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"Training out the stupid"
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CJay:

--- Quote from: SilverSolder on December 20, 2020, 07:01:15 pm ---
--- Quote from: CJay on December 20, 2020, 06:34:32 pm ---[...]
There seems to be some bizarre idea that more graduates equals better so we've got a system that became really good at awarding lots of degrees that are of no use to anyone other than the people who profit form awarding them.

--- End quote ---

I recently read an article that theorized that the disappointment of a massive number of downcast and discontented graduates chasing too few good jobs was part of the general climate that e.g. led to Trump, Brexit, etc.

--- End quote ---
The figures don't bear that out for Brexit though.

70% of voters whose educational attainment is only GCSE or lower voted to Leave.
68% of voters with a university degree voted to Remain in the EU
Those with A levels and no degree were evenly split, 50% to 50%.
Under-25s were more than twice as likely to vote Remain (71%) than Leave (29%).
Among over-65s the picture is almost the exact opposite, as 64% of over-65s voted to Leave while only 36% voted to Remain.
Among the other age groups, voters aged 24 to 49 narrowly opted for Remain (54%) over leave (46%) while 60% of voters between the ages of 50 and 64 went for Leave.

So Brexit was voted for mostly by uneducated old farts.
bd139:
Could have done with COVID a few years back to thin the herd  :-DD
coppice:

--- Quote from: Cerebus on December 20, 2020, 07:27:17 pm ---
--- Quote from: CJay on December 20, 2020, 06:34:32 pm ---There seems to be some bizarre idea that more graduates equals better so we've got a system that became really good at awarding lots of degrees that are of no use to anyone other than the people who profit form awarding them.

--- End quote ---
I think it was pure cynicism on the behalf of New Labour. There was an observation that graduates were more likely to vote for a middle class version of left-leaning politics, the exact demographic the (failed) SDP had aimed for, and they thought that broadening the group of people who went to university was a way to create a bigger pool of voters sympathetic to New Labour's 'Tory lite' policies. They just rode on the back of all the earlier Tory messing about with higher education adding their own twist to it. So, suddenly we had university degrees in hotel management, leisure management and other things with a much lower entry bar than academic and engineering subjects.

--- End quote ---
It goes deeper than New Labour. Expanding the universities was about managing the dole queues.

In the 80s, when Japan was doing extremely well, we kept hearing how Japan put 18% of its youngsters through university, and Britain didn't. This ignored something key - Japan calls most tertiary education university, while the UK had a mixture of universities, polytechnics, technical colleges and other ways to study beyond school. When you totalled that up it came to over 15% of UK youngsters, so not a world apart from Japan. However, at a time of high unemployment, politicians saw keeping a whole bunch of young people off the streets for an extra three years as an excellent idea. Damn the cost, which was borne by the government then. So, the great expansion of universities began. The really big step change in universities occurred in the early 90s, during Conservative rule, before Blair was on the scene. 40 years ago the number of left wing people at university was not that big. They were very vocal, but not that numerous. I think left wing politicians just had a windfall. More people at university means more average people at university. That means an expansion of undemanding courses. That's fertile ground for things going off the rails.
Cerebus:

--- Quote from: coppice on December 20, 2020, 08:11:51 pm ---40 years ago the number of left wing people at university was not that big.

--- End quote ---

People who identified as hard left, yes very few. People who identified as soft left was almost everybody else apart from the tiny handful in the Federation of Conservative Students. I was at one of the universities that was universally regarded as one of the least left leaning (we had a Tory grandee as Chancellor), and that certainly describes the situation there. Our Student Union was remarkably centrist as Student Unions go, but it was still most definitely left of centre.

The Tories in the late 80's and early 90s didn't expand higher education, they just relabelled it. So polytechnics became universities, Colleges of Education merged into a university or a newly chartered ex-polytechnic and so on. My university suddenly acquired an extra campus 20 miles away that was a former College of Education (Teacher Training College). There was a lot of merging going on, there were no new institutions being formed or extra capacity being added. All that changed was that the number of people graduating with CCNA certified degrees suddenly got added to the number of people graduating with university degrees. It did this:


(Source, House of Commons Library)

Notice how the trend line from '93 to 2000 pretty much follows the existing trend (after you've taken out the 'former polytechnic' jump), possibly even flattening out a bit. Then it gets into the period where Labour's new students start graduating and the curve bends sharply upward - it's no accident that happens 3-4 years after New Labour got into power.
coppice:

--- Quote from: Cerebus on December 20, 2020, 09:30:25 pm ---People who identified as hard left, yes very few. People who identified as soft left was almost everybody else apart from the tiny handful in the Federation of Conservative Students. I was at one of the universities that was universally regarded as one of the least left leaning (we had a Tory grandee as Chancellor), and that certainly describes the situation there. Our Student Union was remarkably centrist as Student Unions go, but it was still most definitely left of centre.

--- End quote ---
What has the student's union got to do with anything beyond the small number who have any involvement in the students union? Compulsory payments to the student's union have always been a scam pumping money to activists working against the interests of those making the payments. When I was at university the activists used to tour the refectories every lunchtime in the run up to students union elections, because the turnout was so small it made them look bad. Nothing happened in my time at university on which anything about my political views could be assessed, other than perhaps the rude way we told those trying to get us to vote to leave us alone to enjoy our lunch.


--- Quote from: Cerebus on December 20, 2020, 09:30:25 pm ---The Tories in the late 80's and early 90s didn't expand higher education, they just relabelled it. So polytechnics became universities, Colleges of Education merged into a university or a newly chartered ex-polytechnic and so on. My university suddenly acquired an extra campus 20 miles away that was a former College of Education (Teacher Training College). There was a lot of merging going on, there were no new institutions being formed or extra capacity being added. All that changed was that the number of people graduating with CCNA certified degrees suddenly got added to the number of people graduating with university degrees. It did this:


(Source, House of Commons Library)

Notice how the trend line from '93 to 2000 pretty much follows the existing trend (after you've taken out the 'former polytechnic' jump), possibly even flattening out a bit. Then it gets into the period where Labour's new students start graduating and the curve bends sharply upward - it's no accident that happens 3-4 years after New Labour got into power.

--- End quote ---
With the early 90s expansion a huge number of people previously working and doing a mixture of day release and evening classes became full time students doing degrees quite quickly. The big expansion in the number of degree awarding institutions didn't expand the total number of people studying overnight. Obviously it couldn't. It took time to build out and expand those institutions, but it was a necessary first step to provide the space to expand. Too many existing universities were reaching their limits of expansion, unless they uprooted and built an entire new campus in a more remote location. At the end of the second world war there was an expectation of universities rapidly expanding over the following decades, as the need for STEM people was expected to explode. Some of the famous city bound places, like UCL, had discussions about relocating to an entirely new and unconstrained campus. I don't think any of them actually moved. So, instead, the number of universities expanded in the 60s. Then the number had to expand again in the 90s, as many of the new universities from the 60s also reached constraints. By then, the UK's demand for STEM people had collapsed, so the expansion was not meeting industrial needs.
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