How about *Grants for Brains*??? (Small Update at the bottom) (Higher Education - Free for all or Fee for all?)

Member Name: Redhead23

Product:	Higher Education - Free for all or Fee for all?
Date:	14/02/01 (220 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funding allows poor families to send their kids to Uni and get better jobs

Disadvantages: Many kids take the funding for granted and don't bother working for their courses or they spend their loans on luxury goods

Naw, I'm not talking about organ trade here ;)

What I mean is that I would be very much in favour of a scheme that, instead of *just* settig the Uni fees according to what someone's parents earn or don't earn, also considers a student's grades and actual ABILITY to study at Uni.

FIRST OFF, A LOOK AT A DIFFERENT SYSTEM:

Where I come from (Switzerland, continental Europe), the standards for letting someone into Uni are considerably higher than here - you have to do a 3-4 year-long college course (covering a variety of subjects) beforehands and you require a higher overall grade than here to actually get into Uni in the first place.

After 5 years of primary school (usually around 12 y.o.), your grades and general attitude towards study and work are analysed by your class tutor who then refers you to the school that fits your abilities. Your tutor has to consider nationally set minimum requirements for these schools, but has the freedom to push a little if he/she feels that a student has the potential. Each type of *high school* is intended to work with the student's potential and abilities, but working hard (or not working at all) can always change this - students who work harder can move on to a *higher* school, whereas students who don't work as hard anymore have to repeat the year initially and can later be referred to a *lower* school, should they have to repeat more than twice.

1)
Students whose skills lie in handiwork etc. or don't have the grades to eventually go on to college are sent to a so-called *Realschule* (2-4 years), schools that prepare them for apprenticeships, where they are taught the basic skills that they require for these apprenticeships (for example builders, hairdressers, mechanics etc.) and any specialised education they might require later on.

Of course, some kids take a little longer to adapt to school life and therefore haven't realised that they ha
ve to study and do their homework. Should someone turn out to be such a *late bloomer* (and start working harder, improving their overall grades and skills) or decide that the job they had in mind isn't to their liking after all (hey, I wanted to become a florist when I was nine!), they are given the choice to go on to another school, the *Diplom-Mittelschule*, which allows them access to slightly *higher* jobs, for example as nurses, physiotherapists etc. Again, whether or not someone is actually allowed to do so depends on their grades, skills and attitude.

2)
Students with intermediate grades go to a so-called *Sekundarschule* (3 -4 years), which are mainly focused on clerical jobs but have a broad spectrum of mandatory units like geography, history, chemistry, physics, languages etc.
They can go on to business schools, clerical (mostly) apprenticeships or, if their grades allow it, to college or a higher form of *Diplom-Mittelschule* which allows them to become teachers etc.

3)
Students who show *potential* for college (and later Uni) go to schools called *Progymnasium* (*Pre-College*, 4 years) and choose, apart from the above-mentioned mandatory units, a specialisation of either maths/economics, languages/economics or latin.
After completing this school, you have all the options of the *Sekundarschule*, but if your grades are sufficiently high you get into the *Gymnasium* (our form of college, similar to A-Levels).

The specialisations of *Progymnasium* are also found in the *Gymnasium*, with a few additions. Apart from the still mandatory units (Geography, History, Chemistry, Maths, Biology, Physics, Art, PE, German, French, English, IT), you have a choice of 6 specialisations, which are either additional units or more weekly units on top of the existing mandatory units. Each unit has regular exams, and students who fail a year have two chances to repeat it.

The choices are:

* Languages (Italian,
French, Spanish, English)
* Science (Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology)
* Economics (Macro-/Micro-Economics)
* Latin
* Art (Music, Art)
* Sports (Theory and Practice)

(So far, all schools mentioned above are free for everyone, which means that only students who CHOSE to go on to higher education have to pay, although grants can, in extreme cases, be given to college students, as you require a large amount of books and course material - including photocopies of handouts - for college)

At the end of 3 to 4 years (varies from place to place) students do their *Matura*, written and oral exams in most madatory units plus your special subjects. Your overall grades, comprising of the grades from your last two years and the *Matura* exams, decide whether or not you can go to Uni afterwards, and your specialisation (plus grades in specific subjects) decides what you can study.

Although the CHOICE of subjects you can study is quite limited (IT is still in the dark ages in Switzerland, we had to get many IT professionals from the UK and USA in over the past couple of years), the general standard and quality is considerably higher.
Grants or loans (depending on the circumstances) are given to students whose parents don't earn enough to pay for Uni, and they can only be renewed if a student passes every year of his/her course and shows that they're working hard to stay on the course.

WHY IS THIS SYSTEM *BETTER*?

For a start, higher education is accessible only to students who actually prove the ability to finish their courses.
Students who were initially thought to be able to go on to higher education (by being allowed into *Progymnasium* and later *Gymnasium*) constantly have to prove that they're still able to do so, whereas students who were initially put in *lower* schools get several chances to go on to *higher* schools.

Unlike here, where certain courses (which allow the student
to go Uni) are nigh on impossible to fail and the conditions to get into Uni seem terribly lax, only students with the true potential to get through Uni are actually allowed in in the first place.
Students who have their talents in more manual tasks or clerical work on the other hand are given the proper education and specialisation they require to establish themselves in that sector.
This may seem unfair to some people (as in *So if I don't have the brains I can't go to Uni?*), but at the end of the day if someone has their talents somewhere else it simply is unfair to let the taxpayer pay for sending them to Uni! The more *unskilled* people are let into higher education, the lower the standard and reputation of higher education ends up getting and Uni degrees completely lose their value - this is ALREADY happening here!
After all, intelligence isn't the only thing that counts in working life. You don't need a degree to excel in a profession - skills and talent are what count MOST of all! And if you're good at what you're doing and willing to improve your skills, you can make just as much money as some git who's just come out of Uni and has never had a job in his life!

As only students with the true potential to get to Uni end up there in the first place, this considerably reduces the cost of higher education in Switzerland. A year at a typical Swiss Uni costs about £500 (+books and material, which can be expensive if you study chemistry for example), which is a bargain really if you consider the quality and high standard you get.
A serious downside is that the choice of subjects is slightly limited and that (we don't have many Unis in the first place) many courses can only be taken at one or two Unis in the country, which often means having to move to expensive cities - not everybody can afford this.
But then again, nothing is perfect...

WE CAN'T JUST CHANGE THE EDUCATION SYSTEM HERE, BUT..
.

As I said above, the Swiss system has its downsides as well, and I don't think it would be feasible to completely change the educational system in the UK. As an overseas student, I can't afford going to Uni here (it'd cost me £9'000 + a year), but as I am doing a GNVQ Adv in IT (a subject that doesn't even EXIST in Switzerland, you can study IT at one Uni but that's a completely THEORETICAL course, mainly comprising of Maths and Physics) I have been through all the information sessions concerning Uni, UCAS forms and whatnot.

To me, the conditions to get into Uni here seem rather easy, and many students in my class who wouldn't even have managed to get into COLLEGE in Switzerland seem to qualify perfectly for Uni here. That is, IF they somehow manage to pass their GCSEs in English and Maths - shouldn't the fact that they're not even capable of passing these relatively simple exams TELL them something??? But even that's not a real problem, as the University of Huddersfield now accepts a simplified maths course (during their Summer holidays) with 90% pass rate (wow... now that sounds so easy that a 9-year old could do it.. are Hudds Uni just doing this to cram more students in, thus getting more funding from the government????) instead of the maths GCSE.

Yet most students in my class will be easily let into Uni and, as many come from families that live off government money (income/unemployment benefits, strong tax reductions, housing benefits etc.), they're gonna get a huge chunk (if not all) of their fees paid for, as fees depend on your family's income, and students whose families live off government money get the highest funding (in some cases, they won't have to pay a thing). And those students in my class who HAVE to pay the full fees are planning on getting an interest-free student loan - yet most of them aren't planning on spending that money on acommodation, Uni fees, books etc
. - Nope, they're planning on getting a brand new car, buying new clothes, TVs, stereos, flashy mobiles and so on, and let daddy pay for Uni. No doubt, many of them are gonna fail their Uni courses (too busy going out, talking on their new mobiles, driving their new cars etc.) but so what, they didn't really pay for them - daddy and the taxpayers did!

While I find it reasonable to put down a student grant for a deposit for a house (as long as you work besides your studies and can still afford everything else), I am apalled that so many students, whose efforts at study and work lack any motivation, should be allowed to go to Uni on taxpayer's money (be it grants spent on luxury items or getting their fees paid for without in the slightest making an effort or being capable of studying there in the first place).

I think the best solution would be to pay/reduce the fees for those that WORK hard and get good grades in their courses (at college) and really CAN'T pay the Uni fees - NOT to pay or reduce fees for just ANYONE who can't afford them.
Why should a kid who swears at tutors, skips half his/her lessons and doesn't give a toss about education get Uni paid for them just because they think they'll have a sweet life earning loadsa cash one they're out of Uni? Those are the kids that are most likely to give up their courses after a year or two anyway, be it because they just can't be arsed with the hard work or because they're simply not capable of working independently - without a college class tutor that tries to pull them through a course no matter how blatantly obvious it is that they have neither the brains nor the determination to go to Uni. (It happens -I see it every day!)

The only way to make an education system work efficiently is to put up the requirements to get there in the first place, because what we have to remember is that the fees a student pays do BY FAR not cover the TRUE costs of
education, and every student (even the ones that pay full whack) who abuses the system by bumming around Uni without working for their course (and eventually fails his/her course) costs the taxpayer a lot of money. The overseas student fees of approximately £9'000 per year are far closer to the true costs of higher education than the current fees fr UK citizens - so you can do the maths to figure out how much each student REALLY costs the taxpayer.
So what's the point in spending ~ £7'500 a year on a student who, according to their skills, brains and motivation, simply won't be capable of FINISHING their course???
It just makes me mad to hear students who (although they're on an IT course!) need help in editing a simple WORD document, aren't capable of working independently and generally don't have a clue about computing (phrases like *Who is Bill Gates? I've never heard of him!* aren't all that rare in my class - and they're SERIOUS!), talk about *doing a software engineering course at Uni and making loads of dosh afterwards*!

CONCLUSION:

I don't think social status should have ANYTHING to do with the possibility of going on to higher education - But for God's sake, take a student's ABILITY and POTENTIAL into consideration as well! There CAN'T be a *for all* solution - after all, we're all different and have different BACKGROUNDS!

The government should, as is the case, have fees of some sort (as education DOES cost a lot of money, and you can't expect the taxpayer to pay the fees for EVERY student, in particular those who are from wealthy families), and they should continue to give student loans and reduce fees for those who can't afford it. But after all, higher education is a matter of choice (that's why I think fees should stay) AND ability, and therefore grants, loans and fee reductions should ONLY be given to students who can't afford to pay for Uni
AND have very good grades, work hard and actually DO have the ability to go to there!

Yes, higher education has always been a *privilege* and it will definitely stay one - but shouldn't this privilege be based on ABILITY, HARD WORK and BRAINS rather than on MONEY? After all, higher education isn't a guarantee for high wages - hard work and determination are - in ANY job!

*** Small Update: ***

I had an idea how, in addition to stricter checks and consideration of academic ability, the loan abuse problem could be solved - with a voucher-like system!

I know there would be a lot of administration involved but I am quite sure that it would cut down drastically on abuse of the system!

An example would be different groups of vouchers given instead of loans, like *food* (to be redeemed against food and drink - non-alcoholic - at most national supermarkets), *acommodation* (to be redeemed at student halls and with landlords), *transport* (which can go towards a monthly or annual ticket) and *study material* (to be redeemed at book stores for course-related material, or at stationery stores). In addition, the students could receive a smaller amount of money to cover additional bits and bobs, for example clothes (you need them every now and again), going out (a bit of fun should be in for everyone!) etc., but not enough for say a car or other luxury goods (most universities don't offer parking for their students so a car really is NOT necessary!).

If someone lives at home they'd not get the accommodation and food vouchers of course, and exceptions should be made in cases where a student can prove that they are investing the money into a house for example (as a deposit) or where a student has special circumstances, for example if someone requests only one kind of vouchers because they have easy/cheap access to the other resources.

This way, students could use their *loan* towards the stuff that it&#
39;s MEANT for, and if they really *need* a new stereo or mobile, or feel the need to spend more time down the pub than at Uni, then they can get a job!

*** Update Over ***

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