I did the same, however it felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders when I decided I wasn't going back.

Freshers' week is all drinking to excess and sex, with the occasional 'welcome' lecture thrown in.

It's a difficult time, particularly for girls. Friendship groups are starting to form, and if your face does not fit then you can feel very isolated. The lads will be out for lashy + smashy and any girl who puts out will probably instantly get labelled a slag.

That said, the people I was 'friends' with for the first few weeks of uni were not the people I was friends with for the rest of the course.

What course was she doing and where? Is there likely to be any long-term benefit in it, or was it just going to be a huge pile of debt and a BA in social policy?

That £5K is for a full years 120 points worth or courses as well. You could do the degree over four years (or longer) and thus not only reduce the yearly fees but also leave more time for some part time work.

When I said there are more under 25's enrolling these days it is considerably more. It's been a noticeable trend for some time and the OU has had to take it into account as younger people have different study patterns and expectations to the OU's more traditional more mature students.

This is a very sobering website; it basically calculates student loan repayments for anyone going to uni in 2012 or later: www.thecompleteuniversityguide.c ... calculator Interesting that if you are a 'high earner' it says you will pay back around £50K over just under 14 years. If you are a low earner you will pay back £22K over 30 years and the rest of the loan will get written-off. Any 18 year old who goes to uni will be paying back their loans well into their 30s if not beyond, unless their parents can help them out.

This is a very sobering website; it basically calculates student loan repayments for anyone going to uni in 2012 or later: www.thecompleteuniversityguide.c ... calculator Interesting that if you are a 'high earner' it says you will pay back around £50K over just under 14 years. If you are a low earner you will pay back £22K over 30 years and the rest of the loan will get written-off. Any 18 year old who goes to uni will be paying back their loans well into their 30s if not beyond, unless their parents can help them out.

Thanks to all - a thread with sensible comments is a change! Anyway, things are complex and an amalgam of many of the points raised. Things at home have been very stressed for the last few years and in many ways the last 15! She is a twin and we had to split the twins up at 4 as her sister needed special school provision. Consequently, at an early stage she lost the outgoing half of the twin partnership who she relied on socially. In more recent years her twin developed a catastrophic chronic condition and she has seen her suffer awfully and then regress dramatically, cognitively speaking. So, this time last year - when family stress was still very high she wasn't ready to go to university and we suggested she ask if she could defer her course a year in case she felt she could do it this year. She also suffered from social anxiety. So she had a gap year. Got a job in a supermarket - where she made good friends - and saved up to take herself to China for 4 and a half weeks. She also home studied Japanese GCSE and managed to scrape an A* (293 out of 300).

So, it seemed all had gone marvellously and she had matured (which she has in some ways). However, just before she was due to go her social anxiety resurfaced as did her lack of confidence - that she couldn't cope, everyone else would be cleverer, etc. Furthermore, she shocked us a couple of years back when at the last minute she applied to do geography rather than German, which was her first love at that time. Then the day after she'd applied / the deadline she decided she really wanted to do Japanese or maybe Korean. She did not get round to asking to change though. The other thing she was concerned with that everyone would be drinking heavily - whilst she likes one maybe two she hates that sort of behaviour and latterly has preferred non-English friends for that reason. Unfortunately, after we dropped her off on Sunday things got off to the worst possible start. Her room is one of about 7 in a "flat" within the hall of residence and after dinner with the others they all started playing drinking games and engaging in obscene conversation. So she left. But each night some of them have got ratted and return at 3.00am to the common parts with lads and are shouting and screaming until 7.00am. So she's not getting sleep and is surrounded by juveniles who are like 12 year old girls on a sleepover, albeit fuelled with alcohol. That plus her social anxiety plus doubts over her course plus leaving her boyfriend plus debt concerns plus worrying about studying stressing her took their toll. We went up to pick her up yesterday but it became apparent that part of her wanted to be there, part wanted to get a job. So, we took her to her department to discuss and they said she could change courses if she wished and that their course wouldn't be tough if the first year, etc. So she then went to the Japanese department and after speaking to her said they'd take her if she wanted and also suggested a related course where she could study some Japanese, some Korean as well as Asian cultural / economic topics. So, after all that we suggested she think about things overnight. So we stayed over and left her to think. She later texted to say she still wanted out despite the offer a perfect course for her. So, we went to pick her up this morning but she was using the future tense about things as though she were staying. After I went to find out how to get out of the accomodation it became apparent she wanted to stay but wasn't sure she could cope with everything. So, we told her to come home for the weekend, think about it and Mrs D will take her back Sunday either to pack up or give it a go for a few weeks to see if she gets into it.

So, things are still no clearer! In a ideal world I think she'd like to live at home but do the Japanese course but that ain't feasible.

Maybe a nice local-ish Uni with plenty of family support is the ideal option, possibly save up buy herself a cheap runaround.

First thing Dally, she didn't "scrape" a fekkin A* in Japanese you pillock, I fekkin "scraped" an E in Maths in my 1973 O levels, in fact I "scraped" into Grammar School in 1968 by ONE MARK - you have a very intelligent girl there, for christ sake stop using language like that, no wonder she has anxieties about not being good enough.

You already know the answer, the problem isn't that she isn't intelligent enough, on the contrary she clearly is but may need some positive encouragement to believe herself rather than telling her that she scraped the top mark in an exam, AND there is a problem with accommodation which I'm sure most sensible adults can empathise with, I wouldn't like to be living under those conditions either and I'm not always a grumpy old tw**.

A degree course is not necessary but if desirable then you're going to need to look at your local Uni's, if her love is language and the Far East then there is your focus right there, don't go shopping for the "best Uni", go shopping for the best choice for her, with all that she has coped with so far in her life she is doing remarkably well to shine in a subject like Japanese which is a very useful tool to have in your CV when it comes time to choose a job.

I was being sarcastic with the word "scraped." Like alot of clever girls she's a perfectionist and convinces herself she's failed if she stuggles on a one mark question, which is another big problem. i know she's not alone in that - we have friends whose daughters who are the same. Back to our girl I have tried to explain she'll be brighter than most at a Russell Group university and it doesn't matter if one or two people seem brilliant. I likened it to the England football team where all 11 are excellent but maybe one or two are head and shoulders above the others. Even then vistually no English players would be picked for Brazil (if they could be) but nevertheless they remain excellent players and truly outstanding compared with millions of others.

For those who are parents - boys are so much easier (unless they go right off the rails)!!

We've thought of that .The local ones don't do such courses. She doesn't drive. The other option would be to commute into London but when I looked UCL for example wanted A* and 2 A*s at A level. Whilst she would probably have achieved that the fact that she gave up in December before her A levels and had no course notes for 2 years meant she went in without any preparation. She didn't want to sit but we said surely it was better to try than just give up. We both felt the minimum she'd get was 3 C's if she would only go into the exams. She went in with a bit of assistance from the medical profession and got 2 A's and a B a truly remarakble performance under the circumstances. GCSE's she has 13 - 7 A*s and 6 A's. That's why I say it'd be a shame to give up especially as she has a real talent for languages (Mrs D knows a thing or two about languages having studied Latin and classics at university but junior is different league when she is motivated).

Manchester is a large Uni, surely they would have the desired course? Only about 20 miles from Widnes

Don't live in Widnes!

My bad, thought you did

I come from Widnes, but not lived there for decades.

I think my easy going attitude to life has rubbed off on my girls because they'll come to me for advice (I'm taking the eldest to look over a car and a lease contract this afternoon) but go to their short tempered mother for an argument, they know that if they tried to pick an argument with me it would go no further than the first sentence

so in that respect their upbringing has been a doddle to me.


On your issue I have nothing more to add than what has already been said by others really except for the fact that in my dealings with hundreds of clients businesses I'm finding that English people who speak a foreign language are held at a premium and you'd be surprised at the type of business that has foreign clients or owners, even very small enterprises.

Just to give a couple of examples one of my clients is a subsiduary of the Toyota Corp and so obviously Japanese would be invaluable there, quite a few of the senior staff are Japanese who speak English but prefer their English staff to have an understanding if not a fluency in Japanese, many of the office staff and even line operators have taken advantage of the company courses in Japanese and as you'd expect the company culture is based on everything they do at Head Office even to the extent of refering to everyone by name and the prefix "san" even if they are English, your daughter would probably love it there.

And just this week I was at a production plant where most of the 200+ line staff are Polish on fairly basic wages, in the office on the day I was there was a young lad who was talking to someone on the phone for a long time in a language that was eastern european, after he had left I was told that he'd been negotiating a contract on behalf of the company with a Russian client speaking fluent Russian, the lad was Polish but when he'd spoken in the office I thought he was English so perfect was his accent, he also had a Masters degree in Engineering and until then had been employed washing vegetables on the line until they'd asked if anyone could speak a little Russian - they won't be employing him on the line anymore.

I decided to go to uni a few weeks ago, rang hull uni, got onto mechanical engineering with a foundation year, start on monday. You're all terrifying me now!

Dally, could she not try and move accommodation rather than just leave? I helped move my girlfriend in this week and while there has been some partying she's got on well with the other people in her building.

Quote ="The Video Ref"This is a very sobering website; it basically calculates student loan repayments for anyone going to uni in 2012 or later: www.thecompleteuniversityguide.c ... calculator Interesting that if you are a 'high earner' it says you will pay back around £50K over just under 14 years. If you are a low earner you will pay back £22K over 30 years and the rest of the loan will get written-off. Any 18 year old who goes to uni will be paying back their loans well into their 30s if not beyond, unless their parents can help them out.'" The governments own graph for this shows middle income earners will end up paying the most for their degrees. If you are a high earner you pay down the loan quicker so pay less interest and if you are a low earner you never pay it off but then I always consider the low earner argument rather false as who goes to Uni to earn £22K for the next 30 years? If you do have to pay the loan back the fact it is 9% of your pay over £21K means you are hit with a very high marginal tax rate for up to 30 years. It is in fact a marginal tax rate of 42% (20% tax, 13% N.I. and 9% loan payments). Who'd have thought it? A Tory government increasing the tax burden on future voters. When you sign up for one of these loans you have to agree that the terms can be varied. So for example the plan to index link the threshold of £21K could be ditched and you'd just have to accept it. It's also already been mooted that the terms be varied with the threshold down to £18K or fixed at £21K. Part of the reason for this is they want to sell off the student loan book and as it stands its not a very attractive proposition for a private company. The article I read about it even had the person proposing say if it was fixed at £21K this would be a good way of limiting the costs because people generally don't really understand the system and this could be sneaked under the radar. IIRC the terms used to describe parents understanding of the scheme was far less complimentary than that. The whole scheme is a sick joke.

Quote ="The Video Ref"This is a very sobering website; it basically calculates student loan repayments for anyone going to uni in 2012 or later: www.thecompleteuniversityguide.c ... calculator Interesting that if you are a 'high earner' it says you will pay back around £50K over just under 14 years. If you are a low earner you will pay back £22K over 30 years and the rest of the loan will get written-off. Any 18 year old who goes to uni will be paying back their loans well into their 30s if not beyond, unless their parents can help them out.'" The governments own graph for this shows middle income earners will end up paying the most for their degrees. If you are a high earner you pay down the loan quicker so pay less interest and if you are a low earner you never pay it off but then I always consider the low earner argument rather false as who goes to Uni to earn £22K for the next 30 years? If you do have to pay the loan back the fact it is 9% of your pay over £21K means you are hit with a very high marginal tax rate for up to 30 years. It is in fact a marginal tax rate of 42% (20% tax, 13% N.I. and 9% loan payments). Who'd have thought it? A Tory government increasing the tax burden on future voters. When you sign up for one of these loans you have to agree that the terms can be varied. So for example the plan to index link the threshold of £21K could be ditched and you'd just have to accept it. It's also already been mooted that the terms be varied with the threshold down to £18K or fixed at £21K. Part of the reason for this is they want to sell off the student loan book and as it stands its not a very attractive proposition for a private company. The article I read about it even had the person proposing say if it was fixed at £21K this would be a good way of limiting the costs because people generally don't really understand the system and this could be sneaked under the radar. IIRC the terms used to describe parents understanding of the scheme was far less complimentary than that. The whole scheme is a sick joke.

Completely agree with this. My employer is currently recruiting for Japanese speakers and having a bloody nightmare. The amount of languages we work in now is crazy and makes me wonder why the teaching of foreign lanugages in schools is such a token effort.

I think we have a bit of a cultural attitude in this country that because English is so widely spoken, everyone can adapt to us and we have no/less need to reciprocate.

Perhaps so, but it is also a sick joke that university has been opened up to any Tom, Dick or Harry with 2 Es at A level and the desire to spend 3 years on the lash.

Which of course is the essence of the issue.

To be fair, two Es would have got you into a Higher Education college even 25 years ago or possibly a Polytechnic. Having worked with plenty people over the years with degrees from these places (mostly Engineers) the quality of their education isn't noticeably different from those who got Bs and As and went to University. The only difference seems to be the numbers taking part.

Mentioned before, but worth reiterating here. Huge increases in tertiary education are, for some reason, a plank of neo-liberalism, as explained by Ha-Joon Chang in [i23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism[/i.

In the last couple of decades or so, even Switzerland, which had a very small tertiary system but obviously was a successful, advanced economy, has started vastly increasing tertiary education. So it's certainly not unique to the UK.

Possibly it's partly because, once you remove grants etc, it increases education as a business, both in terms of domestic and foreign students?

But it's also linked to or been helped by moves over the last 20-25 years by many employers to demand a graduate, irrespective of the degree subject, for jobs that do not really require a degree.

It fits the ideology of unburden the state and open it up to the markets.



For that I blame the rise of the HR department. In the late eighties, the factory where I worked employed three thousand people and had a personnel department of about five. I work in a similar sized establishment now and they have a whole floor of people who spend their days dreaming up Apprentice style tasks for potential recruits.

I also share a desk with an extremely bright recent graduate who recalled going to a recruiting day for a large organisation. She was told that they were looking for two recruits out of a couple of hundred people. She waited till the first break and then headed for the car park never to return!

I was offered two E's to go Leeds Poly in 1977. Most Poly's did that sort of offer back then. In contrast when my son applied to study Physics one of the places he applied to is what was Hatfield Poly which is now the University of Hertfordshire and this was one of the highest offers of the lot! Nottingham Trent wasn't far behind either.

So do I.
In my own recent experience of our own HR department, I have given them the requirements and experience that I want applicants to be able to demonstrate, to which HR then add their own, including degrees (any subject) and then, after I've interviewed them, make the applicants spend a day jumping through various stupid hoops to see how they would shape-up in future roles they haven't frickin' applied for and don't see as their future.