Useless degrees

ASM; have you read the article cited? Because he does mention middle class people and their superior genes.
It would, for example, have been difficult for my parents to discover their potential because they were never given the chance to; if they were clever (good genes) or thick (bad genes) didn't matter. They were poor working class people in an education system that had them labeled as factory fodder. They weren't expected or asked to excel. Admittedly these low expectations can become internalised and I guess I was lucky that they had more ambition for me than many of my friends' parents had for them.
In the end I turned out a bit of a disappointment because I share Plurabelle's views on what education is for and never used it to get the ''good job" they would have wanted me to.
So overall I find Woodhead a very dubious character.

Having talked to the dude I can't help but agree with him, because at ground zero, from inside higher education, much of what he says is painfully true. That guardian article stank of left wing journalism attacking a right wing figure. I don't care about what chris woodhouse says about genes or any of that nonsense, I care about what he says about education, because I can tell that, aside from his context (which is one that, on many levels, I am opposed to), he genuinely cares about education, and he can see that it is suffering, above all else.

The fact of the matter is that I agree with both you and plurabelle. I DO NOT SEE HIGHER EDUCATION SOLELY AS A MEANS OF SECURING A DECENT INCOME. Hence why I chose to study fine art, over a more academic/professional subject. I am jaded by the fact that I have discovered that all of these drives to get more and more people into university do not produce more and more people who have received a worthwhile educational experience. The education itself is reduced and diluted as the numbers increase.

UAL is run by administrators. For example, because of the 'financial crisis', spending has been cut across the board by 4%. Who feel this first? The fucking academic staff. Hours are being cut, and jobs being lost. And guess what, more administrators are hired to sort out the resulting mess. The admin look out for themselves. They have the power to hire and fire the people who actually do the teaching, and as a result the tutors are, on the whole, a miserable bunch of people who live in constant fear of hour cuts and no job.