Minister: students ‘taken advantage of’ on ‘dumbed down’ degrees

"Dumbed down degrees", no mention of 'grievance studies' courses though?

Finally, this has been recognised. In my first two jobs at institutions that shall, of course, remain nameless I could not believe what was happening. One of my first undergraduate project students subsequently served me at the till of a DIY store. Joining from commerce, I was shocked that public money was being used to waste the time of students, who then took non-graduate jobs that they could have started 3-4 years earlier. At least in those days (the early 90s), there were no loans but now it is even worse since students may end up in the same non-graduate roles but with large debts that will most likely eventually be written off at more cost to the taxpayer. The development of vocational education is essential to give all students an appropriate route into positive futures.

I support the increase of standards. Successive Tory governments have increased competition between universities and made us fight for every student we can get. Once they are there, sub-par students drag down the quality, and the few good students feel alienated. It's a downward spiral. Corona has even increased this trend. The least capable students (poor them for being lured into this!) also complain the most because they are trying to resist any high standards because they wouldn't be able to pass. So it's a race to the bottom. Combine this with the current cancel culture, the use of student evaluations for promotions and hiring, and the need to keep the social media accounts of the University clean from any complaints for marketing purposes to lure even more students in, then nobody really has any incentives to keep the standards up. You ask students to do something, you lose. My Department Head told me literally that our Department has given up on teaching standards and we now focus on research because we can't resist the trend towards the bottom. It really is time to do something about it, but it needs to come from the very top, and nobody will support it because no academic wants to lose their job, which would be more likely if head count wasn't the primary goal anymore. It's such a sad development, and the Tories basically f*cked this all up in the first place with their tuition fees, which then provided universities with the wrong incentives.

I was very pleased to see what Michelle Donelan said and I agree with her. For over 5 years I have also campaigned against further expansion of undergraduate and post graduate degrees and the Universities that deliver them. We already have more than we need and public money could be better used to improve social mobility by improving education from the age of 3 for those born into disadvantaged communities. Many Universities seem to have lost the plot and merely want to maintain income and jobs for those they employ rather than focus on the needs of their students and providing benefit to the communities where they are located.

As the recipient of one of these degrees (Criminology and Sociology) from one of these universities, I wholeheartedly agree that the universities are failing not only the students, but as a result, society itself. Much of the course material was centred around neo-Marxist critiques of modern institutions (exclusing the universities, or course). My degree has left me in debt, with no immediate access to graduate level jobs specific to my field of study. I must take my own portion of the responsibility, after all I made the decision to partake in the course. But the fact that the courses all cost around the same amount, there is an implication that the courses are offered equally valuable. They aren't. If I could go back and do it all over I would study something in the STEM fields. Right now I feel like handing my degree back the the university.

At long last - some common sense. The figure of 50% at University was a dangerous aberration and abundantly clear that this was a contradiction to maintaining high educational standards: 50% of people are not University educatable. The greatest loss in all this, is the tremendous (and unappreciated) effort of academics. As non-academics have infiltrated the sector and risen to positions of power, life for the academic has become harder and harder. A reckoning had to take place but I wonder who will bear the brunt... the politicians who mandated these regulations, the non-academics who have insist on their implementation.... or the academics? My guess is the latter.