Was it misguided to suggest that students could study ancient languages and art and expect a well-paying career at the end? (Picture: Getty)
Did you get a degree or was taking a more vocational path the best decision you ever made?
Now, with the government promising to crack down on degrees that don’t lead to decent jobs, what about wanting to pursue subjects that truly spark your interest? Or is that just wishful thinking considering the massive debt many students face?
Do you agree with the readers who argue that it simply isn’t worth it?
Some might say, it’s not the degree but how you use it.
What do you think?
‘Curbing ‘rip-off’ degrees is a return to common sense’
Re Metro, Tue: ‘PM vows to curb ‘rip-off’ degrees that don’t lead to good jobs’. At last it is recognised the perceived belief that only having a university degree means you get a good job is to be abandoned, and emphasis put back into more apprentice-based jobs like building skills, car maintenance, heating engineers and many other in-demand occupations.
Anyone over 60 has been saying it for years, as most never had a university education but had basic abilities to read, write and add up and worked all their lives in such jobs.
Not only will this return to common sense stop us relying on imported labour and give our 18-year-olds more job choices, it will eliminate the huge debt accumulated and they’ll have real-life experiences instead of the cloistered, woke, ‘we are right and nobody else has the right to challenge us’ peddled by universities. John, Canvey Island
METRO TALK – HAVE YOUR SAY
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‘What have students in England got to show for 25 years of paid education?’
It is 25 years since the universities started charging students for their education in England, and what have students got to show for it today?
Ministers are now telling them that studying the lost languages of the nomadic Norse tribesmen between 768 and 1115, is not a winner any more.
What? We could have told them as soon as the nonsense was dreamed up.
Does it take 25 years to wake up, minister?
It beggars belief that young people were allowed to waste three to four years of their lives to end up with a debt that they cannot service because they don’t actually earn enough and when they do, super inflation will wipe out any gains they thought they’d have when they threw their mortarboards in the air.
GB Ltd has a serious lack of skilled people in every field and qualifications achieved at university will not fill all the gaps in engineering, construction, agriculture, etc. And remember, it only says you have a good memory and that is why you qualified.
Does a university degree only prove you have the ability to remember things? (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
Every school leaver should be given the opportunity to take on an apprenticeship, maybe it should be tied to benefits – no job, no benefits – or training and benefits.
The country cannot keep banging along on the bottom, hoping that things will improve someday and it cannot wait for politicians, many of whom are scarpering before they go to an election, to do something.
They are currently trying to ease the visa requirements for overseas workers. But none of this would be necessary had the B word not got in the way, (Brexit dear, Brexit).
Employers should be subsidised to train young people to the tune of half their wages all the time the young are in training.
It needs a training programme that does not exploit the young or the not-so-young, and who would be guaranteed a job after the time served.
Other countries do it, so why not GB Ltd? But maybe that is too simplistic? Tony b, Thailand
Global warming isn’t new but we keep thinking of new ways to make it worse
We’ve gone from coal powered steam locomotives to diesel and electric powered trains (Credits: Getty Images/500px Plus)
Geoff Moore, Alness (MetroTalk, Tue) thinks that global warming is a new thing and only since the introduction of ‘SUVs, aviation or gas boilers’ – get real!
We’ve been pumping CO2 and other greenhouse gases and pollutants into our atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution more than 250 years ago. SUVs, aviation and gas boilers are just a continuation of the trend for burning fossil fuels.
Our factories, transport and home heating were once powered almost universally by coal.
We’ve swapped domestic coal for gas and, to a lesser extent, electricity. We’ve swapped coal-powered steam locomotives for diesel and electric-powered trains, petrol and diesel cars and aviation.
Our factories have mostly disappeared or been replaced by cheap labour in fossil-fuelled foreign factories.
Global warming is real, the causes are not new, we just find new ways of increasing the damage.
We need to change our ways; buy less and travel less is just the start.
So, Mr Moore of Alness, the natural forces of our world have not gone away, we’re just continuing to cause irreversible damage to them. David Naismith, Bristol
‘Why is your Land Rover more important than the planet?’
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Your front page story (Metro, Tue) about the car user protester says it all.
Man who cares more about his gas-guzzling 4×4 (cos he really needs a Land Rover in London of course) than the planet being destroyed and lives being lost and future generations ruined.
It’s people like this who are the problem – and the fact the government are making you believe it’s the peaceful protesters trying to save the planet who are the problem, says it all really.
People are literally dying but the masses are angry over a bit of orange dust, and a traffic jam is staggering.
The masses need to wake up and wake up fast or it’s soon going to be too late Angry, South Shields
Readers give some lessons on individual freedoms and public decency
Darounilu (MetroTalk, Thu) is right to ask how far as a society we should tolerate individual freedoms at the price of collective freedoms and responsibility.
For example, obesity-related problems cost the NHS billions per year.
Some airlines are reintroducing weighing of passengers. Public drinking is prohibited in many places.
Tattoos must be hidden in the police and other public-facing roles. Being topless in public is punishable by fines in lots of European towns – beachwear stays on the beach.
Manners and respect have long been lost in the UK and it is so sad that we value personal rights to behave exactly as we want over collective freedoms to behave properly.
We live in a society. Well done Darounilu!
Sorry Barry from Liverpool, do what you like at home but not in public. Jo, Peckham
I am a granny in my seventies, overweight and I want to respond to Darounilu’s letter (MetroTalk, Thu) and the responses related to it.
Although I disagree with the comment about people being fat and tattooed, I completely agree when Darounilu says that it is shameful to walk in public half-naked and drinking on the street.
It is even more shameful to burp in public.
When my daughter was a teenager she wasn’t allowed to go to school with a mini skirt showing her bum.
So don’t tell me, Di Douglas from London, that there is nothing wrong and it is not antisocial behaviour. Really?
You and I didn’t get the same education. Clearly.
Rose, Manchester
MORE : Crackdown on ‘rip-off’ university degrees with poor career prospects
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Metro readers are discussing the merits or lack there of, in receiving a university education.
