs with little in the way of career prospects I enrolled on a TOPS course at a College of Further Education. One year vocational study for an accounting technician qualification. I passed with a distinction (for what its worth by the way ).

Since then the basic principles are the foundation for every day I've worked as an accountant and in my businesses. 

It seems there are two quite separate purposes for education. One is the training needed to perform a job and the other is for the enjoyment of discovering the subject that interests you. Sometimes they may happily coincide. The current distortion is, I feel, because further education has been hijacked for political purposes. The trend started in Teacher Training Colleges in the 60s and 70s.  

 

[spygirl]

11 hours ago, sancho panza said:

Yeah thats my view.Govt will bail people's tummies out first,then homes second,josb thrid.Unis and councils are way at the back of the line,Everyone knows how inefficient they are.

Amazing how deep some of these unis have got themselves in trying to get 100% of the upside.

Places like Leicesr and Coventry are domianted by the Uni's.

Pick any secondary town or city in the regions now.

Pretty much guarantee that a Unis will be in top 5 employees, along with Hospital and LA.

Insane, as going back 30 years, HE sector was relatively small and barely noticed outside of small towns/large Unis like Durham n Oxbridge.

It's less the increase in student numbers, which have tripled in 30 years (I think).

It's the vast number of HE employees, mainky non academic, which are off the scale as HE is so inefficient.

Not only did '50% of 18yo' not question if it was a sane target.

They did not bother to look how effective n efficient HE was as a sector. If they did, they'd have poured the money into Open Uni v2.

Even the researcher I know in HE question the huge money sink occuring. It's like working for WorldCom or Softbank where you see the billions being pissed away and know the bills due soon.

[spygirl]

11 hours ago, DurhamBorn said:

Yep,uni's are similar to the church in that they convince people to part with lots of money for them when they sit on massive assets and massive land holdings,lots of it stolen from the ancestors of the people now funding them.The left saw uni's as a way to stop ordinary people wanting their industries back and keep them voting left for longer.A right of centre government should be happy to see a lot shrink.

Nah. Way too tinfoil hatted.

Post the 70s industrial fuckup and Thatcher, people of a left leaning tendency ended up in either the public sector or HE sector - I'm *not* going 'business' says Ermitrude Marxist, 80k salary, unfunded index linked pension, paid for by the working plebs.

(Here you go -

Face of UK HE

https://order-order.com/2020/05/22/marxist-michies-mass-media-campaign/

)

Less replacement for an industrial policy, more handing out cash to their mates, without questioning why n what for.

[DurhamBorn]

1 hour ago, spygirl said:

Nah. Way too tinfoil hatted.

Post the 70s industrial fuckup and Thatcher, people of a left leaning tendency ended up in either the public sector or HE sector - I'm *not* going 'business' says Ermitrude Marxist, 80k salary, unfunded index linked pension, paid for by the working plebs.

(Here you go -

Face of UK HE

https://order-order.com/2020/05/22/marxist-michies-mass-media-campaign/

)

Less replacement for an industrial policy, more handing out cash to their mates, without questioning why n what for.

Its incredible how these people simply hand each other taxpayers money.They have created a client state on welfare so they themselves can keep troughing.They create the story about need,then they gain.

[Shamone]

https://www.hca.ac.uk/student-housing

[Loki]

39 minutes ago, DurhamBorn said:

Its incredible how these people simply hand each other taxpayers money.They have created a client state on welfare so they themselves can keep troughing.They create the story about need,then they gain.

They want everyone dependent on and controlled by The State

[Don Coglione]

6 minutes ago, Shamone said:

https://www.hca.ac.uk/student-housing

Fuck me! 700 quid a month to rent a studio apartment in that place - you can rent a whole, proper house for less than that in Hereford.

Imagine spunking 60 grand for a piece of paper from the esteemed Hereford College of Art.

Fuck me.

[Shamone]

Just now, Knickerless Turgid said:

Fuck me! 700 quid a month to rent a studio apartment in that place - you can rent a whole, proper house for less than that in Hereford.

Imagine spunking 60 grand for a piece of paper from the esteemed Hereford College of Art.

Fuck me.

Couldn’t believe it myself. I didn’t think Hereford even had a uni. Christ.

[Snark]

2 hours ago, sleepwello'nights said:

It seems there are two quite separate purposes for education. One is the training needed to perform a job and the other is for the enjoyment of discovering the subject that interests you.

 

Hmmm, a third would be to have certificates to say you can do something.......... The reason being that many companies are infested with management who did not "work their way up", and the only way they can tell your capable of doing a job is by seeing a piece of paper, and even then it's only really for insurance purposes, "he's got a certificate in XYZ, it's his own fault he just lost a leg in a workplace accident".

[Guest]

2 hours ago, spygirl said:

It's less the increase in student numbers, which have tripled in 30 years (I think).

The number of 18-24 year olds in full time education has not quite doubled since 1992 from about 1m to 1.9m. Static since 2009. Note that this includes both higher and further education so not just universities:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/articles/howhasthestudentpopulationchanged/2016-09-20

Student numbers have almost doubled since 1992

Young people aged 18 to 24 in full-time education, seasonally adjusted, UK, March to May 1992 to May to July 2016

[JoeDavola]

4 hours ago, Darude said:

Where has this idea that people are 30something when they finish their PhD come from? I was 24 when I finished mine 10 years ago and had my pick of jobs, but it was in an industrially useful subject.

Happens quite a lot now.

Leave school.

Year out.

4 year degree.

Year or two out/working in dead end jobs.

2 year Masters

Year or two fucking about in dead end jobs or in non-permie research roles.

PhD - can take more than 3 years.

.....and boom, your 35 years old looking to start your career. I know someone who was 40 by the time they got all the abover over them, but they had rich parents.

[sancho panza]

5 hours ago, Darude said:

Where has this idea that people are 30something when they finish their PhD come from? I was 24 when I finished mine 10 years ago and had my pick of jobs, but it was in an industrially useful subject.

Lot ofmpeople at Mrs P's workplace(food industry ) have Phds.

It's alla bout whether theyre useful or not.

1 hour ago, Darude said:

The number of 18-24 year olds in full time education has not quite doubled since 1992 from about 1m to 1.9m. Static since 2009. Note that this includes both higher and further education so not just universities:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/articles/howhasthestudentpopulationchanged/2016-09-20

Student numbers have almost doubled since 1992

Young people aged 18 to 24 in full-time education, seasonally adjusted, UK, March to May 1992 to May to July 2016

does that include foreign students?post grads?

 

HESA used to reaeasle data for free but dont do it now i think

[Transistor Man]

5 hours ago, Darude said:

I use the technical knowledge gained in my undergrad and PhD every work day.

Same with me. 

[SillyBilly]

2 hours ago, Darude said:

The number of 18-24 year olds in full time education has not quite doubled since 1992 from about 1m to 1.9m. Static since 2009. Note that this includes both higher and further education so not just universities:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/articles/howhasthestudentpopulationchanged/2016-09-20

Student numbers have almost doubled since 1992

Young people aged 18 to 24 in full-time education, seasonally adjusted, UK, March to May 1992 to May to July 2016

You were quite efficient at 24. I echo Joe's comments, anecdotally I have known a few go back to suckling the teat of university after having dipped their toe in the job market at a point or two and realised what their skills are worth. Most common with masters of course (I can't get a job so will just enrol for another year) but happens also with pHDs. I also had a mate who finished our course in chemistry then took another degree straight after...and he did a masters so a year longer than me. I've literally no idea where he found the money from to do that as not from a wealthy background either. Well I sort of do as he still complains about his credit card debt (>£20k I think) now. He became an expert in shifting debt from one card to another. It has been very easy for a lot of 20 somethings to mask unemployment in education. Also so easy you wonder whether it was state designed to massage stats/buy voters.