Universal Student Allowances: Huge Mistake

I support free tertiary education, but this is the wrong mechanism.
Provide that money to the universities. They can then hire more world-renowned staff, boost their research outputs, and also cut their fees.
Universal student allowances go totally against the grain of recent moves towards research rather than EFTS based funding

Do we want Harvards or U.Phoenixs?

I thought we wanted everyone to have access to education so they can fuck off to australia and have a better life than here

Stupid idea really but good to keep unemployment stats down.

Also, here's the thing

PhD scholarship = 25k tax free
my student allowance in 07 = 200 bucks a week in hand

Hrm... 680/week to go to uni... with the lifestyle it allows... + a few extra dollars from tutoring... fucking sweet

Harvard is over-rated.

Cambridge is where it's at.

Could somebody link me through to Labour's proposed approach to this? Even just an article?

http://stuff.co.nz/sundaystartimes/4620704a6870.html

Chur

Not only do i think they shouldn't do this but they should severely tighten up the requirements to be a certified course. There are so many fraudulent courses which make money off the tax payer and provide almost zero benefit to the student, let alone society.

Give the money directly to the universities instead.

If there aren't universal student allowances, there should be no allowance period.

the current system is disgusting and discriminatory - means-testing on parental income to determine receipt of allowance - with absolutely no guarantee parental money will be passed on to offspring throughout their tertiary education.

forcing generations of young people into debt (which many will never clear) is inhumane. it' s madness. socially damaging and pointless. there is a psychological toll. there is a social toll.

how have we got to the point where we like putting people being into debt, even before they have any real chance of making substantial inroads into clearing that debt?

oh the inhumanity!1

People get themselves into debt with or without the govt.

If youre going to give everyone a student allowance why not just make the fees zero instead then at least its easy to administer. In fact why stop at students just pay everyone the same wage regardless of what they study/do and then everyone will work happily and sing songs on the way to work.

People presently do not value education and there are plenty of morons making life difficult for people who do want to study.

If you want people to value university education and go to uni to actually study rather than fuck around then make it harder - academically, financially and/or restrict entry to people who have proven their ability/drive.

Theres far too many morons in tertiary study and they come out thinking they actually know something when the people who have worked for 3 or more years are often light years ahead of them in drive and experience.

Know-it-all morons are far more socially damaging than a little bit of debt.

you really don't like the thought of everyone being treated equally without prejudice do you bob

universal allowences and zero fees worked back in my day quite well I thought

of course back then some people studied to better themselves not just to get a job

back then there were limited places too, which is my point.

If you dont restrict it then it becomes worthless.

I like the idea of intelligent and/or driven people studying worthwhile courses and i would be absolutely happy with those people even being paid to study (scholarships). What we have at the moment is many people who dont value the education pissing around and tying up govt and university resources because they dont know what they want to do.

And on top of that we have fraud commited by 'education institutions' who provide no worthwhile benefit to society and very marginal benefit to the students.

McEducation is what we are very close to getting atm.

I agree with you on the many mccourses and free for all that course funding seems to have created

However I am also very pro the allowing people to attend university to study whilst they decide what it is they want to do

university is about learning not solely to offer grads up to employers

educated people makes for a richer society, be these people employed to utilise what they studied or not

Funny you should bring up equality, our current system is anything but (speaking about universities specifically).

University is (has been) a place where people who are smart and work hard get good grades. People who are smart and work hard also tend to do well at life (generalisation).

My recent experience at university was that the people who shouldnt be at uni are well supported (to equalise things) and seem to tie up the most time of the lecturers. Lecturers are incredibly frustrated with the idiots at university (there have been some well publicised incidents). A degree now means very little because every idiot can get one, so people do more post grad, which takes time that they could be out earning/ gaining experience.

Make uni harder, pay people who excel at and reward those who complete it. At the same time better fund the universities and adjust course costs by their social benefit. Doctors should have to have high grades etc but not have to pay too much to study. Lawyers, well the less of those we have the better

If people arent learning the life skills they need to live at school then we have a whole other problem we should be dealing with first. We shouldnt be making it easy to be a student just because they cant be bothered working.

Anyway perhaps this is a little too specific to be applied to the entire universal student allowance discussion. On that topic my point is that it will be abused and offers no real benefit to society restrict uni courses to people who work hard and make their fees zero instead.

WTF generalisation much

Bob I'm not sure I disagree with you, but the consequence of that policy is you have less people tertiary educated but to a higher standard. That has downsides in terms of organisations finding the numbers of peoples they need up to a "middle" standard - the majority of our workforce would end up lesser skilled, but with a few much higher skilled people.
Not sure that's a better problem than the existing one...

BD: i thought i adequately communicated i was talking in generalisations.

GW: I'm not sure we are properly equipping people for work. At uni if you don't meet a deadline you get an extension. Sick at the last minute, extension. How does that compare to work?

My experience of late from inside and out of uni is that Universities are not equipping people for work/real world. If that is what uni is supposed to be doing (that is another argument) then they (as a group) are failing.

There are lots of faculties that this is true to a greater or lessor extent but in terms of equipping people for the work environment i dont think Unis are doing as good a job as they have in the past. The work environment has changed in some ways but not others. Universities have been focused on getting high numbers of students and selling the idea of a great job/career to students.

Students walk out expecting high salaries instantly and then get frustrated when their job experience isnt spoon fed to them.

Again, university specific and talking in generalisations.

At the other end of the scale are courses with very little in the way of assessment which are just a way for foreign students to gains residency and fraudsters to make money off the govt.

I don't think Universities have ever taught people to get a job, teach them a discipline yes - the two are sometimes linked and often not

technical institutes did the workplace styled training - but I guess these are all universities now

GW: a 1 year intensive course on business + 6-12 months of placements would do a far far better job of preparing business students for business. Especially highlighting how much they don't know and how they will keep learning.

An academic degree cannot teach 'people skills' which is by far and a way the most important aspect of business.

Anyway. Id like ot hear why people think allowances are a good idea in terms of outcomes not just 'justice' and other illusions.

Which is the problem.

There are degrees in almost everything now and they're not substantially different from each other. Accounting and finance are arguably technical skills others are a bit more academic orientated - (commerce, management, etc)

I'm not sure I agree fully with your first statement. I think a better term would be self discipline and medium/long term achievement.

And then maybe a specialisation course after that.

academic discipline is what I was referring to, to gain a degree the majority will need self discipline

as to achievement, well that again is up to the individual - I have a degree, it means nothing to me, not an achievement or anything of substance but my time at university doing stuff that most would consider goofing off lead to a career (of sorts)

The job of universities is not to fill your jobs
It's to advance knowledge

And as such, they SHOULD focus on elitism.

Auckland is ranked so low largely because of its open entry policy. Switching to a restricted entry system would see it climb to world top 30 in the THES

Couldn't agree with you more Vadinho.

If you go to a tertiary institute just as a means to get a job later on in life, you can kindly fuck off to some polytech.

That is not the role of university. It never has been and the fact that so many people now regard it as a stepping stone to work is saddening indeed.

Never specifically said it was - I was using the business angle because that's what bob was discussing.
But there overall is an argument to be had whether it is better to have a handful of highly educated individuals with a large percentage of the population having no tertiary education vs a higher level of tertiary education throughout the population with perhaps lesser resources going to the absolute top end.

I would, however, question whether a more open policy does hinder the top few from truly achieving the quality of research they want.

Nobody is stopping that high percentage of people getting tertiary education, though. They'll just have to pay.

Fund the universities = universities will hire better academics + make more scholarships = value of the degree that the undergrads get rises.

Remember the value of a degree is at least partly due to the reputation of the university.

I agree with vads, it makes more sense that way.

interestingly enough, in a stage 3 history paper I did, we had an american lecturer and she said our ability and work far exceeded anything she had come across at a similar level in the american unis she taught at. I can't remember which universities she taught at though. heh.

Is that so low?

http://www.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/about/news/articles/2006/10/university_rankings.cfm

Youre looking at an article from 2006.

They have all plummeted in the past 2 years.

Massey fell off the list completely.

We used to get all the asian student who couldnt get into the US. Now we get all the asian students who couldnt get in anywhere else (UK etc). The rest of the world copied out education export industry and we lost our way.

Not true, bob, Auckland is still 52 or so.

Thing is, if it was more selective, it'd be top 30. Selectivity is its lowest score in the THES rankings.

You only need to read some of the work I have to mark (in stage 2 and 3 papers no less) to see the terrible effect an open policy has had on the standard of work at UofA.

Bloody Harvard. It's topped uni rankings for the last 2-3 years consistently.

it's well endowed

That's pure academic snobbery... What about professions where a university qualification is the only way to enter the field? Lawyers, doctors... I would say the majority of grads in thiese fields attend university to get a job and are hardly in the McDegree category.

bob I disagree with a lot of what you're saying re people staying at uni coz they dont know what to do and too many unmotivated or stupid people.
It has always been like that! I dont think the new policies have had that effect.
Society has long time regarded varsity as a moping place for the disaffected. At least they are paying their way now (even if its in a debt they accrue) whereas back when it was free...

Exactly why law and medicine should be farmed out to polytechs

True, there have always been people who fuck around and study arts

However talk to any lecturer or co-ordinator and they are all (well the many i spoke to anyway) saying that it is turning to shit across all the business/job related subjects.

The vast majority of students expect to have everything handed to them on a platter and complain that it is unfair when the lecturer doesnt specify what is in the exam down to the parts of chapters.

...

Ive been going to uni on and off for 10 years and it has changed noticibly in that time. Lecturers are rated on how many of their students pass the paper, so guess what happens.

Academic inflation is also a factor. One degree used to be enough of an achievement now you need two or more.

Not really. Law and Medicine are both quickly developing subjects and require a lot of academic/critical thought. They are ideally suited for uni. Accounting isn't imo but i could be wrong.

surely in a user pays environment the client has every right to expect things handed to them on a plate? (joking)

this IMHO is where it all went wrong - universities should not be operated like a business

Well not to the extent they are at the moment.

This is a very simple case of you get more of what you reward. And when you have more of something, its value decreases.

Heh, that, and law and medicine being (along with theology) the ORIGINAL university subjects

BLASPHEMY!

If I found myself or a family member in a hospital I would not be happy if the doctor was from some recently accredited polytech. Medicine is a profession not a trade and it's training should not be farmed out to the lowest bidder.
University has traditionally been in place to better society through enabling its graduates to contribute to it. One would equate that to some form of work or another.

It's mechanics for the body and hardly creative or requiring the highest mental skills.

lol... which doctor would you go to?

The one trained at Unitec or Auckland Uni?

Doctors etc advertise where they trained?
NZ trained doctors stay in NZ?

Is the role of universities to teach commercial skills or is it to push people to explore their fields and themselves?

if its the latter, then anyone at uni taking time to find themsleves, find what it is they want to do with their lives etc are NOT WASTING THEIRS OR ANYONE ELSES TIME

to invest in our peoples future is to invest in the pursuit of knowledge, fuck the employment aspects

I have no trouble with people finding themselves at uni, hell i have got part of a degree in a BA, a Bcom and BInfSys before i finally finished my BBS (with a crap load of extra papers. But i paid for them and didnt get a student allowance for more than 18 months when i was studying full time (effectively more than).

But They should still have to work hard to get in and work hard to stay in. If they go there as 'something to do' then they will tie up resources that should be going to people who actually want to be there and contribute.

A large part of learning at uni is related to the other students. Fill papers with morons and it makes it difficult for the good students and the lecturer.

Re Doctors: no but ask people if they trust NZ doctors over foreign doctors (generally) and see what you get.

In NZ it is assumed (sometimes incorrectly) that doctors have to meet very strict criteria to practice in NZ.

And given the seriousness of getting it wrong, they have every right to expect doctors are very highly skilled and trained. That said.

BD: if someone wants to 'find themselves' by surfing all summer would you expect to pay for it?