Universities are taking advantage of teens by charging mega bucks for Mickey Mouse courses, minister says
STUDENTS are being swindled by universities that charge mega bucks for Mickey Mouse courses, a minister has blasted.
Universities Minister Michelle Donelan lashed out at vice chancellors for “taking advantage” of teens by dumbing down their degrees.
She told them to stop wasting millions on marketing to get students through the door, and beef up their teaching instead.
In a speech to uni bosses online, Ms Donelan stormed: “Since 2004, there’s been too much focus on getting students through the door and not enough focus on how many drop out, or how many go onto graduate jobs.
“Too many have been misled by the expansion of popular-sounding courses with no real demand from the labour market.
“Quite frankly, our young people have been taken advantage of, particularly those without a family history of going to university.
“Instead, some of them left with the debt of an investment that didn’t pay off in any sense.
“And too many universities have felt pressured to dumb down – either when admitting students, or in the standards of their courses. We have seen this with grade inflation and it has to stop.”
Britain needs to crack down on rip-off degrees and embrace a “new era” of social mobility, she said.
Ms Donelan added: “Not an era of box-ticking and a focus on marketing, but an era where we’re actually helping improve the life chances of individuals up and down the UK.
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“That’s something that will remain a focus for myself and I am going to ensure it remains a focus for universities.” Brits have to fork out a whopping £9,000 a year in uni tuition fees.
But students have complained that they are racking up a mountain of debt but getting very little teaching.
Boris Johnson has vowed to offer every youngster an apprenticeship to stave off an expected wave of youth unemployment because of the coronavirus crisis.
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