London Banter

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Thu, 3 Feb 2005, Aidan Stanger wrote:
Tom Anderson wrote:
On Wed, 2 Feb 2005, Aidan Stanger wrote:
Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Neil Williams wrote:

Agreed - to an extent. Remember that if a graduate becomes a high
earner, they're paying more income tax anyway!

Absolutely, and there is an argument that if the government is correct
in saying that graduates earn more, then they'll also pay more tax,
and so fund their own education through general taxation without any
mucking about with fees etc. Of course, this is [...] (c) not true
anyway, since demand for graduates isn't elastic enough to absorb
millions more of them

That's true in the short term, but probably not in the long term.

Possibly true, definitely irrelevant - the policy we're talking about is
about a short-term increase in student numbers.

Unless that's followed by a decrease in student numbers, it will become
a long term increase.

And until demand increases enough to catch up with it, we'll have a
short-, medium- and long-term surplus of graduates!

ITYF demand will increase before that, so there won't be a medium or
long term surplus unless there are further rapid rises in student
numbers. And a surplus of graduates is far better than a surplus of non
graduates because it's far easier for graduates to get work overseas.

(even if they were of the same quality as current ones, which they
wouldn't be).

Doesn't that depend on the universities rather than the number of
students?

I don't think so. I tend to think that growth in student numbers means a
reduction in the standard of entry; i think most of the people who are
really up to university-level academic study already go to university
(along with a lot of people who aren't), so any further growth is going to
be from less academically capable students, who can't end up as highly
educated as the more capable students.

Your argument has three flaws: firstly, you're assuming that capability
isn't itself rising.

I am. Am i wrong?

I think you are. Nobody knows for sure, but there are several indicators
which suggest it is - for example the average IQ is rising, as are A
level results (though nowhere near as fast as A level grades).

Secondly, academic performance does not equate to capability.

No, but i don't see how that's relevant. Certainly, we can't predict who
will do well at university, so some people who won't go, and some who
would don't, but that's sadly inevitable. It's not an argument for sending
more people - in fact, if you do send more, i suspect you'll be sending
more who won't than who will. Or am i misunderstanding you?

Sending more people would probably reduce the proportion who will, but
it would still increase the number who will, probably by a lot more than
the number who won't.

Thridly, even if some less capable students are getting accepted, that
doesn't mean that they're passing the university courses.

True, but if so, it seems rather futile for them to be going to
university. When the government talks about sending millions more people
to university, i rather think they mean to get degrees, not to drop out!

Indeed they do, but the increase in people dropping out suggests (though
doesn't prove) that the universities aren't compromising their
standards.

In support of my argument, i'd point to the results we've seen so far:
every successive generation of universities has had lower standards than
previous ones. Oxbridge, red-bricks, glass-and-steels, ex-polys. I don't
think i'm just being an elitist snob here; get some finals papers and
compare the level of the questions, or compare the Research Assessment
Exercise scores (and make the admittedly iffy assumption that the quality
of research corresponds to the quality of graduates).

Yes, I think that's mainly the result of British government policy (plus
a lot of trading on reputation, especially in the case of Oxbridge).
Things are rather different here in Australia, even the new universities
are proper research universities.

WTFDTM?

You may think that, I couldn't possibly comment!

AFAIK that response is originally attributed to Francis Urqhart (the
rightwing anti hero who's prime minister) in To Play The King.

Reading that, i suddenly had visions of Sir Humphrey Appleby saying it. I
think this is creative recollection, though.

He certainly said things to that effect, though I don't think he used
those exact words.

The general taxation approach is also a little unfair on people
who don't go to university but still become high earners.

Only if you believe that capitalism is fair. Those who recognise its
unfairness have no problem with providing assistance to those who
need it.

I have no illusions about capitalism (well, maybe some), and no
problem with redistribution, but i do think it could be unfair: if two
people achieve the same level of income, but one's benefited from
extensive assistance from the state (in the shape of education) and
the other hasn't, surely it's not fair to take the same amount of tax
from both? That just seems like common sense (still in Daily Mail mode
here!).

It is fair if both have the OPPORTUNITY to benefit from extensive
assistance from the state - whether they take it is up to them.

That's an interesting way of looking at it - i'd certainly agree if you
used that argument about healthcare, so perhaps i should agree here too.

One of the most important differences between the redistribution of
opportunity and the redistribution of wealth is that the redistribution
of opportunity increases total opportunity.

Applying it retrospectively would be *seriously* dodgy, mind, not so
much for those like myself who paid no fees and received a grant,
but more for those who have paid the current levels of fees. To
apply a graduate tax fairly if retrospectively would mean you'd have
to level the playing field for everyone it applied to before doing
so, meaning that you'd have to refund a lot of tuition fees, and pay
out "grants" (or take them back from people who got them).

What about people with degrees from overseas universities?

Internment camps.

What have you got against overseas universities?

Flippant remarks.

Obviously, but it does seem you've got something against them.

(snip)

An engineering degree certainly means more to an engineering company
than an english degree does to a management consultancy, granted.
However, i'm not convinced that it means as much as you might think;
in the sciences, at least, an undergraduate degree *does not* teach
you to be a scientist, it just lays a lot of groundwork (more than
necessary, really) for the next step, the PhD, which is where you
really learn your trade. I would guess it's the same for engineering -
you don't walk out of your graduation ceremony an engineer, you're
just now qualified to start learning to be an engineer. This is
certainly true in software engineering, but that might be a bit of a
special case, since academic departments typically teach
theoretically-oriented 'computer science', which is rather far removed
from practice.

No, you do walk out of your graduation ceremony as an engineer, although
in this part of the world you don't graduate until you've got at least 8
weeks of industrial experience.

Wow. Eight weeks doesn't seem like a lot - maybe this engineering lark is
easier than i thought!

'Tis eight weeks (full time) more than most degrees, and the degree
itself takes four years (or five for a double degree). And once you
become an engineer you don't stop learning...

Rather, i suspect that engineering is one of the rare disciplines (the
only one?) where university teaching is actually practical (in the sense
of 'useful', not in the sense of 'things you do with your hands').

It certainly is, but it's not the only one. Geoinfomatics And Surveying
is another practical one - they can't turn out graduates fast enough for
employers!

and the populace need to stop seeing university as some sort of
essential badge of middleclasshood. A gigantic renaissance of
apprenticeships and the like would be a start.

Indeed it would, but I don't think the decline in the number of
apprenticeships has much to do with the rise in the number of university
places. AIUI a lot of it's due to downsizing - employees are now too
busy to train apprentices.

Good point. Did the government subsidise apprenticeships? If they paid the
same amount as they do to educate university students, would they be
economical for companies?

Probably, but I can't imagine the government being willing to fork out
that much money.

But why not? Given the choice between spending however many thousand on
teaching someone a load of academic codswallop they'll never use and

That's quite a big assumption!

spending it on immediately useful practical knowledge, why _not_ fork out?

Because they can get away with not forking out!

It's ironic that the highest qualifications we have, doctorates, are
essentially apprenticeships:

That depends where you do them.

How so?

IIRC they're not like that at the Open University.

Ah. What are they like, then?

A lot of paperwork and some journeys to Milton Keynes. There's probably
a lot more to it than that, but I was quite young when my father did
his, so I can't remember what else.

It also occurs to me that arts and humanities PhDs are quite different to
those in science - students have very little contact with their
supervisors, and basically make their own way. I'm not sure that this is a
good way to do it, mind you ...

How would you do it?