*n-a-d-s-n-y-m*

[Cyclone]

That may be true but when we were students we got grants, housing benefit and income support over the summer holidays.

 

The changes in funding to University students have just as we predicted at the time prevented social mobility and made access to a university education for the working classes more difficult today than it was 20 years ago.

 

I remember politically orchestrated police violence against our demonstrations resulting in the horse charge that hospitalised a pregnant woman in the London demonstration. These were the results of a Govt that brought in the Poll tax. The Poll tax protests brought down Maggie. The attacks on a University education for all social classes was lost the preceding year.

 

It is much more difficult now to go to University without parents to support you than it was in our day and the price we pay for this is reduced social mobility, a lack of meritocracy and all the associated problems.

 

That's simply not the case. Far more people overall go to university now. The numbers amongst the well off haven't increased, so that suggests that it's easier now for the less well off to achieve that.

 

My Uncle (30+ years ago) was the first person in the family (on both sides) ever to go to university, and out of 5 from his generation the only one.

20 years later, from my generation of the family 7 of us went to university (that's everyone), although only 5 completed their courses.

 

I don't think student debt is the best solution, but it hasn't reduced social mobility, and the average graduate earns something like 300k more over a lifetime than the average non graduate.

[Location114]

You really have a vain opinion dont you?? you generally believe that because another forumers opinion is the same as yours its not right maybe if you had a little more understanding of what a opinion is you wouldnt be so grumpy its not stupidty its a opinion its pure stupidity for you to believe its wrong because you dont share that opinion what do they teach you at uni? how to get drunk and scoff fast food??

 

 

 

Yes I'm grumpy....so therefore it must mean I'm hungover. OR it could be that I get annoyed by the stupidity of people.

 

And I've been working all night - as well as today...my day off.

[Wildcat]

That's simply not the case. Far more people overall go to university now. The numbers amongst the well off haven't increased, so that suggests that it's easier now for the less well off to achieve that.

 

My Uncle (30+ years ago) was the first person in the family (on both sides) ever to go to university, and out of 5 from his generation the only one.

20 years later, from my generation of the family 7 of us went to university (that's everyone), although only 5 completed their courses.

 

I don't think student debt is the best solution, but it hasn't reduced social mobility, and the average graduate earns something like 300k more over a lifetime than the average non graduate.

 

Far more people do go to University now, but it is only the well off that have benefitted.

 

I know that I could not have afforded to go to University without a grant. Research backs up my point. Social mobility has been falling directly related to the increasing relationship between family income and educational attainment.

 

This report from the LSE backs up my points.

[Tricky]

...

This report from the LSE backs up my points.

 

No it doesn't. Sorry to go all Heyesey on you but you haven't demonstrated cause and effect - in this case the cause you espoused earlier and the effect you quoted above.

 

I'm not sure of the exact number but about 85% of all A level students go on to Higher education. I.e. in a set of 20 A level pupils, only three will fail to find a place at University or similar. Probably due to a failure to meet the lowest of entry requirements.

 

The lack of social mobility quoted above is due to the lack of attainment in the school system for children from less privileged backgrounds.

[Wildcat]

No it doesn't. Sorry to go all Heyesey on you but you haven't demonstrated cause and effect - in this case the cause you espoused earlier and the effect you quoted above.

 

I'm not sure of the exact number but about 85% of all A level students go on to Higher education. I.e. in a set of 20 A level pupils, only three will fail to find a place at University or similar. Probably due to a failure to meet the lowest of entry requirements.

 

The lack of social mobility quoted above is due to the lack of attainment in the school system for children from less privileged backgrounds.

 

The first page of the report includes:

 

• Part of the reason for the decline in mobility has been the increasing relationship between family income and educational attainment between these cohorts. This was because additional opportunities to stay in education at both age 16 and age 18 disproportionately benefited those from better-off backgrounds.

• For a more recent birth cohort (born in the late 1970s and early 1980s), there is a more mixed picture on changes in educational inequality. Their education participation in the 1990s was characterized by a narrowing in the gap between the staying on rates at 16 between rich and poor children, but a further widening in the inequality of access to higher education.

• The expansion of higher education since the late 1980s has so far disproportionately benefited those from more affluent families.

 

Educational inequality up to 18 is reducing but increasing when it comes to higher education. Supporting my point, the obvious anticipated outcome from removing grants has reduced access to higher education for poor families.

[Conker2]

... the average graduate earns something like 300k more over a lifetime than the average non graduate.

 

This is debatable. I did a google on 'graduate premium' and in 2007 a report thought that graduates in medicine earned £340,000 more, but arts and humanities graduates earned only £34,500 and £51,500 more respectively.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/feb/07/highereducation.graduates

 

£51,000 sounds a lot but spread over a working lifetime of 40-50 years it's not that much. And it's only the average - meaning that half of humanities graduates get less.

 

And this article suggests that with student debt some graduates may not actually break even, let alone benefit from a graduate premium.

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article4669124.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1

[mikomi]

I just guessed that while people are willing to pay the benefits for scroungers who sit on their bum all day doing nothing, they might want to think about people who actually need money.

 

I already sponsor a student ( MY SON) cost so far around 10k:P

[Tricky]

The first page of the report includes:

 

• Part of the reason for the decline in mobility has been the increasing relationship between family income and educational attainment between these cohorts. This was because additional opportunities to stay in education at both age 16 and age 18 disproportionately benefited those from better-off backgrounds.

• For a more recent birth cohort (born in the late 1970s and early 1980s), there is a more mixed picture on changes in educational inequality. Their education participation in the 1990s was characterized by a narrowing in the gap between the staying on rates at 16 between rich and poor children, but a further widening in the inequality of access to higher education.

• The expansion of higher education since the late 1980s has so far disproportionately benefited those from more affluent families.

 

Educational inequality up to 18 is reducing but increasing when it comes to higher education. Supporting my point, the obvious anticipated outcome from removing grants has reduced access to higher education for poor families.

 

Sorry Wildcat but you're taking figures from the eighties and nineties and trying to shoehorn them into some argument about the late noughties. As I said earlier, the overwhelming majority of schoolkids who do A levels go on to higher education. You cannot make any difference to social mobility through university education because virtually everyone eligible to go is already going.

 

The issues as to why 60-odd % of 15/16 yr olds decide not to stay on in school post GCSEs has nothing to do with policemen knocking over pregnant ladies two decades ago.

[Wildcat]

Sorry Wildcat but you're taking figures from the eighties and nineties and trying to shoehorn them into some argument about the late noughties. As I said earlier, the overwhelming majority of schoolkids who do A levels go on to higher education. You cannot make any difference to social mobility through university education because virtually everyone eligible to go is already going.

 

The issues as to why 60-odd % of 15/16 yr olds decide not to stay on in school post GCSEs has nothing to do with policemen knocking over pregnant ladies two decades ago.

 

Ok I exaggerated.

 

But look at table 4, on page 12 of the report on degree completion by the Age of 23. The poorest 20% had 6% staying on rate born in 1958, increasing to 7% in 1970 admittedly increasing to 9% after 1971 (after student loans).

 

But compare that with the richest 20% who have gone from staying on rates of 20% when born in 1958, to 37% in 1971 increasing to 46% after student loans.

 

There was just 2% more of the poorest 20% getting a degree after loans compared with 9% for the richest quarter.

 

The reasons can't be down to poor education up to 18, look at table 3 the numbers of people in the lowest quarter who stayed on has tripled, going from 20% to 60%, where it has only doubled for the richest 20%.

 

Relatively speaking the poor have benefitted hardly at all from the investment in and expansion of university education.

 

We have got something wrong in that we have plummetted in the table of social mobility behind the Nordic Countries, Canada and Germany, with social mobility now as low as the USA, but unlike them our trend in social mobility is downwards.

 

The conclusion that seems obvious to me with the established link from the article with parental wealth and the link broken with attainment up to 18, that part of the solution would be some sort of bursary for the poorest.... like the grants that Thatcher got rid of.

[Cyclone]

You are looking at data from over 30 years ago as if it's relevant today.

 

The reason will be parental support, middle class families (and higher) value education, lower class ones don't and they don't encourage or support their children (as a broad generalisation, there are many that break that mould).

Grants don't solve it, the poor would still not encourage their children to achieve academically. Cost is not a limiting factor (it's less that today than it was 30 years ago), today ambition and attitude are the limiting factors, and the government can't wave a wand and fix that.