Job Discussion Forums

[HLJHLJ]

[Dedicated]

HLJHLJ wrote :

[HLJHLJ]

And yet I (and most of my fellow students) ended up spending far more time at the British Library, because UCL's offering was so poor. It may look good on paper, but the reality is somewhat different.

[Otterman Ollie]

Sounds like someone is gonna spend a lot of time and money just to get another piece of paper, there are much easier and quicker ways!

[Dedicated]

Two of the 14 academics are historian Sir David Cannadine and his wife, historian Linda Colley. They both have equity stakes in the venture but are based at Princeton University.

They announced today they will teach only ONE lecture of 60 minutes in the first year.

[fluffyhamster]

The whole sordid venture is getting ghastlier by the minute. I used to rate Grayling as some sort of philosopher for the common man, but I won't be reading him anymore. What feet of clay! The man is obviously a fool, to have thought he could quite get away with this, and in the way he has presented and handled it. The main thing though is the exorbitant price!

[RobertH]

Does anyone really believe Dawkins, Grayling etc. ever actually cared about the things they professed to care about - education, learning and fulfillment for all humans? Not at �18,000 per year they don't. It's obvious that they just care about themselves, their personal wealth and their own academic freedom, and their humanistic bombast is just a cover for their secularism to make it more popular with the average person who might otherwise be ambivalent. They won't even be teaching more than a few hours per year (they will deliver guest lectures, but the core staff will essentially be no more qualified than average UK state universities). They are trading on their celebrity to make a few quid, that's all, and �18,000 is an outrageous rip-off.

OK, �9,000 per year is a rip-off too, but it's less of a rip-off. Hopefully the �9,000 fees will reduce, too, as people start questioning whether a degree from De Montfort University or the University of Newport is really worth �9k per year, especially considering rising graduate unemployment, cuts in education and government, and the general increase in graduates that makes them less of a commodity than in the past. This means that the often-quoted idea that a degree makes you �100k+ better off over your life is rubbish - it's based on essentially 30-year old statistics.

I am lucky that I got into university before this nonsense started, and only paid �3,290 per year. I still have student debts of nearly �15,000 - maintenance costs have to be factored in too which people often forget.

My advice to anyone hoping to go to university in the UK would be to wait a few years, get a job, save some money, and hope the fees start coming down to justifiable levels. If students demonstrate that they simply won't pay �9,000 per year for education at an ex-polytechnic, we might start to decrease in fees.

Out of interest, what do you think a degree is worth these days? �3,000? �4,000? �5,000? It would have to be less for certain subjects in my opinion, an arts degree just won't pay for itself at �9,000 whereas a degree in computer science or economics can be very profitable.

[johnslat]

It sounds to me as though they are following the long-established business maxim: Charge what the traffic will bear.

Regards,
John

P.S. Has anyone ever accused Dawkins of being an altruist? I mean, this is the guy who wrote "The Selfish Gene."

[Sashadroogie]

Stimulating book - well worth the read. Even has a mischievous title!

[HLJHLJ]