• It's a negative in terms of perception of what a University education is for, in that it encourages students to believe themselves customers who are investing in themselves in order to make more money than if they did not go. University should be about an education - not about a future financial transaction.

    If I was looking at University now I would assume that I'd be balancing the average student debt of 50k against my chosen course being 7 years instead of 3 (Architecture), and therefore a total debt load of 100k before I started working properly. An average salary for an Architect is ~77k, which isn't bad - but that's a lot of debt to shoulder and a significant tax burden to pay it back.

    Contrast that with Fine Art BA then MA - same debt load, unsure what the salary/earning potential would be.

  • If I was looking at University now I would assume that I'd be
    balancing the average student debt of 50k against my chosen course
    being 7 years instead of 3 (Architecture), and therefore a total debt
    load of 100k before I started working properly. An average salary for
    an Architect is ~77k, which isn't bad - but that's a lot of debt to
    shoulder and a significant tax burden to pay it back.

    Contrast that with Fine Art BA then MA - same debt load, unsure what
    the salary/earning potential would be.

    Indeed. What happened to education for the sake of education? Everything is now viewed and valued only through an economic lens and, thats, like, just wrong, man.

  • Try fucking up an engineering degree for 3 years, then doing an Archaeology BA, then an MSc. Luckily I only came out with £18k of SLC debt (Masters was a £2k postgraduate bank loan).

    Were I still an Archaeologist, I'd probably not have paid anything off, even at 36. As it stands I have a very decent job and cleared my SLC loan last year.

    Had I taken the same education path today, that loan would have been many times greater.

  • Fine Art BA then MA

    I have this

    what the salary/earning potential would be.

    Only instagram likes

  • If I was looking at University now... my chosen course being 7 years instead of 3 (Architecture),

    It's 5 years full-time study and if you have any sense you take a year or two out to work and earn money between years 3 and 4. Graduate salaries are around 21k, a bit more in London.

    An average salary for an Architect is ~77k, which isn't bad -

    Lol. Where'd you find that? This year's surveys show average (median) salary of £38.5k nationally - £42k in London, £36k non-London. Most places you'd need to be a partner/director to be earning that kind of money.

  • it encourages students to believe themselves customers

    At least now that university courses come under Consumer law there is a little more incentive not to completely fabricate the marketing material. Unfortunately the complete (total) marketisation of education means that providers are greatly incentivised to find ever more slippery ways to embellish the truth about what they offer. It's all about making the sale. Although there are dozens of metrics used to assess the quality of the service (including student satisfaction, rate of employment etc), these only seem to have value for more marketing, through ranking and rating.

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