Telly rant...

[Vultch]

Guys ...there is only a limited amount of money to go round...

If you offer free higher education for any course, what do you cut

Healthcare
Defence
Local gov spending..
benefits
Pensions
??


When I chose my course, i chose something i could get a job with, there were the fringe courses then (3 hrs lectures a week etc).. the students on them knew the courses were pointless then but it was a good 3 year gig, student bar every night / party city.... but not a hope of job related to it in the end.

Bias loans /grants to what the economy requires, if you want to do a fringe course then fund it yourself..

[slobodan]

Everybody always expects somebody else to pay.

What's free on the menu this month?

Are there other countries that offer free degrees? (when will I see you again)

If there are, go there and study.

2 of mine have been through Uni in England, and are in work and repaying their loans.

[JUDWAK]

[Apache]

I think it might be an idea to survey industry and see what qualifications are most in demand. If it's, say, engineering qualifications are most in demand, and no-one really needs 'media' graduates, then engineering courses should be much less expensive than media courses.

Just seems like common sense to me.

What might be a better idea is for other industries to follow the lead of JCB and fund academies to produce the type of graduates they need.

[J i m s t e r]

Apache, clear your PMs - your box is full

I worked before I went to uni and because my mum and dad are skint, I got the full grant every year (1989-1992). The grant was, in 1992, £2155. To last you from Sep - July. Rent was £35 a week in M14 and we were robbed on average 3 times a year. The point being, I paid my taxes beforehand so felt no guilt in taking the money to study. It was living like "The Young Ones" (No, not Cliff Richard) and It wasn't like I was going Skiing at Christmas with Crispin or taking a year off to "Find myself" in the far-east on parentally-funded tickets.

I did a degree in Computation, I thought computers were never going to go away and it seemed like a safe bet to be a clever-clogs computer bloke. This was before the clever-clogs computer blokes invented the internet (as we know it). After the internet, all the programming work is done overseas for tuppence ha'penny. Not so clever now... Serves me right for being an self-taught over-achiever from a Widnes council-estate.

Seems like only yesterday... The student loans did come in at the end, how I LOL'D at the well-educated coin-eyed students who were delighted that they could bank it for nothing and get interest on it before they paid it back. They didn't need to touch it to actually live