Tuition fees in the UK to rise.

steven s said:
I think government and companies only look at short term goals, not long term.
Education, whether it's academic or technical is long term. I don't think government/business are able to see the forest through the trees.
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Steven no problems with that here, as the next liberal government will of course cut down the forests for Japanese pulp milling ;)

The injection of a capitalist style education system into Australia has been a complete disaster. There are some serious questions being asked about foreign students and how they are graded, whether or not this is done to attract students, leading to dropping academic levels, etc. It should be fairly obvious when the same piece of work is handed in by five separate students that something isn't quite right.
 
AnthonyCea said:
So there is no silver lining in the last decade or so since 2001, I agree, that is why most economists say the world is slipping into or is in the 'worst depression since the great depression'.

Hey and we wonder why kids are rioting, LOL !!

PS: Why are prices so high ??

PPS: The rich have the markets rigged !!
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Who are "the rich"?
Besides, your theory should really include the UN, a global shadow government and alien spaceships. The crazier a conspiracy theory is, the more people it attracts. If you do it right, you might even start your own religion. Hollywood will embrace it.
Hey! You can tell people that Bush is half alien! Cheney runs the global econo-corporate shadow government and aliens secretly run the world through secret UN treaties! Now we're on to a proper conspiracy!
 
Blandt said:
That's the biggest misconception we have here in the US : in fact you DO DECIDE :) if your math is inadequate, your physics is less than "physics" then you have decided what you want to do !
isn't that right ?
same goes here in private schools .. your grades decide for you what you can and cannot take :)
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Do you decide which books are used ?

Do you decide which topics are taught and their content ?

For example even in University in which you pay ... some courses use the books that professors

from your school wrote and force you to buy those books and not neccesarily the best book(s)

on the topic.
 
Jo. said:
In the UK, having a masters degree in science doesn't get you a much higher paid job than if you have just a bachelors... and if you have a PhD there's not much in it between the amount you could earn compared with those with just a masters degree. In the States, the difference in payrolls between those groups is huge compared to over here. Scientists are not particularly valued in this country in my opinion. It certainly feels that way anyway. It's all about business and marketing etc. If you study one of the sciences as your 'major' then you don't expect to end up earning a fortune and so you tend to do it because you enjoy it. I like that in a way but I sure do wish that our government would value our country's scientists more!!
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And the government says we need more scientists... :/
 
AnthonyCea said:
Who are the rich Fred ?

http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/WATinquirychaos.htm

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=995&bih=618&q=Kissinger Cheney Halliburton Iraq&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

I guess you can figure things out from here, if you need more help let me know.
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You didn't answer the question. In fact, your links show that my sarcastic remarks regarding conspiracies and shadow governments run by multi-national corporations approximate your actual world view.
I think I'll disengage at this point. You're too out there for me.
 
AmericanForum.com said:
Do you decide which books are used ?

Do you decide which topics are taught and their content ?

For example even in University in which you pay ... some courses use the books that professors

from your school wrote and force you to buy those books and not neccesarily the best book(s)

on the topic.
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Do you also think that you should tell your doctor which medicine you need ?

"Ask your doctor if this is right for you :D :D " .... Of course you don't get to decide which book you use ... that's just common sense
 
Shamil said:
And the government says we need more scientists... :/
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yep. Makes no sense. They say we need more scientists, but don't value the ones they have... or those trying to become one. Our Physics dept. is one of the best in the country for particle physics, but even we're struggling to keep funding and have lost PhD places, research positions and staff. And the science taught in schools (by 'school' I don't mean university... for you Americans... ;) ) is getting ridiculous. Kids aren't exactly encouraged to go into science... it's all about business and finance and earning lots of money.

In fact, even when I was at school, the teachers went on an on about how "if you want to earn lots of money, don't become a scientist". That's enough to put the majority of kids nowadays off going into science!
 
Jo. said:
yep. Makes no sense. They say we need more scientists, but don't value the ones they have... or those trying to become one. Our Physics dept. is one of the best in the country for particle physics, but even we're struggling to keep funding and have lost PhD places, research positions and staff. And the science taught in schools (by 'school' I don't mean university... for you Americans... ;) ) is getting ridiculous. Kids aren't exactly encouraged to go into science... it's all about business and finance and earning lots of money.

In fact, even when I was at school, the teachers went on an on about how "if you want to earn lots of money, don't become a scientist". That's enough to put the majority of kids nowadays off going into science!
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Unfortunately, that's completely true, it's a really sad fact. I can see universities merging and closing as well as a host of other things, as a result of what's happening today. The Browne report was good, but it didn't look into these consequences.
 
Jo. said:
yep. Makes no sense. They say we need more scientists, but don't value the ones they have... or those trying to become one. Our Physics dept. is one of the best in the country for particle physics, but even we're struggling to keep funding and have lost PhD places, research positions and staff. And the science taught in schools (by 'school' I don't mean university... for you Americans... ;) ) is getting ridiculous. Kids aren't exactly encouraged to go into science... it's all about business and finance and earning lots of money.

In fact, even when I was at school, the teachers went on an on about how "if you want to earn lots of money, don't become a scientist". That's enough to put the majority of kids nowadays off going into science!
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This really goes exactly to what I was trying to say before, there is often no money in science, so it is not as highly valued as other money generating streams for a university... really really annoys me. The world needs less Financiers and Stock brokers and derivatives traders and lawyers! We need MORE scientists and engineers, and medical researchers, and ethicists, and philosophers and theologists and teachers and nurses and so on and so forth. We also need to value and respect those non commercial academic streams infinately more.

We (countries) who have gone down the path of Paid Higher Education and have pursued the Capitalist Holy Grail of only churning out commercially oriented degrees have done so at the expense of all of the above, and as I said before we are poorer and stupider for it.

The world would be a better place if our leaders hadn't skipped those Philosophy and Ethics classes in their first year at uni.
 
Fred, you said some crazy stuff like I am running some sort of cult and that I should start a church, well I think you are in the "Church of Bush/Kissinger/Cheney" (Houston Oil Criminals who ruined the entire world economy and banking system) and you really do believe the hogwash lies they feed the world.

I guess according to people like you it is alright to murder innocent people in Iraq to 'secure the oil for Exxon, BP and their partners', all based on a lie that Saddam had nuclear weapons and was responsible for 9/11.

To you there is no corruption in the oil business and never has been.
 
Jo. said:
yep. Makes no sense. They say we need more scientists, but don't value the ones they have... or those trying to become one. Our Physics dept. is one of the best in the country for particle physics, but even we're struggling to keep funding and have lost PhD places, research positions and staff. And the science taught in schools (by 'school' I don't mean university... for you Americans... ;) ) is getting ridiculous. Kids aren't exactly encouraged to go into science... it's all about business and finance and earning lots of money.

In fact, even when I was at school, the teachers went on an on about how "if you want to earn lots of money, don't become a scientist". That's enough to put the majority of kids nowadays off going into science!
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Scientists' work are usually unappreciated since they don't roll over instant profit. Most of top students want to go into engineering, law, and medical areas for college here. The ones that purely want money (the majority) go into business. Out of my graduating college class, 800 out of 3500+/- students graduated with some sort of business degree. (and this is with 7 sub-colleges) Many of the classes I wanted to take were canceled due to the low amount of students in my major.
 
turtile said:
Scientists' work are usually unappreciated since they don't roll over instant profit. Most of top students want to go into engineering, law, and medical areas for college here. The ones that purely want money (the majority) go into business. Out of my graduating college class, 800 out of 3500+/- students graduated with some sort of business degree. (and this is with 7 sub-colleges) Many of the classes I wanted to take were canceled due to the low amount of students in my major.
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But science isn't about profit, it's about discovery and development that leads to improvements in life or solutions to problems like the energy crisis etc. Not everything's about money and it's sad that people in government seem so blinkered sometimes. As for turning a profit or contributing to the country's economy... the space industry is one of the UK's biggest providers to the economy (through various different routes), and yet there would be no space industry without science or scientists.
 
Jo. said:
yep. Makes no sense. They say we need more scientists, but don't value the ones they have...
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Jo. said:
But science isn't about profit, it's about discovery and development that leads to improvements in life or solutions to problems like the energy crisis etc. Not everything's about money and it's sad that people in government seem so blinkered sometimes.
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That seems contrary to one another. I got my degree in physics back in the early 1990s, but never worked a day as a physicist. I couldn't afford. I had a wife to support, children to feed, student loans, a mortgage, and a car payment. That wasn't going to happen with a BS, a Masters of a PhD. Instead, I remained working in IT. Today, I make a much better living than the majority of physicists.
I believe that is due to the belief the science is somehow its own value. Thats rubbish. If you want to attract the best people, then your work should have some kind of commercial or miliary value. The reality is the funding pool is finite, and if I have to decide between funding a project that leads to more fuel efficient jet engines or finding the next bunch extra-solar earth-like planets, I'm funding the engine.
The engine leads to less expensive commercial flights and more payload in military aircraft. The other project leads to a paper published in a science journal. Science purely for the sake of knowlege with no intrinsic value are the first things to be cut when budgets tighten.
If you are studying cow farts, butteryfly mating or conducting a study to learn if men over 75 years old enjoy sex, you've been warned. BTW, who the hell needed to do a study to find out the answer tot he last one is yes. If a man has a pulse, the answer is yes.
 
AnthonyCea said:
Fred, you said some crazy stuff like I am running some sort of cult and that I should start a church, well I think you are in the "Church of Bush/Kissinger/Cheney" (Houston Oil Criminals who ruined the entire world economy and banking system) and you really do believe the hogwash lies they feed the world.
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Actually, both you & Fred are cut of the same cloth. He's one side of the same coin you are. Both sides can be equally dangerous.

There is a middle and that's where most Americans find themselves.

Your continuing harping on the past President can be as off putting as well. Time to move forward and stop harping on the past. We learn from the past but get tired of being beat over the head with it.
 
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