I was reading in a newspaper a few days ago, that the most popular application for graduates is now school teaching. This is because it's the only well paid job they have a realistic chance of getting. Teaching gives a salary in excess of 25k so I'm glad graduates are now seeing the light and focusing on a good steady income stream, which can be used for investment. Teaching has long been seen as an unpopular career, but the fact is that graduates now face a stark choice between teaching and the dole queue. I think that it is inevitable that teacher training courses will become oversubscribed and many graduates will not even be able to become a teacher.
The supermarket chain Aldi had an extremely high number of applicants for its graduate scheme, and that's because Aldi pays 40k per year, with a host of benefits. This is more than most private companies will pay. I've never seen a degree in Supermarket Sweeps, so clearly these applicants have degrees in completely unrelated subjects, and now want to leave it all behind to work in a supermarket! There were only about 100 positions available, and yet there are hundreds of thousands of graduates (including graduates from previous years). Its ridiculous to spend years studying, say History, and then forgetting all of the knowledge when you work in an unrelated field. That is how outdated the education system has become.
Universities were originally founded to allow a few experts to teach their knowledge. The ethos was of the spread of knowledge and the advancement of the human race. Nowadays we have the Internet which we can learn information from, and the pace of knowledge changes all the time. I don't think we need universities as much as we used to, and there has even been recent government talk about cutting the length of a degree course from 3 years, to 2.
Universities have become big business and I was disgusted to read that the UK universities want to increase tuition fees even more. The top universities are actually using multiple choice exam papers marked by a computer for some courses. They are charging foreign students exorbitant amounts of money. All they care about is money. In America it is not uncommon for medical students to graduate with over one hundred thousand dollars in debt. Large amount of student debt seems to be the American way, and this is the business model UK universities now seem to be aiming for.
Sadly there still aren't enough jobs to go around after graduation time, so many graduates will remain unemployed. I was a graduate once, and to be honest, after weighing up all the strengths and weaknesses of it, I consider it to be a bad investment when I compare all of the other things I could have done with my time and money.
Graduate jobs are limited. The best jobs only have a few positions available. Employers are cutting wages, so graduate jobs don't pay that much anymore. Many graduates end up unemployed and deep in debt. A degree can take 7 years away from your earning and investment life thus: 2 years of A-Levels + 3 years undergraduate degree + 1 year masters degree + 1 year looking for work and not finding it. I would rather be a bus driver earning 25k for 7 years, because I would have earned 175k in that time (probably more, due to bank interest and investing), whereas the graduate would just have 20k of debt.
I agree with education, I just don't like the way universities do their business. As a unique way of gaining knowledge, university is an interesting option. As an investment, a degree, quite frankly, sucks. Recently qualified graduates who have slaved for years to earn their qualifications are now learning a new lesson. The lesson, is that there are no "jobs for the Grads".
The supermarket chain Aldi had an extremely high number of applicants for its graduate scheme, and that's because Aldi pays 40k per year, with a host of benefits. This is more than most private companies will pay. I've never seen a degree in Supermarket Sweeps, so clearly these applicants have degrees in completely unrelated subjects, and now want to leave it all behind to work in a supermarket! There were only about 100 positions available, and yet there are hundreds of thousands of graduates (including graduates from previous years). Its ridiculous to spend years studying, say History, and then forgetting all of the knowledge when you work in an unrelated field. That is how outdated the education system has become.
Universities were originally founded to allow a few experts to teach their knowledge. The ethos was of the spread of knowledge and the advancement of the human race. Nowadays we have the Internet which we can learn information from, and the pace of knowledge changes all the time. I don't think we need universities as much as we used to, and there has even been recent government talk about cutting the length of a degree course from 3 years, to 2.
Universities have become big business and I was disgusted to read that the UK universities want to increase tuition fees even more. The top universities are actually using multiple choice exam papers marked by a computer for some courses. They are charging foreign students exorbitant amounts of money. All they care about is money. In America it is not uncommon for medical students to graduate with over one hundred thousand dollars in debt. Large amount of student debt seems to be the American way, and this is the business model UK universities now seem to be aiming for.
Sadly there still aren't enough jobs to go around after graduation time, so many graduates will remain unemployed. I was a graduate once, and to be honest, after weighing up all the strengths and weaknesses of it, I consider it to be a bad investment when I compare all of the other things I could have done with my time and money.
Graduate jobs are limited. The best jobs only have a few positions available. Employers are cutting wages, so graduate jobs don't pay that much anymore. Many graduates end up unemployed and deep in debt. A degree can take 7 years away from your earning and investment life thus: 2 years of A-Levels + 3 years undergraduate degree + 1 year masters degree + 1 year looking for work and not finding it. I would rather be a bus driver earning 25k for 7 years, because I would have earned 175k in that time (probably more, due to bank interest and investing), whereas the graduate would just have 20k of debt.
I agree with education, I just don't like the way universities do their business. As a unique way of gaining knowledge, university is an interesting option. As an investment, a degree, quite frankly, sucks. Recently qualified graduates who have slaved for years to earn their qualifications are now learning a new lesson. The lesson, is that there are no "jobs for the Grads".
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