Coursework isn't quite the 'doss' you think it is though - it is quite rigorously handled and, in some cases, harder than exams themselves (certainly my final A-level History coursework module was the hardest thing I've ever done academically thus far, even compared to university!) - and actually a lot more fair considering not everyone performs well in exams, which aren't particularly academically rigorous with regards to proving evaluation and so on - for example, it's pretty difficult to cite information in an exam, whereas referencing is something tested in coursework which is far more useful with regards to university.

 

Reality in higher education? There is a lot of reality in higher education, so long as you actually look for empirical evidence rather than listen to the Daily Mail.

The planned changes to GCSE’s and A-Levels will decimate the number of qualified applicants for university places. The days of coursework and modules are drawing to an end; grades solely determined by rigorous linear examinations should bring back some reality to Higher Education. ^_^

 

Coursework isn't easy.. My degree was 100% coursework and I had to do a hell of a lot of work and research for it, it wasn't just one day where you might be good or bad.. Exams are a totally unrealistic barometer of performance... When you're in the workplace, it's not just your knowledge on one particular day you're assessed on, your performance is regularly and rigorously tested and judged at various junctures.. You work performance is continually assessed, so why not your uni degree or school qualifications...?

 

You do realise you won't pay anything until you're earning £21K a year, and even then you'll only be paying £5 a month?

 

One of the concerns is that with such a high amount of debt it will make it nigh impossible for graduates to take out loans and eventually mortgage. You try getting a good interest rate on a house when you owe about £30 grand.

 

Of course I'm one of the lucky ones, when I complete my final year I will be the last group to pay £3,000 a year, and I have had a year of studying in America worth over £20,000 paid for me by the British Council.

The planned changes to GCSE’s and A-Levels will decimate the number of qualified applicants for university places. The days of coursework and modules are drawing to an end; grades solely determined by rigorous linear examinations should bring back some reality to Higher Education. ^_^

Woah woah woah, are you seriously telling me that the finals don't actually count for that much at GCSE/A-Level???

 

I had 100% exams in High school. Was actually quite good in preparing for uni in a way seeing as highers and their structure aren't too dissimilar to the way my uni course is run

You have the same problem with student loans though... There are precious few people who have moved abroad that are actually paying anything back into the system as it stands now (I personally know people who are now working in Australia and Canada who are paying absolutely sweet FA of their student loan back simply because the Student Loans Company has absolutely no bloody idea where they are, but, fukk it, they've managed to beat the system, so good on them I say...), so, I don't see how this changes anything.. At least a Graduate Tax wouldn't have you paying back interest would it...? Nor would it be a "debt", and isn't "debt" supposed to be bad? Isn't "debt" and the Toxic Debts that the banks are responsible for creating the whole reason why this country's fukked in the first place...? So, being in "debt" is bad for the country, but perfectly okay for generations of students to be in "debt" their whole working lives... Naaah, it's stupid... A graduate tax is fair, a graduate tax is totally based on ability to pay, a graduate tax wouldn't squeeze the middle-earners the way this piece of crap does... And middle-earners would be the vast majority of graduates... So, that means your teacher, lecturers, doctors, etc being absolutely fukked an paying back a significantly greater proportion of their wages than some City Slicker does.... Bugger that.... <_<

 

Let's just put this whole fees thing to the side for a moment here, because that's not even the greatest scandal of this whole thing - the biggest scandal is the up to 80 FUKKIN PER CENT CUTS IN TEACHING BUDGETS

 

I mean, really, just what the hell is the justification for that then....? Disgusting.....

Oooooh i can skip out on paying back my £3k worth of loans by emigrating? SCORE!

One of the concerns is that with such a high amount of debt it will make it nigh impossible for graduates to take out loans and eventually mortgage. You try getting a good interest rate on a house when you owe about £30 grand.

 

Precisely...

 

There's no denying that coursework is tough, and can be harder than exams [i currently have a 6month continuous piece of coursework]

 

But there is no way you can deny that having multiple 100% exams is unnerving and highly stressful. I know people on stuff to lower their stress levels.

 

I have 6 finals to do at once this year, like last year. And it is the most stressful thing i have ever been through.

Woah woah woah, are you seriously telling me that the finals don't actually count for that much at GCSE/A-Level???

 

I had 100% exams in High school. Was actually quite good in preparing for uni in a way seeing as highers and their structure aren't too dissimilar to the way my uni course is run

 

Exams are always weighted more than coursework in pretty much every subject, apart from A-Levels where there is/used to be a coursework module. I generally find myself better at exams than coursework, but this is not the case for a lot of people. I know some very intelligent people, who just can't do exams because they panic too much. It is very unfair for a whole years worth of work to rest on ONE exam, purely because they can throw some quite awful questions at you. When I did my A-Levels, it was the final year before they changed the way modules were done and the examiners quite frankly through some awful questions just because it was the last ever paper. Cost me out on getting 3 As the w*n**rs.

 

Also i'm sure there was some massive uproar about an A-Level biology paper last summer about the question being on the most RIDICULOUS thing ever?? is stupid.

Exams are always weighted more than coursework in pretty much every subject, apart from A-Levels where there is/used to be a coursework module. I generally find myself better at exams than coursework, but this is not the case for a lot of people. I know some very intelligent people, who just can't do exams because they panic too much. It is very unfair for a whole years worth of work to rest on ONE exam, purely because they can throw some quite awful questions at you. When I did my A-Levels, it was the final year before they changed the way modules were done and the examiners quite frankly through some awful questions just because it was the last ever paper. Cost me out on getting 3 As the w*n**rs.

 

Also i'm sure there was some massive uproar about an A-Level biology paper last summer about the question being on the most RIDICULOUS thing ever?? is stupid.

You won't find an argument here, my Standard Grade Maths exam was the hardest they have ever given. The year before was a piece of p*** and the year after was a joke. Apparently the SQA had to drop the pass mark by a large amount otherwise most of my year would have failed the exam.

 

I am, not a fan of large finals.

I have a weird feeling that Edinburgh Uni might be quite popular in 2020.

 

 

Don't be ridiculous. Although this obviously isn't ideal, it won't make a practical bit of difference to most people from the current situation - they'll only pay off more if they can afford to pay off more due to the raising of the threshold from £15,000 to £21,000, and the 30 year expiration clause. As payment levels are graduated (you'll only pay back £5 a month when you're on £21,000 a year, hardly massively taxing) it won't make the slightest bit of difference in all practicality.

 

What WILL hurt university education is the 80% cuts that the doubling/tripling of fees is expected to fill. It doesn't take a genius to realise that that doesn't quite add up, so it disgusts me that students are expected to pay more for a worse service.

 

It might not make a practical difference, but the fact is that it will act as a deterrent to poorer young people. I might've been able to grudgingly make my peace with a rise if the cap was only being lifted to £5000, to a relatively low level where all universities would be charging the same - but, with the cap placed so high, the probability is that worse universities will only charge about £5000 while the redbricks charge the full £9000 - that will inevitably lead to very bright students from poor backgrounds (who surveys have consistently shown are more debt-averse than people from richer backgrounds) under-selling themselves by going to second-rate unis when they have the academic ability to go to top unis. And I simply don't believe the Coalition when they say that there'll be strict conditions on universities that want to charge £9000 - the fact that they tried to rush through the vote on raising the cap before they outline these "obligations" looks very suspicious, and indeed, any obligations they do set will be outweighed by the deterrent impact that cuts to EMA and AimHigher will have. Add to that the fact that worse universities are very likely to start going out of business before long (due to the fact that they will probably charge lower fees, AND that their graduates are proportionally less likely to ever reach the £21,000 repayment threshold), and everything about these proposals indicate disaster for social mobility in this country.

There's loads of precedent for a party reneging on a manifesto commitment. There's no precedent for a party reneging on its flagship commitment that it made as one of its main promises! You're being very pedantic by pointing to the four key pledges they put on paper as their main ones for this election - the Lib Dems have been renowned for their commitment to abolishing tuition fees and have made a huge song and dance of it every time there's been an election!

 

Although, let's look and see if the Lib Dems are even delivering on their supposed four key pledges...

 

 

Fair taxes - the IFS has said the raise in personal tax allowance is extremely regressive, and that's before we even go into the VAT rise. BROKEN PROMISE

A fair start for every child - the pupil premium is coming from the existing education budget, and the IFS has said it's effectively all policies that were put in place by Labour. BROKEN PROMISE

Fair, clean and local politics - any student would now greet with a hollow laugh the sugegstion that Lib Dems are delivering cleaner politics. BROKEN PROMISE

A fiar, green economy with jobs which will last - the environment and climate change budgets were among the heaviest hit in the spending review. BROKEN PROMISE

 

But what would Labour have done if they had won the election? Would they have dismissed the findings of the report they commissioned?

 

A graduate tax sounds attractive at first but what about people who get a degree and then go and get a job in Germany or the US for example? They would pay nothing. Under the government's proposals, there is a limit on how much will be paid back. Under a graduate tax there is no such limit. It would just be time limited. The only difference - and I agree that it is a significant difference - is that the tuition fee debt would be taken into consideration in a mortgage application.

 

Just bear in mind how much worse it would be if there was a majority Tory government. There would be no limit on tuition fees. There would be no obligations on universities wishing to charge more than £6,000 per year. The threshold for repayment would be going up every five years, not every year.

 

Everyone knows the findings of the Browne review were heavily influenced by the Coalition. The report's conclusions were predicated on the 80% cut to teaching grants, which Labour wouldn't've made.

 

As others have said, there's nothing stopping someone escaping paying back their loans even as it is, so there would be no difference in that respect if it was a graduate tax. And the fact there would be no limit on how much one would pay back under a graduate tax is one of the beauties of it - it would mean that graduates who go on to become doctors would rightly pay over the odds for the advantages they've received, while people lower down the scale wouldn't have to pay anything.

 

Also, while the new system might be better on people on low incomes (although there's abig question mark over whether those people will now get to university in the first place), it's going to clobber people on middle incomes. Someone who bobs along on £28k a year for the full 30 years of the repayment period will bleed part of their income for that whole time, while someone who gets a job as a City banker will burn off their debts within a few years - how is that fair?

 

I frankly think that if this was a Tory majority govt, we wouldn't've have seen fees rise so high, I think they'd only have only gone up to £7k or so - as we saw yesterday, it's not like the Tories are universally in favour of fees either. But, on this issue like so many others, the Lib Dems have obliged to become the Tories' human shields, allowing them to fulfill their wildest Thatcherite wet dreams.

 

Oh, and by the way - the fees rise still needs to be approved by the House of Lords on Tuesday before it becomes law. It's not completely impossible that it will be defeated there, as the Lords have already inflicted a couple of defeats on the Coalition on minor issues, but it's probably unlikely they'll do it on such a major issue so early in the Coalition's term.

Although, let's look and see if the Lib Dems are even delivering on their supposed four key pledges...

Fair taxes - the IFS has said the raise in personal tax allowance is extremely regressive, and that's before we even go into the VAT rise. BROKEN PROMISE

A fair start for every child - the pupil premium is coming from the existing education budget, and the IFS has said it's effectively all policies that were put in place by Labour. BROKEN PROMISE

Fair, clean and local politics - any student would now greet with a hollow laugh the sugegstion that Lib Dems are delivering cleaner politics. BROKEN PROMISE

A fiar, green economy with jobs which will last - the environment and climate change budgets were among the heaviest hit in the spending review. BROKEN PROMISE

The IFS said that the overall budget package was regressive. The increase in the personal allowance is definitely progressive. Vince Cable is also making more effort than previous governments on the issue of tax avoidance.

 

It is too early to judge whether all the government's measures will deliver on a fair start for every child.

 

There will be a referendum on AV which, if passed, would be a move towards fairer politics, albeit a small one. We have yet to see whether they will deliver on the local part and what they will do about financing of politics.

 

Cameron has claimed that this will be the greenest government ever. We'll see but, frankly, it wouldn't be difficult. Agreed they haven't made a great start but let's judge them over a longer peiod than six months.

 

I have a weird feeling that Edinburgh Uni might be quite popular in 2020.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

Not if St Andrews and Edinburgh have their way. I'm willing to bet it takes less than a week for them to start crying that Oxbridge can charge more for tuition than they can

One of the concerns is that with such a high amount of debt it will make it nigh impossible for graduates to take out loans and eventually mortgage. You try getting a good interest rate on a house when you owe about £30 grand.

 

Of course I'm one of the lucky ones, when I complete my final year I will be the last group to pay £3,000 a year, and I have had a year of studying in America worth over £20,000 paid for me by the British Council.

It'll be the norm though, so they're hardly going to start denying it to every graduate just because of their nominal debt...

What's with all the hate to Nick Clegg? All politicians since the turn onf WW2 lie? Why are people so surprised? Own stupiud fault for voting for him in the first place 'cos he's always been a cock!!!

The difference is that no politician since WW2 has u-turned on what was their party's most famous flagship policy in so shameless a manner...