Business Study Education, What Should Be Done With Higher Education?

Q: The NuLabcur proposals on top-up fees are wrong both in practice and principle. They have been made worse by the latest concessions which will grant privileges to students on the basis of their parental income - below a certain parental income, students will not be charged top-up fees at all and will receive bursaries. This is obnoxious in the extreme. What should be done? Provide state scholarships for 20% of school-leavers in bona fide academic subjects, cease state funding of the non-degrees such as business studies and media studies, encourage vocation post-school courses. Those who cannot get a state university scholarship can take a degree part-time.

A:I believe that those who wish to attend University *should* pay something towards their higher education. The taxpayer has paid for their education for 13/14 years, so surely they can contribute. If they can't pay, or their parents can't or won't pay, they can get a Government loan and agree to pay it back once they get their degree and start to work. I also believe that there should be some kind of limit as to who is qualified for University. At the moment it appears that everyone wants to go even though they may never use what they learn once they leave. One poster here admitted that he has never used his degree and that the reason he went to U was to "become a more rounded person". Some of the courses offered are ludicrous and these students would be better off going to trade schools and getting a proper job. Yes certainly. It's far too easy to get a place at the moment. Introduce entrance tests, make it much harder for those who simply memorize many facts in order to get a qualification... introduce a test to evaluate intelligence, but then support those successful applicants regardless of their backgrounds. When I went to college, I got a grant, probably because there were far fewer entering higher education then, thus funding wasn't spread so thinly.

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