Is the University bubble about to burst?

[Melchett]

1 minute ago, Castlevania said:

Are A Levels still modular or have they gone back to simply sitting a final exam?

The ones my daughter would have sat this year we’re all final exams. All STEM, though. 

[Castlevania]

6 minutes ago, PatronizingGit said:

When you compare the FTE ed till 18, the University bubble, disability claims rising x500 since 1980 and the self employed tax credit scams, you really end up asking yourself, like for like, did unemployment ever fall from its 1981 highs, or did we just put 2 of those 3 million into various benefits and full time educayshun

I believe pre Covid 19, 25% of working age adults didn’t work. If you’re not working and not actively looking for a job you don’t get included as unemployed.

Edit: 1 in 5 are economically inactive. https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/economicinactivity

[Castlevania]

1 minute ago, Melchett said:

The ones my daughter would have sat this year we’re all final exams. All STEM, though. 

That makes predictions difficult. If you’d already sat three quarters of your exams you’d have a pretty good idea of what overall grade you were likely to get.

[Melchett]

3 minutes ago, Castlevania said:

That makes predictions difficult. If you’d already sat three quarters of your exams you’d have a pretty good idea of what overall grade you were likely to get.

Too right. Especially as she’s a quiet girl who excels at exams. Her predicted grades are shit. We argued with the school, but not even the wall of top grades at gcse could convince them to up their predictions. So now she’s fucked, I will be advising her to say for life that she was class of 2020 and didn’t sit a levels, people should look at her GCSEs etc.

[Castlevania]

Just now, Melchett said:

Too right. Especially as she’s a quiet girl who excels at exams. Her predicted grades are shit. We argued with the school, but not even the well of top grades at gcse could convince them to up their predictions. So now she’s fucked, I will be advising her to say for life that she was class of 2020 and didn’t sit a levels, people should look at her GCSEs etc.

Can she take them during what would normally be the retake period around Christmas? Or have they scrapped that too? 

[Melchett]

Just now, Castlevania said:

Can she take them during what would normally be the retake period around Christmas? Or have they scrapped that too? 

I don’t know and frankly don’t care. Like most kids, she will be on to the next phase of her life by then, not going back to school to sit a levels simply because her teachers were a bunch of tossers. She can either write off a year of her life, try and do a levels alongside whatever else she is doing by then or...  Life moves on.

[Wight Flight]

30 minutes ago, Melchett said:

Too right. Especially as she’s a quiet girl who excels at exams. Her predicted grades are shit. We argued with the school, but not even the wall of top grades at gcse could convince them to up their predictions. So now she’s fucked, I will be advising her to say for life that she was class of 2020 and didn’t sit a levels, people should look at her GCSEs etc.

Mine is in the same boat. Mock results weren't good, but he has been steaming ahead since (maths finally clicked)

Most of the boys didn't really work for the mocks as they saw them as somewhat pointless. Big mistake in hindsight.

[sancho panza]

17 hours ago, snaga said:

just skimmed this thread, has anyone pointed out that the economy is fucked and spending the next 3 or 4 years in Education may actually be sensible?

Then hope the economy is in better shape after graduation? I may even do it myself if I lose my job

If the Universities can survive a year, it may well be a boom time for them.

 

Worth noting that £50k for a degree becomes £100k after 10 years at 7%(current rate=RPI +3%).Then interest is accruing at £7k per annum and you could well pay back 3 times what you borrowed and still not pay back the prinicpal.

There's two ways of dealing with student debt 1) pay it back asap 2) never earn enough to pay it back

1 hour ago, Melchett said:

It happened to me back around 1990. I decided I actually quite fancied joining one of the big banks graduate recruitment programmes and was told I was too old at 25.
 

I try telling youngsters this at every relevant opportunity but very few people seem to get it. Doesn’t help that my wife always pipes up that she’s sure things aren’t like that nowadays. Really? Really?

I remember the early 90's it was brutal trying to get a job.I think a lot of people -particualrly middle class-who've been lulled into a sense of false ssecurity by decades of deficit spending are going to get a shock..

I think there's a real case though for seeing the world while you can.Military is always an option,travelling too.I saw the world in my 20's and it was the time to do it.I had no career anyway.

Worth noting that Mrs P came here from SA and got a job with a big US corporate after some expereince.They don't really have grad programmes per se.

They also have a good few Phds knocking around but I think it makes no difference to career progression as you get assessed on results every year.She's got one of the worst degrees there but has done well.They're very shrewd on the whole,push talent,underperfomers stay where they are.

1 hour ago, Castlevania said:

Yeah for grad schemes it’s an age thing. You can still be hired into specific roles - I know of two people who I thought would stay in academia for life who in their late twenties/early thirties decided to get a proper job and both ended up working as quants for an investment bank and a hedge fund respectively. They were physics/maths geeks though. A PhD in English Lit and being that age would invariably give you no chance.

Very much ties in with my experience in the 90's ,if you missed the boat one year,they looked at the next.

Problem is that with a degree you're pgeion holed a s a grad.I should have gone and got a qualification as a sparky/plumber rather than trying to get a grad job.Live and learn.I'm already telling my 13 year old to get his employer to pay for his degree and a lot of companies are now doing that.

[CVG]

14 minutes ago, sancho panza said:

2) never earn enough to pay it back

Exactly. Couldn't be arsed going to Uni as a kid from school. Now I have retired I can enjoy a Uni education with no prospect of ever paying for it (famous last words to bite me in the arse in 5/10 years time).

[The Idiocrat]

1 hour ago, Castlevania said:

Can she take them during what would normally be the retake period around Christmas? Or have they scrapped that too? 

They can retake in September I believe. 

[sleepwello'nights]

1 hour ago, Melchett said:

Too right. Especially as she’s a quiet girl who excels at exams. Her predicted grades are shit. We argued with the school, but not even the wall of top grades at gcse could convince them to up their predictions. So now she’s fucked, I will be advising her to say for life that she was class of 2020 and didn’t sit a levels, people should look at her GCSEs etc.

When I did the one year TOPS course the tutors suggested I should sit "A" levels in the papers that coincided with the subjects in the course I was on. Law was one,  Accountancy the other. My tutors were confident that I would pass them.

I didn't sit them. 

It was a mistake because on completion of the course I applied for and was accepted on a full time course to complete a professional accountancy qualification. It was for the body who set up the technician qualification. This was at the time they had changed to graduate entry for their professional examinations and they wanted an alternative route so as not to fully close entry to non-graduates. 

I applied for a grant, was refused because you needed two "A" levels. With two "A" levels the professional body would let you start their course. My exam results exempted me from the entire foundation level of 8 papers. But oh no the bureaucrats weren't smart enough to work out that there might be something wrong with their logic. Go figure.

I sort of half heartedly did day release. It never suited me. Work tended to take precedence and family life so I never devoted enough time. 

 

[snaga]

25 minutes ago, sancho panza said:

Worth noting that £50k for a degree becomes £100k after 10 years at 7%(current rate=RPI +3%).Then interest is accruing at £7k per annum and you could well pay back 3 times what you borrowed and still not pay back the prinicpal.

Oh I wouldn't pay it back, how much can mature students get in loans?

[Alex]

1 hour ago, Wight Flight said:

Most of the boys didn't really work for the mocks as they saw them as somewhat pointless. Big mistake in hindsight.

I don't think that's a mistake, just human nature. I did the same many years ago. The education authorities should be taking that into account if they had any grasp of psychology. Using mock results as a guide is deeply unfair.

[spygirl]

3 hours ago, MrXxxx said:

Bottom line is exactly that, instead of paying individuals unemployment benefit to the individual (and having high youth unemployment stats you can't ignore), it is paid directly to the university's...the policy was never about having a better educated society/workforce, but to solve a political `hot potatoe`.

Dole, well UC, is ~£70/week.

Cost of a student in HE is much higher.

You might have had a point with FE education.

[spygirl]

2 hours ago, PatronizingGit said:

When you compare the FTE ed till 18, the University bubble, disability claims rising x500 since 1980 and the self employed tax credit scams, you really end up asking yourself, like for like, did unemployment ever fall from its 1981 highs, or did we just put 2 of those 3 million into various benefits and full time educayshun

Dies, damned lies and ...

My pitch is that you need to record working household who receive more than 30% of their income as one form of bennie or other as benefit dependent.

Try this garbage

https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/unemployment-coming-down-teesside-what-13068978

For the three months to March, the highest unemployment rate in the UK was actually in London, at 6.1%, while the North-east came out at 5.9%.

Followed by

Middlesbrough and Stockton fared better, with enough jobs for around three quarters of its working age population.

So that's at least 25% - if those jobs are actually taken or exists.

The reality is using just my metric, which ignores make-work scams like TAs.

In reality, using my metric, must be somewhere between 30%-50%

[Wight Flight]

1 hour ago, sleepwello'nights said:

It was a mistake because on completion of the course I applied for and was accepted on a full time course to complete a professional accountancy qualification. It was for the body who set up the technician qualification. This was at the time they had changed to graduate entry for their professional examinations and they wanted an alternative route so as not to fully close entry to non-graduates. 

AAT?

I started on the same route. Realised that I needed the A levels and bought the text books on Economics and Statistics. The subjects I liked most at O Level.

I thought, as I had been working as an accountant for two years I should enter that one as well.

I read the books the week before sitting the exams, as an external candidate. I passed all three (not well, but I only needed a pass) and then left accountancy before starting the course.

 

[sleepwello'nights]

5 minutes ago, Wight Flight said:

AAT?

I started on the same route. Realised that I needed the A levels and bought the text books on Economics and Statistics. The subjects I liked most at O Level.

 

I read the books the week before sitting the exams, as an external candidate. I passed all three (not well, but I only needed a pass) and then left accountancy before starting the course.

 

IAS. The technician body set up by the ACCA.

I don't know what the politics were between the ACCA and the ICA so whether they were in direct competition or formed because of changes to the education system then or just rivalry. The two technician bodies later merged. There was an obstacle to the merger because the IAS considered their qualification superior to the IAS. It was resolved by allowing IAS members to become Senior Accounting Technicians and to use the designatory letters SAAT rather than MAAT.

At the time I was never smart enough to study from books alone, I needed to be in a class room environment to apply myself. Statistics left me cold, until I started a part time course on psychology.

These days there is so much study material available on line so. Some of it so good its enjoyable as entertainment. I've just been watching a couple of videos on the engineering websites thread. Is there really any need to go to university now to get the knowledge you need?

[Guest]

On 19/05/2020 at 20:07, Talking Monkey said:

I've heard this a lot about PHD types they finish up and there are not many takers for them which surprises them as they have probably had their egos boosted that they will get some epic job after getting their doctorate, when in reality a lot of the working world is not interested in them and would prefer a fresh 21 year old with just a first degree

Have you ever met anybody in the final year of their PhD or 6-12 months after finishing? Usually their ego is on the floor by that point, it's not a fun thing to go through.

[One percent]

1 hour ago, Darude said:

Have you ever met anybody in the final year of their PhD or 6-12 months after finishing? Usually their ego is on the floor by that point, it's not a fun thing to go through.

The after is incredibly anticlimactic. I sailed through my viva, gien a month to correct a couple of speelings. I distinctly remember thinking, well what the fuck now?  

[Guest]

12 hours ago, PatronizingGit said:

When you compare the FTE ed till 18, the University bubble, disability claims rising x500 since 1980 and the self employed tax credit scams, you really end up asking yourself, like for like, did unemployment ever fall from its 1981 highs, or did we just put 2 of those 3 million into various benefits and full time educayshun

The state pension age was 65 for men and 60 for women in 1980, for those at university now it's at least 68 and will quite likely be 70+. Probably a net increase in the number of years the median person will spend in wageslavery during their lifetime, especially for the women.

I wonder which is more stressful, 1950s housewife style having all day to get dinner on the table or 2020s wageslave style being harassed all day to meet artificial targets in a job you don't believe in then come home and get dinner on the table. There's a reason those old birds all outlived the men.

[BearyBear]

https://wolfstreet.com/2020/05/24/student-housing-one-of-the-most-hypes-asset-classes-runs-out-of-students/

Student Housing, One of the Most Hyped Asset Classes, Runs Out of Students

by Nick Corbishley • May 24, 2020 • 71 Comments

Here’s the story of two student housing REITs in the UK that crashed.

Wolf here: In recent years, student housing, a subcategory of Commercial Real Estate, became one of the hottest asset classes in the US, in the UK, and elsewhere. Big money piled in. Wall Street raked in the fees by securitizing the mortgages into commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS). Large firms spun off their portfolios of student housing buildings into publicly traded REITs. The article below is about two of those REITs in the UK, but the issues are the same in the US. This asset class is risky even in good times because students are not stable renters. Last fall, long before Covid-19 showed up, delinquencies and special servicing rates on US student housing CMBS already spiked. The pandemic has now been heaped on top of it.

By Nick Corbishley, for WOLF STREET:

When it comes to over-priced acquisitions at peak hype, there is no worse time than just before a financial crisis. The UK’s largest student housing real estate investment trust (REIT) Unite Group fell into that trap. In November 2019, it spent £1.4 billion to buy up privately-owned student housing provider Liberty Living Group plc, from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. In the process, it more than doubled its net debt, from £856 million to £1.88 billion. The day after the deal was sealed, Unite’s CEO said the enlarged group would “be well positioned to meet the growing need for affordable, high quality student accommodation in university towns and cities where demand is strong.”

That need, instead of growing, has all but vanished. Since March 11, all UK university campuses have been closed due to the virus outbreak. Most students have gone back home.

In late April, Unite Group informed investors that it had been inundated with cancellation requests since offering to waive rents for students who did not plan to occupy their rooms in the final term. Based on requests received up to that point, between 43,000 and 46,000 students would not pay rent this semester, the company said. The total number of vacated beds is the equivalent of 65% of Unite’s portfolio.

As a result, the company said it expected a fall in income from the 2019/20 academic year of 16-20% on a Group share basis, or £125 million, which it said was an improvement on its previous forecasts. But that was before Cambridge University’s bombshell announcement last Thursday that it was cancelling all face-to-face lectures for the entire 2020-2021 academic year, fueling speculation that many students will stay away next year too.

“Given that it is likely that social distancing will continue to be required, the university has decided there will be no face-to-face lectures during the next academic year,” the university said in a statement. “Lectures will continue to be made available online and it may be possible to host smaller teaching groups in person, as long as this conforms to social distancing requirements.”

Given Cambridge University’s import and influence, the move is likely to trigger a cascade of similar announcements from other higher education institutions. If that happens, student life in the UK is set to be a more insular experience for the foreseeable future, dealing a massive blow not only to students, professors, lecturers and other university staff but also to the businesses and communities that have come to depend on the income they generate.

Those businesses include big corporate providers of student accommodation and private landlords, some of whom have continued to charge students for digs they no longer occupy. Many of these companies have enjoyed years of surging profits on the back of years of soaring student rents. One of the largest REITs, GCP Student Living, reported a 51% rise in profits in its last financial year alone. GCP was the first REIT invested exclusively in student housing when it came to the market in 2013, and since then has given its investors a return of 12.9% a year.

But that was before the arrival of Covid-19 and the UK government’s subsequent imposition of lockdown and social distancing measures put its entire business model on hold. The shares of both GCP and Unite Group have slumped by 47% in the past three months. GCP’s stock is now trading at the same price it was trading at in October 2014. In the case of Unite Group, some £2.5 billion has been wiped off its market cap since the coronavirus crisis began.

Unite has already had to come to terms with the likelihood that many foreign students — a key customer segment — will be staying away from the UK, at least for the next year, and is now focusing most of its marketing activities on UK-domiciled students. For British universities and the businesses that have sprouted up around them, overseas students have become a vital source of income. For a start, they pay twice as much or more in fees than UK students, who pay £9,250 a year.

China is the largest source of international students in the UK, with 115,014 study visas issued to Chinese students in 2019 – 45% of all such international visas. But according to a British Council survey of 11,000 Chinese students considering studying in the UK next year, 22% say they are likely or very likely to cancel their study plans. Another 39% say they are still undecided about whether to cancel.

It’s not just foreign students who are having second thoughts. A recent survey of UK-domiciled undergraduate applicants found that more than one in four students are willing to delay starting their courses if universities are not operating as normal due to the coronavirus pandemic. As such, if many universities follow Cambridge’s lead and cancel face-to-face classes and enforce strict social distancing, there would be 120,000 fewer students when the academic year begins in autumn.

That, coupled with the diminished numbers of overseas students, means British universities are now staring at a gaping hole in future revenues. To plug that hole, they’re already asking the UK government for a £2.2 billion rescue package, which the government has so far turned down. By Nick Corbishley, for WOLF STREET.

[sancho panza]

1 hour ago, BearyBear said:

https://wolfstreet.com/2020/05/24/student-housing-one-of-the-most-hypes-asset-classes-runs-out-of-students/

Student Housing, One of the Most Hyped Asset Classes, Runs Out of Students

by Nick Corbishley • May 24, 2020 • 71 Comments

Here’s the story of two student housing REITs in the UK that crashed.

Wolf here: In recent years, student housing, a subcategory of Commercial Real Estate, became one of the hottest asset classes in the US, in the UK, and elsewhere. Big money piled in. Wall Street raked in the fees by securitizing the mortgages into commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS). Large firms spun off their portfolios of student housing buildings into publicly traded REITs. The article below is about two of those REITs in the UK, but the issues are the same in the US. This asset class is risky even in good times because students are not stable renters. Last fall, long before Covid-19 showed up, delinquencies and special servicing rates on US student housing CMBS already spiked. The pandemic has now been heaped on top of it.

By Nick Corbishley, for WOLF STREET:

When it comes to over-priced acquisitions at peak hype, there is no worse time than just before a financial crisis. The UK’s largest student housing real estate investment trust (REIT) Unite Group fell into that trap. In November 2019, it spent £1.4 billion to buy up privately-owned student housing provider Liberty Living Group plc, from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. In the process, it more than doubled its net debt, from £856 million to £1.88 billion. The day after the deal was sealed, Unite’s CEO said the enlarged group would “be well positioned to meet the growing need for affordable, high quality student accommodation in university towns and cities where demand is strong.”

That need, instead of growing, has all but vanished. Since March 11, all UK university campuses have been closed due to the virus outbreak. Most students have gone back home.

In late April, Unite Group informed investors that it had been inundated with cancellation requests since offering to waive rents for students who did not plan to occupy their rooms in the final term. Based on requests received up to that point, between 43,000 and 46,000 students would not pay rent this semester, the company said. The total number of vacated beds is the equivalent of 65% of Unite’s portfolio.

As a result, the company said it expected a fall in income from the 2019/20 academic year of 16-20% on a Group share basis, or £125 million, which it said was an improvement on its previous forecasts. But that was before Cambridge University’s bombshell announcement last Thursday that it was cancelling all face-to-face lectures for the entire 2020-2021 academic year, fueling speculation that many students will stay away next year too.

“Given that it is likely that social distancing will continue to be required, the university has decided there will be no face-to-face lectures during the next academic year,” the university said in a statement. “Lectures will continue to be made available online and it may be possible to host smaller teaching groups in person, as long as this conforms to social distancing requirements.”

Given Cambridge University’s import and influence, the move is likely to trigger a cascade of similar announcements from other higher education institutions. If that happens, student life in the UK is set to be a more insular experience for the foreseeable future, dealing a massive blow not only to students, professors, lecturers and other university staff but also to the businesses and communities that have come to depend on the income they generate.

Those businesses include big corporate providers of student accommodation and private landlords, some of whom have continued to charge students for digs they no longer occupy. Many of these companies have enjoyed years of surging profits on the back of years of soaring student rents. One of the largest REITs, GCP Student Living, reported a 51% rise in profits in its last financial year alone. GCP was the first REIT invested exclusively in student housing when it came to the market in 2013, and since then has given its investors a return of 12.9% a year.

But that was before the arrival of Covid-19 and the UK government’s subsequent imposition of lockdown and social distancing measures put its entire business model on hold. The shares of both GCP and Unite Group have slumped by 47% in the past three months. GCP’s stock is now trading at the same price it was trading at in October 2014. In the case of Unite Group, some £2.5 billion has been wiped off its market cap since the coronavirus crisis began.

Unite has already had to come to terms with the likelihood that many foreign students — a key customer segment — will be staying away from the UK, at least for the next year, and is now focusing most of its marketing activities on UK-domiciled students. For British universities and the businesses that have sprouted up around them, overseas students have become a vital source of income. For a start, they pay twice as much or more in fees than UK students, who pay £9,250 a year.

China is the largest source of international students in the UK, with 115,014 study visas issued to Chinese students in 2019 – 45% of all such international visas. But according to a British Council survey of 11,000 Chinese students considering studying in the UK next year, 22% say they are likely or very likely to cancel their study plans. Another 39% say they are still undecided about whether to cancel.

It’s not just foreign students who are having second thoughts. A recent survey of UK-domiciled undergraduate applicants found that more than one in four students are willing to delay starting their courses if universities are not operating as normal due to the coronavirus pandemic. As such, if many universities follow Cambridge’s lead and cancel face-to-face classes and enforce strict social distancing, there would be 120,000 fewer students when the academic year begins in autumn.

That, coupled with the diminished numbers of overseas students, means British universities are now staring at a gaping hole in future revenues. To plug that hole, they’re already asking the UK government for a £2.2 billion rescue package, which the government has so far turned down. By Nick Corbishley, for WOLF STREET.

nice find.Looks like theyre up poop creek sans paddle.

this stat is breath taking

'China is the largest source of international students in the UK, with 115,014 study visas issued to Chinese students in 2019 – 45% of all such international visas. '

 

loved this bit too.

'When it comes to over-priced acquisitions at peak hype, there is no worse time than just before a financial crisis. The UK’s largest student housing real estate investment trust (REIT) Unite Group fell into that trap. In November 2019, it spent £1.4 billion to buy up privately-owned student housing provider Liberty Living Group plc, from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. In the process, it more than doubled its net debt, from £856 million to £1.88 billion

In late April, Unite Group informed investors that it had been inundated with cancellation requests since offering to waive rents for students who did not plan to occupy their rooms in the final term. Based on requests received up to that point, between 43,000 and 46,000 students would not pay rent this semester, the company said. The total number of vacated beds is the equivalent of 65% of Unite’s portfolio.'

[BearyBear]

18 minutes ago, sancho panza said:

this stat is breath taking

'China is the largest source of international students in the UK, with 115,014 study visas issued to Chinese students in 2019 – 45% of all such international visas. '

Agree... CV fallout + anti-Chinese rhetoric could force most of them to abandon the idea of studying abroad!

[The Grey Man]

I have attempted to read this thread from the start. I feel like a first year 2020 University Fresher at this..a failure from the start...I gave up and thought the future should be what I make of it...were I be of an age.

If you dont have the family financial means to succeed...if you are not just outstanding intellectually but also have the social awareness and skills to boot..your fucked. Sorry. It is.

Dont bother. Thats not defeatism. Thats reality.  Learn at the ground. Jump ship and get in work.

If you are lucky and have savings gifted by your parents such as a former child tax fund (?)...keep it for the future. If you realy are not oustanding..your parents arent the best advise for this on the whole...keep that wedge.

You might just make it as one the future business seedlings borne from hard times..that learn the realities and become stellar..just in time for my assisted arse wipe years..should I make it that far.

Think in reverse. Alices looking glass back to front. Gee..you might even see negative interest rate bonds.

Thats the point. And that higher education..well..its not what its all seems.

[MrXxxx]

22 hours ago, Melchett said:

Sorry, I missed your later comment, but mine wasn’t directed specifically at your comment but rather at the numerous posts suggesting that unis will be adjusting their entries and criteria based on results and there will be people going through clearing.

I don’t think these apply anymore as essentially everyone will be getting the grades they were predicted when they made their UCAS  applications. I’m not even sure how clearing would work now, as I’m not sure what disconnect there is between predicted grades and offered grades. I know Oxbridge used to make silly low offers to some people, but I can’t see how that would lead to people going into clearing now. How many were offered (and accepted) places with grades significantly higher than their predicted grades? Not many I’d reckon, but I could be wrong.

Mmmmm fair point, but some students will be pulling out at the last moment, and unis will still have spare capacity to fill. Despite what the OfS suggests, with many unis facing serious financial circumstances, (and the government unwilling to help) VCs will have no choice but to lower their standards to get as many `bums on seats`, and will use a variety of techniques to circumvent the UCAS system.