Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
At The Back => Time Out => Topic started by: HTH AMPS on November 26, 2013, 07:34:46 PM
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I've been thinking about retraining and going back to Uni for a while now. I've had a good think about what gives me job satisfaction, feeds my needs for ongoing mental stimulation and also will have a decent likelihood of employment with a good wage at the end of it. The longer serving members on here will also remember my rough time before I got my arthritis under control and I ended up in hospital as I couldn't walk or anything, was totally debilitating. This has been on my mind for some time and its informed my decision to study biomedical sciences with the intention to focus on immunology as the course progresses.
The biggest hurdle is funding - with a degree already (back in 2000) in Broadcast Engineering, I don't qualify for a fees loan. I do qualify for always everything else - maintenance loan and university bursary. However, thats still not gonna pay £9000 a year in fees.
I'm just wanting to get some opinions from anyone on here who's recently gone through Uni to get an idea of possible sources of funding. I'm already writing to pharmaceutical companies for private funding, but the chances of that happening are slim to none.
So I'm left in reality and a problem of how to fund this. Short of letting out my house while I study and moving back in with the parents, I can't see a way to make it work financially. This is obviously the last resort (much as I love my parents).
Anyone got ideas? - will be starting in September 2015.
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As a current student who is struggling to get a grant from student finance, I have been told to check this out...
http://www.unigrants.co.uk/ (http://www.unigrants.co.uk/)
Not sure if any of it will be applicable to you, but its worth a try. Good Luck.
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I've no useful suggestions to make, but good for you going back to Uni at 40! Good luck with it! :D
I'd like to be able to do that, not with a view to a career change but just because I like the learning environment. Don't think I'd fit in very well with the social life though (...no change there, I didn't fit in at 18 either. :| )
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You could vote for Labour and hope that they'll review the whole university fees thing...
Short of studying in another country, you're out of options really. Normally only PhD students manage to get scholarships nowadays, though on very rare occasions, Master students get some funding from somewhere as well.
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You could vote for Labour and hope that they'll review the whole university fees thing...
:lol: Not much chance of that.
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Sounds like the kind of thing where there might be a job at the end of it.
All I know is don't do journalism, the rate of successful completions to people gaining jobs in the field is dismal. Same with PhDs in most fields outside of the biological sciences and related fields. Also IT is not so great anymore, with a lot of jobs going off-shore to India and other cheaper countries with lots of English speakers.
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NHS will pay your fees on certain courses, they do for mine
I'm 30 next week and I live with a load of 19 year olds, I'm officially not cool any more :(
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^ I dunno, you're a total badass among 30 year olds :lol:
You could vote for Labour and hope that they'll review the whole university fees thing...
:lol: Not much chance of that.
yeah considering they brought them in (though i think the tories were on the way to bringing them in, too).
fees are zero in scotland and much less in wales and NI, I think, but I suspect you have to live there (i.e. be from there, not just move there for university :lol: ) which sucks if you're english. I think university is free (or near enough, at least compared to UK fees) in the republic of ireland, but again you might have to be resident there or in northern ireland.
What about the netherlands or somewhere like that? Just from reading in the paper (so yeah, take this with a pinch of salt) a lot of courses are now being run in english and they're having more and more english students because the fees are so much less. But obviously you'd need to be careful that whoever you eventually want to work for will accept it the same as a UK degree.
That was no help, sorry. :( It really should be free, it sucks. Especially when you don't qualify for support for fees etc.
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you're a broadcast engineer? So am I! It sucks. ha!
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^ I dunno, you're a total badass among 30 year olds :lol
But if I was a badass and 19 I could be part of the shag fest that makes up my student halls
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^ I dunno, you're a total badass among 30 year olds :lol
But if I was a badass and 19 I could be part of the shag fest that makes up my student halls
Blimey it wasn't like that in my day.
Or if it was, no-one told me about it. :?
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:lol:
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^ I dunno, you're a total badass among 30 year olds :lol
But if I was a badass and 19 I could be part of the shag fest that makes up my student halls
Blimey it wasn't like that in my day.
Or if it was, no-one told me about it. :?
Probably went to a decent uni then, I'm at a metropolitan :( most of the people round mine are doing pointless degrees, layout of the flats helps, so does facebook, so do mobile phones
The people I know who go the real uni down the road actually study and don't go out partying every night, they also get proper societies, mine are absolute cr@p
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Probably went to a decent uni then, I'm at a metropolitan :(
Bath. It was a long time ago.
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^ I dunno, you're a total badass among 30 year olds :lol
But if I was a badass and 19 I could be part of the shag fest that makes up my student halls
Get yourself some spandex, one of those crazy '80s paintjobs on your guitar, and repackage yourself as some kind of weird old Satchel type. Invite them to your room to show them your divebombs, girls love that
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^ I dunno, you're a total badass among 30 year olds :lol
But if I was a badass and 19 I could be part of the shag fest that makes up my student halls
Get yourself some spandex, one of those crazy '80s paintjobs on your guitar, and repackage yourself as some kind of weird old Satchel type. Invite them to your room to show them your divebombs, girls love that
lmao, sounds like I'm in for 'sugar daddy' status when I go back to uni, ha ha :lol:
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On freshers week I was jumping into flat parties with a Jackson flying V and orange camo combats ;)
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Excellent - I went back at 35 - already had 2 degrees (saddo !). It was the best thing I've ever done - 5 years of great fun and getting to think again - loved it ! (I funded by selling the house - ouch !).
Immunology ! That's good fun ! Go for it - it's so good to have the time to think and learn...
Where are you (?thinking of) going ? (Important for things like biomedical sciences if you are looking for jobs afterwards or thinking about medicine long-term).
Cheers,
Andy
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Excellent - I went back at 35 - already had 2 degrees (saddo !). It was the best thing I've ever done - 5 years of great fun and getting to think again - loved it ! (I funded by selling the house - ouch !).
Immunology ! That's good fun ! Go for it - it's so good to have the time to think and learn...
Where are you (?thinking of) going ? (Important for things like biomedical sciences if you are looking for jobs afterwards or thinking about medicine long-term).
Cheers,
Andy
Hi Andy, thanks for the feedback. I'd have to stay local to be able to do this on a financial level, but I'm lucky to have Newcastle Uni right on my doorstep and they're happy to take me on (spoken to the course leader already).
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Excellent! Being a mature student I had a really great time - it was a good laugh and probably the most fun few years in ages....
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Congrats - being a mature student I had a really great time - it was a good laugh and probably the most fun few years in ages.... they also really like mature students on the course as they dont p*ss around so much!
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I felt ancient being 26 at uni god knows how you'll feel at 40 you old fart :lol:
I went back in the cheaper old days, not sure I could stomach the current cost. Make sure you are 100% choosing an education that will get you cash at the end of it!
I wasn't aware of any secret shagging societies but then I had a wife back home :lol:
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Some members of rock society had a threesome last year apparently
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Some members of rock society had a threesome last year apparently
If two of those people are male though, they only get half a point each because they have to share. If its two females the guy gets two points. If its three females then... 8)
I won't mention the other possibility...
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Some members of rock society had a threesome last year apparently
Hopefully at least one was a woman...
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Some members of rock society had a threesome last year apparently
Hopefully at least one was a woman...
Since it's "rock society" I very much doubt more than one was a woman...
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:lol:
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Some members of rock society had a threesome last year apparently
Hopefully at least one was a woman...
Since it's "rock society" I very much doubt more than one was a woman...
Have you seen rockers these days? it's hard to tell. Either way you know what they say. Every hole is a goal.
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Make sure you are 100% choosing an education that will get you cash at the end of it!
I've spent a decent amount of time looking at salaries for graduates going into this line of work and am happy enough with what I've found. Also spoken to someone I know off this site who used to work in this field.
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Some members of rock society had a threesome last year apparently
Hopefully at least one was a woman...
Since it's "rock society" I very much doubt more than one was a woman...
Have you seen rockers these days? it's hard to tell. Either way you know what they say. Every hole is a goal.
lmao, thats something my drummer would say.
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Some members of rock society had a threesome last year apparently
Hopefully at least one was a woman...
Since it's "rock society" I very much doubt more than one was a woman...
Have you seen rockers these days? it's hard to tell. Either way you know what they say. Every hole is a goal.
lmao, thats something my drummer would say.
And that's the sort of thing my dad would say in the 1970s. :lol:
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I wasn't being that serious. but still... "warm 'eads".
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Some members of rock society had a threesome last year apparently
Hopefully at least one was a woman...
Since it's "rock society" I very much doubt more than one was a woman...
Have you seen rockers these days? it's hard to tell. Either way you know what they say. Every hole is a goal.
lmao, thats something my drummer would say.
And that's the sort of thing my dad would say in the 1970s. :lol:
As Woody Allen said, bisexuality does double your chances for a date on the weekend...
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There is a lot of c--k but there are a few ladies in rock society, most of them are in relationships with the really tall guys in the society. They thought I was gay initially because these days I wear colours other than black.
The threesome involved 2 ladies and a viking with luscious locks.
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You could vote for Labour and hope that they'll review the whole university fees thing...
Short of studying in another country, you're out of options really. Normally only PhD students manage to get scholarships nowadays, though on very rare occasions, Master students get some funding from somewhere as well.
Fees became a major issue with the increase in student numbers with the aim of 50% of people getting a degree: a Labour target.
This massive increase needed to be paid for by somebody.
The Universities were dead keen on being able to charge fees as they thought they ultimately would be able to charge a "market" rate and increase their income; however many got a bit of a shock when students started to question the value for money they were getting now that they are "customers".
The argument is that graduates earn on average over their lifetime, so can afford to invest in their future, obviously missing the point that the more graduate there are, the less of a financial advantage having a degree is. And of course if you earn more you (generally!!) will pay more tax.
What I thought was particularly dishonest of the Blair government is that they went into their 2nd term with a manifesto pledge to not introduce tuition fees in that parliament, BUT it didn't stop them legislating to introduce tuition fees in the next parliament. Only a lawyer could justify that as not being dishonest.
Interestingly, this announcement came around the time that Ken Livingstone's ejection from the Labour party was rescinded when it was clear that he was going to win another term as London Mayor (he was banned from the Labour for 5 years which would have covered this election). Much as New Labour hated Ken, they would rather have him as a Labour mayor than as an independent.
At the same time Tony Blair was criticizing the press for being "cynical" over the war in Iraq.
The irony of it.........
Regardless, the issue HTH is another great Labour "education, education, education" policy, in that they won't provide a loan for fees for anyone doing a qualification at the same level (or lower) than already have.
So if you already have a degree, you can't get a loan for the fees for another degree, even if it's in a totally unrelated subject.
Govts of all stripes are keen to promote labour mobility in our dynamic economy, and retraining in a different discipline would seem to be something that should be encouraged.
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Agreed.
I'd also say that, in addition to your point about more graduates meaning less of a financial advantage, even ignoring that argument (which is an excellent point I always make too) it's intellectually dishonest- some degrees have a far higher payback than others, and tarring everyone with the same brush ("you have a degree so you'll earn more!" "No I won't, my degree makes little difference!") is patently unfair.
EDIT: I have a feeling I've read that before labour got in, the tories were also trying to expand higher education. But aside from that, I agree with what you're saying.
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The argument is that graduates earn on average over their lifetime, so can afford to invest in their future, obviously missing the point that the more graduate there are, the less of a financial advantage having a degree is. And of course if you earn more you (generally!!) will pay more tax.
So very obviously true, if everyone has a degree then some of those graduates are going to have to end up collecting bins or working in McDonalds (especially if we get rid of all those nasty immigrants "stealing jobs from British people")
And yet it's a point which is hardly ever made when the subject is debated on Question Time and the like. I suspect because politiicians are terribly afraid they'll be accused of wanting to hold people back, or deny education to the children of "ordinary working families".
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Pretty much 95% of the people at my uni are doing pointless degrees
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Pretty much 95% of the people at my uni are doing pointless degrees
What determines a pointless degree? Granted I think some probably ARE pointless, but I hope you don't mean any degree with BA on the end?
I have a first class hons degree in exactly what I do that was full of relevant learning. When I go for interviews I never get asked about it. The only place that cared was my first employer after uni and they asked for recommended students to interview via the uni because they had taken on a few graduates previously. I got my old job that way.
Since then, nothing. People will ask me a lot of technical questions and test my awareness of their company in the marketplace as it were, but nothing else. The degree is a note to get in to an interview. I guess it's totally normal to see a degree on a CV but really odd to not see one I think. Doing what I do without the learning would have been very very hard though. I assume everyone that may compete with me is trained to a similar level, so it all comes down to what you can prove you know and your experience (which for me is usually very little! haha)
So what I'm saying is, my degree puts me at no advantage but I think if I didn't have it (or any degree) I would be at a disadvantage now within the job market I would be part of. I know I get paid a lot more than people doing the same job as me too, purely because I came to where I am as a fully qualified engineer rather than going through the companies own training scheme (which I think you need a relevant degree to get on anyway!) and landed a job at the end.
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^ Yeah, that's possibly true. It's got to the point (maybe) where having a degree is no real advantage, but not having one puts you at a massive disadvantage (at least for some jobs... for some jobs having a degree puts you at a disadvantage too as you're "overqualified").
The argument is that graduates earn on average over their lifetime, so can afford to invest in their future, obviously missing the point that the more graduate there are, the less of a financial advantage having a degree is. And of course if you earn more you (generally!!) will pay more tax.
So very obviously true, if everyone has a degree then some of those graduates are going to have to end up collecting bins or working in McDonalds (especially if we get rid of all those nasty immigrants "stealing jobs from British people")
And yet it's a point which is hardly ever made when the subject is debated on Question Time and the like. I suspect because politiicians are terribly afraid they'll be accused of wanting to hold people back, or deny education to the children of "ordinary working families".
Yeah. :(
The paying more tax thing is an excellent point (that I also always make :lol: ), too. A lot of people act like it's not fair if you get to university for free and then make tons more money, as if everyone else is subsidising you and then you're living it up on everyone else's dime without giving anything back. Yeah, I mean if only we had a system whereby those who earned more paid more tax, that would solve everything.
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Pretty much 95% of the people at my uni are doing pointless degrees
What determines a pointless degree? Granted I think some probably ARE pointless, but I hope you don't mean any degree with BA on the end?
I feel the amount of places per a degree should be in some way related to the amount of job opportunities for that degree
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Pretty much 95% of the people at my uni are doing pointless degrees
What determines a pointless degree? Granted I think some probably ARE pointless, but I hope you don't mean any degree with BA on the end?
Too right. I have a BA!
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I have a PhD, that was completely pointless as I just studied what I was interested in (the history of political philosophy) thinking that because I was good at it I'd get an ongoing academic job in my field. Wrong! It also made me over-qualified for pretty much everything else, at least here in this incestuous little colonial outpost.
My advice for anyone contemplating a PhD is DON'T!
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The irony of it.........
Regardless, the issue HTH is another great Labour "education, education, education" policy, in that they won't provide a loan for fees for anyone doing a qualification at the same level (or lower) than already have.
So if you already have a degree, you can't get a loan for the fees for another degree, even if it's in a totally unrelated subject.
Govts of all stripes are keen to promote labour mobility in our dynamic economy, and retraining in a different discipline would seem to be something that should be encouraged.
This is particularly boiling my piss. If I could get a loan for the fees, my plans would be doable financially (albeit tight).
Without the fees loan, its touch and go whether I can do this. At this point I'm not sure that it is - catch 22 situation.
I could understand if someone had a loan outstanding from their previous degree, however I paid mine off within four years of graduating and it was voluntary as my salary was under the threshold. I just wanted to pay it off asap.
At this point, my options are:
* sell my flat and move back in with the parents (freeing up the equity in the property towards fees).
* rent out my flat and move back in with the parents (the mortgage still gets paid and it costs me nothing to keep paying it off).
* re-mortgage to free up equity and rent out property (raises cash for fees, but I'm back at square one with my mortgage).
Sucks :(
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I have a PhD, that was completely pointless as I just studied what I was interested in (the history of political philosophy) thinking that because I was good at it I'd get an ongoing academic job in my field. Wrong! It also made me over-qualified for pretty much everything else, at least here in this incestuous little colonial outpost.
My advice for anyone contemplating a PhD is DON'T!
I did the opposite- I decided to do a phd in something i wasn't that interested in, because after leading me to believe i'd get to work with my 3rd year project supervisor (who was totally awesome and actually doing novel and really interesting stuff which got published in badass journals like nature), my uni then told me i wouldn't (mainly politics, because the previous year they'd let two people work with him). So at that point i had nothing lined up and figured i'd give the (funded) phd with a different supervisor a shot as i had nothing to lose. Bad idea, in hindsight. About halfway through it dawned on me that i had no interest in it at all and basically just couldn't do it any more. I just about managed to salvage an mphil out of it (admittedly with my new supervisor's great help and epic amounts of cajoling :lol: ) in pretty much the amount of time it would have taken to get a phd had my heart been in it.
So yeah, just providing the opposite view- while i'd agree with you that doing something which you love with no regard to how useful it is might not be the best plan, doing something useful which you hate is arguably even worse. At least you got your phd in the end. :lol:
I'd pretty much say only do a phd if you absolutely love what you're doing and it's useful, too.
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* sell my flat and move back in with the parents (freeing up the equity in the property towards fees).
* rent out my flat and move back in with the parents (the mortgage still gets paid and it costs me nothing to keep paying it off).
* re-mortgage to free up equity and rent out property (raises cash for fees, but I'm back at square one with my mortgage).
Without doing the maths I think second option makes the most sense financially since there is still a housing shortage so prices are rising again (I'm assuming it's above the rate of inflation), the disadvantage being you've not got a location to bish bash bosh with a fine lady.
Wouldn't rent out to someone who's living off benefits, seen a few horror stories.
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I'd say the middle option too...but beware of tenants who are just not prepared to respect your property. Make sure you get proper references and consider appointing an agent- and tell your Insurance company too as some don't like let properties and if they find out after the event, they can refuse to pay if you need to make a claim. And try to get a Landlord's legal expenses policy in case it all goes wrong and make sure it coveres eviction costs.
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Thanks for all the advice guys, much appreciated.
After the dust has settled and I've done real figures, its really just too tight to be able to make this work. The tuition fees are totally killing the viability of this. £9000 is £750 a month - with no fixed income at Uni, thats a hell of a lot of money. With that hanging over my head all the time, I'd be constantly worried about money.
Last gasp attempt is trying to get private funding - wish me luck fellas :(
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Thanks for all the advice guys, much appreciated.
After the dust has settled and I've done real figures, its really just too tight to be able to make this work. The tuition fees are totally killing the viability of this. £9000 is £750 a month - with no fixed income at Uni, thats a hell of a lot of money. With that hanging over my head all the time, I'd be constantly worried about money.
Last gasp attempt is trying to get private funding - wish me luck fellas :(
Gutted! It is a crazy amount of money now - gonna be really hard for any mature students now....
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I'm sure the government think they've fixed the university system now. Keep the oiks out and all that rah rah.
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Thanks for all the advice guys, much appreciated.
After the dust has settled and I've done real figures, its really just too tight to be able to make this work. The tuition fees are totally killing the viability of this. £9000 is £750 a month - with no fixed income at Uni, thats a hell of a lot of money. With that hanging over my head all the time, I'd be constantly worried about money.
Last gasp attempt is trying to get private funding - wish me luck fellas :(
I don't know how much you're settled in the UK family-wise, but I'll repeat that if you go to a different country (Netherlands, for example), you can maybe study a lot cheaper. You might also be able to get funding for life-long learning/getting back into education from the EU - not sure, but I know they sponsor a of internships across European borders.
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I'm sure the government think they've fixed the university system now. Keep the oiks out and all that rah rah.
I'm pretty sure this government doesn't do a lot of thinking at all.
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Thanks for all the advice guys, much appreciated.
After the dust has settled and I've done real figures, its really just too tight to be able to make this work. The tuition fees are totally killing the viability of this. £9000 is £750 a month - with no fixed income at Uni, thats a hell of a lot of money. With that hanging over my head all the time, I'd be constantly worried about money.
Last gasp attempt is trying to get private funding - wish me luck fellas :(
that's the main reason I'm not at uni, I admire you though for taking the leap, hopefully something great will come out of it
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I'm sure the government think they've fixed the university system now. Keep the oiks out and all that rah rah.
I'm pretty sure this government doesn't do a lot of thinking at all.
They only play dumb. A bit like when everyone though George W. Bush was so 'stupid'. Behind the bumbling comedy act there is a concerted effort to strip the people of the rights and redistribute wealth upwards, including transferring public resources to corporations. It's systematic, not thoughtless.
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I'm sure the government think they've fixed the university system now. Keep the oiks out and all that rah rah.
I'm pretty sure this government doesn't do a lot of thinking at all.
They only play dumb. A bit like when everyone though George W. Bush was so 'stupid'. Behind the bumbling comedy act there is a concerted effort to strip the people of the rights and redistribute wealth upwards, including transferring public resources to corporations. It's systematic, not thoughtless.
wealth only every goes upwards through the classes not downwards to the poorest who need it the most
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Thanks for all the advice guys, much appreciated.
After the dust has settled and I've done real figures, its really just too tight to be able to make this work. The tuition fees are totally killing the viability of this. £9000 is £750 a month - with no fixed income at Uni, thats a hell of a lot of money. With that hanging over my head all the time, I'd be constantly worried about money.
Last gasp attempt is trying to get private funding - wish me luck fellas :(
I don't know how much you're settled in the UK family-wise, but I'll repeat that if you go to a different country (Netherlands, for example), you can maybe study a lot cheaper. You might also be able to get funding for life-long learning/getting back into education from the EU - not sure, but I know they sponsor a of internships across European borders.
Sounds interesting - have you got any kind of links for the funding side of that?
One thing that immediately springs to mind is the language barrier - surely they'd be teaching in whatever the native language is?
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/go-dutch-save-money-british-students-can-take-degrees-in-english-at-the-university-of-maastricht-and-pay-lower-fees-than-at-home-1707509.html (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/go-dutch-save-money-british-students-can-take-degrees-in-english-at-the-university-of-maastricht-and-pay-lower-fees-than-at-home-1707509.html)
I haven't looked into funding etc. I work in Higher Education (in the UK), so I'm just aware of all sorts of trends, and the University of Maastricht has been known to offer degrees in English for a lot less than UK universities. German and French universities are slower to jump aboard English-language degrees, plus the connection to the UK is better from the Netherlands.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/go-dutch-save-money-british-students-can-take-degrees-in-english-at-the-university-of-maastricht-and-pay-lower-fees-than-at-home-1707509.html (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/go-dutch-save-money-british-students-can-take-degrees-in-english-at-the-university-of-maastricht-and-pay-lower-fees-than-at-home-1707509.html)
I haven't looked into funding etc. I work in Higher Education (in the UK), so I'm just aware of all sorts of trends, and the University of Maastricht has been known to offer degrees in English for a lot less than UK universities. German and French universities are slower to jump aboard English-language degrees, plus the connection to the UK is better from the Netherlands.
I shall certainly look into that - cheers fella.
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I've only read this thread today.
Back in the day when it was a grant, I could understand the idea of not being able to get a second one if you've already received one for the same level... I considered a second degree years ago (before it switched to loans), and although it meant I couldn't do it, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me that I couldn't get a second grant...
But now it's loans, not grants, and especially if you've already paid the first one off... doesn't seem quite as acceptable to me.
I do hope you can find some way to do it.
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That's a shame. I went pre-hikes and I don't think I would go at the current prices, either. My friend has chosen to gone to China and the costs are tiny in comparison.
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I've only read this thread today.
Back in the day when it was a grant, I could understand the idea of not being able to get a second one if you've already received one for the same level... I considered a second degree years ago (before it switched to loans), and although it meant I couldn't do it, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me that I couldn't get a second grant...
But now it's loans, not grants, and especially if you've already paid the first one off... doesn't seem quite as acceptable to me.
I do hope you can find some way to do it.
Yep, thats my major beef - if you have an outstanding loan from your first degree, then fair enough - you shouldn't get a further loan. However, if the loan is repaid, then I see no reason why this option would not be offered again - seems mad to me :(
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^ You could even make the case that that's silly. I mean, if you've done a degree which doesn't pay enough to let you pay off that loan, your loan is eventually written off... but if they gave you another loan to do a more sensible degree, you may then earn enough to pay off both loans.
I could be wrong, but I also kind of get the feeling that it'd happen rarely enough (people wanting to do second degrees) that, whether with the old grant system or the newer loan system, they're possibly trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. If they suddenly funded second degres for anyone who wanted it, would there be a raft of people taking that up? As I said, I could be wrong, but I doubt it. Most people will take the well-paid job over a second degree, I'd have thought.
Plus I mean if you can't get a job, training further is probably a good idea. Not funding someone to do a second degree which may lead to a good job and then paying to have them on the dole (or even topping up low pay with tax credits and the like) possibly costs more in the long run.
I just don't like the idea of getting one shot at it- obviously I have personal beef with this as I feel I chose badly, but at the same time when you're making up your mind at 16 (actually probably 14 when it comes to choosing GCSEs), often with iffy careers advice...
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I'm also 40 and I'm doing a doctorate in a prestigious University while teaching full time in a tough secondary school. Thank goodness, funding is not a problem (got a scholarship) and my supervisors are great too. My only problem is juggling a very demanding job, family life and time to read, research and write academic stuff. No wonder I hardly play my guitar these days...
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Sometimes I think I should sign up for med school... :(
I'm 34 and that holds me really back from doing this.
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Alex - I went to med school at 35... PM me if you have any questions....
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This thread is so old, I thought it might have been the OP popping in to tell us he's received his degree ...
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I finished my second degree a couple of weeks ago and had my 40 bday last month. Psychology, in case someone is curious. Thanks to the reanimator troll for giving me this oportunity :grin: