Believe me, when you & I are pushing up the daisies he'll find that experience very useful, far more useful in fact than anything he might have learnt from university.

As Fudgeley has so rightly pointed out a university education should be for the pursuit of knowledge and an academic career, we need a small number of such people that's obvious, but we need far more people like you're son, who have worked across all aspects of their industry and who can bring this experience to bear on problems when they arise. Having a first class honours degree ain't much help when you're on site building a new petrol refinery and you find the drawings are all wrong and there's a deadline to be met

I work in a University that will be charging full fees in the 2012 academic year.

The reason Uni's are charging these fees is because the Govt has withdrawn a vast amount of funding from Universities (mainly on Arts courses).

For a University to function, and offer a wide range of courses to suit everyone; the money needs to come from somewhere.

If the fees weren't charged, universities would be:
a) making large redundancies (1000+ at large unis)
b) drastically reducing the courses they offered

This would mean that although students wouldn't have half as much debt, there wouldn't be as many courses - in fact most of the arts courses wouldn't exist, and a lot of the mangement/science/medical courses would go too.

Either we charge fees and people make the decision to go to uni and take on the debt; or we don't charge fees and the decision is removed from most people as a lot of the courses don't exist.

I went to Uni 1998 - 2002 and have approx £15k of debt (for a mickey mouse degree in Eng Lit). I only started paying it back when I earned over £16k and pay approx £60 per month back.

People need to stop going on about free education - everyone has the opportunity to get free education until they are 18 years old.

what's wrong with option 2

Which one is option 2?

The thing is that most students won't know a lot of that because it won't be part of what they are doing. People who are interested in finance will study finance, people who are interested in film making for television will study that and people who are interested in sales and marketing will study for those subjects. Generally arts students will be focusing on making the product or designing it and so will learn about that process because those are the jobs they will be applying for.

I don't know much about advertising as that isn't the area I want to go down. However, if you take a look at a course such as illustration then it is broken down like this:

First year they will learn the basics of illustrating and illustrative techniques, printmaking, graphics and typography, history of design/illustration, exploration into the different techniques for different types of illustration (e.g. for animation, for scientific purposes, for adverts)

Second year illustration for publishing, illustration for children's publications, more printmaking, more illustration for different purposes (e.g. animation, scientific publications). During second year they will also most likely be required to do some work experience with a company to gain practical hands on experience and also to explore the various areas of illustration within the 'real world'.

Third year they generally specialise in the area they wish to work. They will do an exploratory project on their specified subject area (for example, children's books or medical journals or advertising) and also create a portfolio of work to show to companies once they finish university in order to get a job.

[/quote]
Just to sum up, yes you are right that employers are not encouraged to offer apprenticeships, they should be, and they should get tax breaks for doing so, but a lot of people in senior positions in many industries didn't even do an apprenticeship, Terry Leahy of Tesco started as a shelf stacker [/quote]

But people who are now in senior positions despite not having the necessary qualifications or having done an apprenticeship, worked their way up when we were in a much different social and economical situation.

My dad left school at 16 with one Olevel and no work experience and worked his way up to the position of logistics director by the time he was 45. However, my boyfriend who has more qualifications than my dad did and just as much experience cannot even get a job at minimum wage because the jobs are going to either those with more experience or those with better degrees than his. You can't compare then and now because the situation is so very different.

As you said, the government have pushed so many people to go to university without thinking about the consequences that they have caused a huge number of problems. However, they are doing the same thing by simply hiking up the tuition fees and saying that not as many people should go to university. They are creating a situation whereby they fix the immediate problem (fewer people go to university) and do not actually have a long term solution (e.g. more apprenticeships and vocational courses).

Thank you! I cannot wait to get a job at the end of it and actually get into the 'real world'.

Totally agree, I expect you can do a degree nowadays in watching paint dry! The are now thinking of putting it back to how it used to be in my day, whereby you had to study one of the half a dozen main courses, i.e. English, Geog, Maths, etc. they're going to do away with most of the other studies or at least they are thinking along those lines for the future. We had to earn our placed in uni, we didn't pay, but of course, our parents had to keep us for the duration.

Yes, typical of governments, nothing new there

Very pleased to see you aren't considering advertising, when I was your age I did consider advertising but decided against it, and TBH that is one decision I've never regretted

And thanks for taking the time to publish the year 1,2, & 3 course contents, it made interesting reading (For me at least)

The world has changed, for me 'tho I just can't help feeling that it has not always changed for the better, sure there are plenty of things I like about the modern world, but there a few that I don't

b in your post les courses. What's wrong with that. More worthwhile courses less costs free education again I hate how the older generation had the best of everything are denying same for next generation

Nothing wrong per se, but the Govt don't want thousands more added to the out-of-work/redundancy numbers. And it would be thousands - every British university would have to make staff redundant - both academic and administrative.

Many of those made redundant would be unable to find a 'normal' job - what kind of jobs does a Professor in German and Austrian Studies, or a Reader in Medieval British History, try and get once they've been made redundant?

Plus, who decides what's a worthwhile course? Why is a Business Economics degree more worthwhile than an Ethics, Philosophy and Religion degree, or a Human Geography degree?

No trouble, always happy to explain my point a little further and give some more info I've found it quite interesting looking at what actually makes up the syllabus while I've been looking for courses!

Yes, I don't think advertising would be my cup of tea either But then again I would love to be a teacher and I'm sure lots of advertisers would hate to do that for a job!

Definitely agree! I think perhaps our 'modern' world cannot be sustained at the level we have become accustomed to in recent years