List college courses that the taxpayer should NOT pay for

Denzil2222

I think this topic needs its own thread

tenchi-fan

Denzil2222 wrote: »

I think this topic needs its own thread

multimedia
cultural studies

Finnbar01

Hotel management
Media studies
Recreational management
Women studies

kazul

Why hotel management?
Tourism is a sustainable industry that requires very little investment and should be supported in every possible way.
The government should be flying yanks and others in for free to spend foreign currency here.

stimpson

Arts

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Jessibelle

Theology and Philosophy. Most other course you can do something to go on from be it teaching or other training, but this one seems to be a pure interest-only course.

southsiderosie

All of them.

jam_mac_jam

all of them or none, you cant decide what is more "worthy" or less worthy of money. Either you fund them all or none. Its the usual academic snobbery, where some cources are better than others, why is multimedia less worthy then IT for example if both people get a job from it but nobody would suggest that you dont fund IT.

Sleepy

Anything that couldn't be argued to be preparing someone for a real job. If you want to study dead languages or 15th Century Celtic Poetry, do it at your own expense imho. With public finances so tight, we should only be funding the education of those who will be paying enough tax when they join the workforce to repay the state. Engineering, Science, Maths, Business, Medicine, Pharmacology etc. The entire teaching of Arts needs to be looked at to provide the degrees with more focus. If an Arts student is expected to become a secondary teacher they should be doing the contents of the H Dip in Education as part of their degree and only studying subjects they'll be teaching at second level instead of taking 'easy options' like Society and Politics etc.

Numbers of places on many courses should be restricted to the required numbers in the next few years e.g. nursing / teaching etc. where demographics can show us clearly how many of each will be needed in 4/5 years time. There's a definite argument that the number of places available for law needs to be looked at if we're to continue allowing Kings Inns and The Law Society to regulate entry to the workforce through their examinations. We're squandering a lot of intelligent people's educations at the moment, providing them with an education in a legal system huge numbers of them will never work in.

My "controversial" opinion would be that Irish should be excluded from the free fees. Though that would only be part of a much broader set of changes.

A broad classical education has a lot to be said for it. I'd love to see more of it at second level which can often be too specialised imo.

All that said, I'd like to see much more funding of post-graduate courses in scientific and
technical areas. Universities like Harvard, MIT, Yale etc. have their reputations through the huge success rates of their graduates. If we're to ever develop our own Intel's, Google's, Pfizer's etc. rather than simply providing a business friendly environment for them to locate in, we need to invest in our people.

Sleepy

Oh, another one we should be looking at our funding of is courses like the ECDL. It's an utterly meaningless qualification in the modern world. If you can't use a word processor or spreadsheet without a training course, you've no place in an office outside of cleaning / maintenance etc.

Byron85

stimpson wrote: »

Arts

</thread>

Carl Sagan would disagree.

southsiderosie

Sleepy wrote: »

Anything that couldn't be argued to be preparing someone for a real job. If you want to study dead languages or 15th Century Celtic Poetry, do it at your own expense imho...

Yes and Harvard does not offer business as an undergraduate major (neither do many top universities). Most Harvard undergraduates major in liberal arts, and are fine when it comes to getting a job. In addition, there is a whole subset of liberal arts-only colleges in the United States (Amherst, Wesleyan, Oberlin, and Smith are a few of the better known ones). I majored in history as an undergraduate at an American university, and I had job offers from banks when I graduated.

One of the main complaints employers have is that new graduates cannot do the basics well: writing clearly and engaging in critical analysis. The traditional liberal arts focus on both. Personally, I think that undergraduate studies are far too specialized; instead of focusing on media studies, major in English and learn how to critically analyze written text; instead of majoring in business, major in economics, politics or math.

Nobody really knows what the labor market will need in 10 years time. So the best the country can hope to do is turn out graduates who can think analytically, convey their thoughts clearly in written and oral form, and have done well in whatever field they chose.

That said, I still think the government should abolish the free fees scheme.

ardmacha

I do not think it is a question of saying that the government should not value arts etc. Whether it be literature or history, study of these things is the mark of civilised nation and the reason why we have an economy is so that we can do these things. However there is a valid question of whether an unlimited number of people can be subsidised to do these subjects, which we can't.

Sardonicat

Maybe we should be looking at who is funded as opposed to what gets funded.

It's a nonsense to say only H Dip compatible subjects should be funded. Not everyone wants to be a teacher for a start. There are the subjects that have been on a promise to be added to LC curriculum for years(social science subject, for example). And then there are the subjects that aren't taught here at second level but are very much part of general education in other European countries.In France philosophy is a fundemental part of second level, and rightly so. Political studies are taught in many countries. We might have a population equipped to think critically and objectively about the causes and solutions to the current economic situation if they were grounded in these subjects from an early age. Instead we get knee jerk,
"everyone should pay except me", responses.

Sleepy

I'm not suggesting that all Arts subjects shouldn't be funded, merely that it should be re-organised into more focused degree courses. The workload in Arts is minimal compared to, for example, engineering. Ditto Commerce.

There's no reason why a three year 'BA in Secondary Education' couldn't include the two major Arts subjects being taken along with the content of the H.Dip Ed.

The same could be said of many of our courses. The current 3 year B.Comm could be completed in a year if it was taught at the same level of intensity as Engineering. A two year version of the course could be the equivalent of a current MBA.

Poor standards of writing and general education are more an indictment of our secondary system than our third level. If a Leaving Cert candidate can't write intelligibly or reach a minimum standard of Mathematical ability they shouldn't be receiving the certificate tbh.

Sardonicat

Actually, what you suggest re teaching is pretty much what happens in Germany, except it takes 5 years to complete! I don't think a three year degree is sufficient to educate a teacher but i definitely agree that teacher education needs a dramatic overhaul.

I really think it depends on what subject you study, tbh. Languages are pretty intensive. Some courses may not require much in output in terms of assignments but require a huge amount of reading compared to science subjects.

I did social policy and the work load was at least double that of the other sc subjects. It just depends on the subject.

smk89

Philosophy, I'm doing one as an elective this year for an easy pass. The levels of unwarranted self importance is unbelievable.

doc_17

Sleepy wrote: »

Oh, another one we should be looking at our funding of is courses like the ECDL.

I don't think the State funds ECDL does it? I teach it to transition year and they pay for it themselves.

Sardonicat wrote: »

I really think it depends on what subject you study, tbh. Languages are pretty intensive. Some courses may not require much in output in terms of assignments but require a huge amount of reading compared to science subjects.

I did social policy and the work load was at least double that of the other sc subjects. It just depends on the subject.

Yeah but Science (depending on branch) requires figuring out and lots of experiments and research. I'm not saying social policy doesn't but Science in general is a very important subject and should be treated as the equal of most things.

doc_17

I think as well it's bit unfair for people who have left college/uni and then turn around and say "Yeah those guys should pay for their education".

tenchi-fan

doc_17 wrote: »

I think as well it's bit unfair for people who have left college/uni and then turn around and say "Yeah those guys should pay for their education".

I suspect people who did arts courses are probably turning around and saying "wow, why did the government fund that course. It's a waste of time and now I can't get a job!"

Or more likely "it's the government's fault there are no jobs."

Ghost Estate

Its not so much that the taxpayer shouldnt pay for the courses. but that not too many people are allowed into the said courses

i mean like there is only room for a certain number of art teachers in the country..

johnnyskeleton

How about no college course should be funded by the government unless there is a shortage of graduates in that area?

D-Generate

Surely it would make sense to have course fees proportional to the average tax returns of graduates of said courses or even a smoothed average to account for sector employment plummeting at times (civil engineers) but still on a whole having been providing good tax returns in general.

If graduates are returning a high average tax rate then it means there is decent prospects from that course and there is a demand for graduates in the course.
If graduates are returning a low average tax rate it means that there is no demand for them.

Either that or every course should have fees and loans should be provided by the government with minimal interest. If you really want to pursue further education then you will do it regardless of the debt incurred initially.

Amhran Nua

I would agree we need to reduce the focus, and probably funding, of liberal arts type courses, but lets face it, the main reason the government would even consider removing free fees with a broad brush is because students are the least likely to vote. In terms of getting re-elected, that makes them an easy target.

This of course plays into the hands of the social darwinists who are flying a kite for a more "cut throat" education system, a bit like China has. Every argument about the economic good sense of making students pay the full cost of third level course is self defeating - if its such a good idea and investment, why isn't it a good idea for the Irish state to invest in it and get the maximum benefit as a result, without further enriching financial institutions on the backs of our children?

Then you get to the fact that introducing fees won't make third level educational institutions any wealthier; the government will just reduce their funding by the amount the fees are raised by, so you end up with teenagers burdened with five or six figure debt while you are still paying the same level of tax, and the universities are no richer.

The reality is that there is probably a great deal of fat that can be cut from the third level budget long before you need to look at removing or reducing the free fees situation (and they aren't free now by any means). One recent example was the order to cut up to a hundred surplus academic staff who hadn't agreed to the Croke Park deal. The deal still protects technical and administrative staff in these institutions however, and there have been no attempts to reduce systemic academic wastage that I am aware of, so there is a lot more that can be done.

Thats assuming of course you don't just find the savings somewhere else than education, which shouldn't be that big a stretch.

Still, as mentioned, we do need a reduced focus on some types of course, and yes, you can make judgements on that issue, which may involve reducing government assistance for those courses.

southsiderosie

I also not in favor of universal fees or "major" targeting. However, I would favor a merit-based grants scheme that paved the way for the most motivated students to go to university. Texas implemented a 10% plan where the top 10% of students at every high school in the state got a scholarship, and this broadened the pool of students attending college. It also insured that the state was investing its money in its most motivated, productive students, but did so in a way that also included students who worked hard, but were from disadvantaged backgrounds, so were less likely to have access to college exam prep classes and the like.

If there is really a need to get people to major in science and engineering courses and stick it out, then perhaps there could be grants available for the final year of study if people maintain a certain grade average. This way you could prevent waste on the front end, because science and math programs tend to have a relatively high attrition rate.

Finally, the government could think about setting up more national math and science academies at a secondary level that would perhaps act as feeder schools for third level math and science. You can promote it all you want with grants and points and the like at the third level, but unless you produce more people at the secondary level who have both the interest and the capacity to finish, you are just throwing good money after bad.

tenchi-fan

D-Generate wrote: »

Surely it would make sense to have course fees proportional to the average tax returns of graduates of said courses or even a smoothed average to account for sector employment plummeting at times (civil engineers) but still on a whole having been providing good tax returns in general.

If graduates are returning a high average tax rate then it means there is decent prospects from that course and there is a demand for graduates in the course.
If graduates are returning a low average tax rate it means that there is no demand for them.

Either that or every course should have fees and loans should be provided by the government with minimal interest. If you really want to pursue further education then you will do it regardless of the debt incurred initially.

This is a good idea. Much better than having a "graduate tax" as suggested in the UK where the government basically takes an equity share in YOUR EFFORTS! give me a loan any day.

JohnMc1

tenchi-fan wrote: »

multimedia
cultural studies

Why multimedia? That's something a person can get a job with when they graduate.

I just heard on the news that they might be introducing fees of 3,000 euros per year.

Nijmegen

Cutting funding to specific courses is social engineering, and the government isn't too good at it.

I believe in an education system designed to help the disadvantaged go as far as they want or desire to in education. Our system does need reform in this area, in terms of targeting.

In terms of course content, I think what the state should do is ensure that courses actually prepare people for the world of work. Even in business degress - and MA's - I've seen very few graduates who don't need at least six months of practical on the job shadowing to learn basic, dare I say 'schoolboy' stuff.

Einhard

tenchi-fan wrote: »

I suspect people who did arts courses are probably turning around and saying "wow, why did the government fund that course. It's a waste of time and now I can't get a job!"

Or more likely "it's the government's fault there are no jobs."

I suspect that you're wrong. And my suspicions would seem to be confirmed that anyone I know that has an Arts degree has a job.

Sleepy

doc_17 wrote: »

I don't think the State funds ECDL does it? I teach it to transition year and they pay for it themselves.

FÁS certainly pays for it...

graduate

The reality is that there is probably a great deal of fat that can be cut from the third level budget long before you need to look at removing or reducing the free fees situation (and they aren't free now by any means). One recent example was the order to cut up to a hundred surplus academic staff who hadn't agreed to the Croke Park deal. The deal still protects technical and administrative staff in these institutions however, and there have been no attempts to reduce systemic academic wastage that I am aware of, so there is a lot more that can be done.

This idea that there is loads of fat is presumably on the widespread misinformed opinion that all public funding is wasted. There was a 40% increase in the number of third level students between 2003 and 2007, resources were not increased pro rata with this increase. As noted before here on this forum by a poster, OECD data shows that real spending per student in 2007 was 6% less than in 2000 in Ireland and much less than in other European countries. Now every sector has some waste, but spending has been reduced quite a bit since 2007 and almost all of this has been eliminated. The building trades lecturers are an unusual case, but the idea that there can be further large cuts in general without doing real damage is nonsense. This State has to decide does it want to to have less students, reducing numbers to 2003 levels or does it want the students to contribute something, 2010 numbers with 2003 spending will wreck an education system that is recognised as providing gradautes of decent quality, for the most part.