On Jan 10, 10:10*am, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 06:29:24 -0800 (PST), 1506 wrote:
On Jan 10, 5:59 am, wrote:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 13:44:53 +0000

Graeme Wall wrote:
The problem is who gets to define which courses are vocationally
useless For instance golf management courses I would take to be a
subset of estate management which is a long established and valid
course. I would agree that the general course (estate management in
this case) should be subsidised to whatever level the government of the
day thinks is appropriate and the specialist addition (golf management)
should be for the student to fund.

Well thats never going to be an easy one to solve since there has to be a
line drawn somewhere and someone will always object that their course should
be subsidised. I'd start with suggesting that all science, engineering and
major humanities courses - english, languages, history, law - should be free
so long as the students complete them and pass. Other courses should be
subsidised on a sliding scale based on how I would guess some national
committee feels how intellectually rigorous or useful they are. Media studies
should be somewhere near the bottom.

B2003

And then, with respect Boltar, you have created another taxpayer
funded Quango. *Better, IMHO to let the market decide. *If there is a
shortage of MBAs, then clearly an MBA would be a good investment. *If
we need civil engineers, the a BSc in such would be money well spent.
and so on. *If the state has an interest in encouraging study in a
particular field, then by all means give a grant to the institutions
offering the degree. *But, preserve us please from liberal arts
degrees.

Please preserve us from lunatic ramblings from the US of A. *Since when
did the market have to decide what *individuals* want to do with their
talents? * All of this nonsense that only obviously marketable degrees /
qualifications are the only ones that should be funded needs to be
dispensed with immediately. *

More ad-hominem drivel. Do you have any original thinking to
contribute? And, do check your facts.

The UK has a strong and viable arts
movement as well as a media industry that generates very considerable
earnings. *Why should we only fund economists or doctors or lawyers? *We
need variety amongst the talented and qualified young people who emerge
from our universities. I also completely fail to see why they should be
forced to rack up tens of thousands of pounds worth of debt just to gain
a higher education. *If we could afford it for my generation then we can
afford it for future ones. It is an investment in our future success as
a country after all and we are not exactly the smallest economy in the
world either. *I can completely understand why people took to the
streets even though I don't agree with them smashing the place to bits
because some of them felt like it.

So, let me understand: What the UK has today is success?