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Higher education - 3/20/2008 6:35:57 AM   
Aneirin


Posts: 6121
Joined: 3/18/2006
From: Tamaris
Status: offline 		I am interested in higher education, as it applies to someone who has been through industry, perhaps someone who wishes to take a change in career direction after having worked all their lives, how is this done in other countries.

Here, it is largely if you have money to support yourself, you pay 'x' thousand pounds for a course and live on your savings, or work part time but live very frugally.

How is it in other countries?

Are there those who are currently in employment who wish to re educate, i.e go to college to learn something different ?

If you are one of those people, what stops you?

And finally, perhaps a controversial question, is a person's higher education of more benefit to the person or the country, and should there be provision made available by a country for mature people to access education?


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RE: Higher education - 3/20/2008 7:02:33 AM   
xxblushesxx


Posts: 9318
Joined: 11/3/2005
From: Kentucky
Status: offline 		Here, as long as you keep your grades up, there are certain amounts of grants (quite small) and loans available even to people with poor credit. The amount of grant money depends on many factors, including whether or not you have children. I get the highest amount available, and take loans out for the rest.
I am a 'more mature' student.
(no comments!!!) *lol*

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RE: Higher education - 3/20/2008 7:14:13 AM   
Kirren


Posts: 580
Joined: 9/5/2007
Status: offline 		In the form of federal grants you can get pell, cap, keys, and fseog, those are just the ones I know about. The pell being the largest, which as a rule will pay for tuition and books...depending on how many hours you go for, and that kind of thing....and the rest tend to decrease from there.

I live about 10 miles from a university, and I can tell you that the students there make up about 85% of the local work force in that town. They have so many fast food places and small businesses that support the college that any one else locally that is looking for a job is shit out of luck.

Then you also have the dorms for kids that come in from out of state, that is included in tuition for housing...and the school cafeteria that the kids have to buy meal tickets for, but the meals are generally cheaper.


I want to go back to school something terrible, but I can not afford to at the moment. But then I also have 2 kids and a house to run. And when the kids dad walked out on Me, he left Me owing the school and the department of education about a grand...which I dont have to spare at the moment. And I cant get a grant to go back until those things are paid. I cant even dispute the bill based on the circumstances...they dont care...all they care about is that I was in school...I had to drop and they hadnt gotten their moneys worth. Never mind I was left with two kids, no car and about 2000$ in unpaid bills by the ex.

-shrugs-

Does it benefit the country? I guess in some way it can..tho I think it comes closer to benefitting the person. But if you boil it down and take about a million turns...it does benefit the country. Better jobs, higher pay, more money spent...blah blah...

And yes, I think they should have some sort of provision for people who are more mature to make educating them in some new field easier, or a more attainable goal. My father is 55 and he wants to go back to school. Hes been a carpenter for as long as I can remember...he has a degree in business that hes never been able to use...and he wants to go back for computers...mainly due to a ruined back....its going to be next to impossible for him because he cant afford to live on his military disability, which is only like 200 a month, and still go to school. Do they have things to help people with bills and things of that nature? No, they think the stipend that students get should be enuff. Im here to tell you a grand more than tuition wont pay the bills for three to five months while you wait for the next grant to come in.

So sadly, people settle for being where they are and doing little to nothing to better themselves. I know...Im one of those people.

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RE: Higher education - 3/20/2008 7:34:17 AM   
xxblushesxx


Posts: 9318
Joined: 11/3/2005
From: Kentucky
Status: offline 		[slight hijack] speaking of which, Kirren, Spring break is almost over and your kitty has not called to set up a visit. What's up with that?[\ hijack]

Kirren, I also owed money from when I went to school before. They just added it on to what I'm doing now. Call a few different times and talk to different people. They LOVE to lend more money...

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RE: Higher education - 3/20/2008 7:44:23 AM   
thompsonx


Posts: 23322
Joined: 10/1/2006
Status: offline 		FR:
There is also the added benefit when one borrows money to go to school.  The loans are either extremely low interest or no interest.  The government seems to be all in favor of inflation.  The money I borrowed to go to school got paid back with inflated dollars.  My best guess is that they wound up with about twenty cents on the dollar,perhaps a little less.
Then of course there are grants and scholarships which do not have to be paid back at all.  You would be amazed at the number of scholarships and grants that go unclaimed every year.
If you are a mature person you most likely have marketable skills unlike a teenager fresh out of high school, so the necessity of working at Micky D's are reduced
thompson

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RE: Higher education - 3/20/2008 8:07:56 AM   
popeye1250


Posts: 18104
Joined: 1/27/2006
From: New Hampshire
Status: offline 		Sure and some states will even help out to a big extent if you pledge to work in that state I believe.
Nursing especially is a great field to get into these days as there's a shortage of them everywhere. And you can start out with a two year degree LPN I believe.
I have a degree in Bus. Admin. but never really used it.
When I applied for a job with a large national insurance co. the lady who hired me wanted to know what I did and where I went in the U.S. Coast Guard and that's all we talked about for most of the interview.
I told her that I had a B.S. in Bus. Admin and she said; "that's nice."
I was thinking to myself, "wow, 4 years down the crapper!"
If I had it to do over again I would have gotten an R.N. BSN in the first place.
It didn't cost me anything to go to college as the V.A. paid for everything.
Now these days you need to be very careful in as far as what type of degree you take. Many young people take degrees in what I call "the soft sciences", sociology, psychology, political science etc.
I can't tell you how many waiters and waitresses and counter help I've met with those "degrees." It's like getting a degree in "French."
They must be money makers for the colleges but worthless as far as gaining meaningful employment for the students.
So, if you're going to switch gears career wise you want to avoid things like that and focus on degrees which will help you get a good paying job these days and that's healthcare.
It didn't cost me anything as I said but there are all kinds of loan and grant programs out there.
My nephew is attending the U. of New Hampshire and he took out a $60,000 loan from them.
He's studying "Medical laboratory technology."
It's not at all "unusual" for people to change career fields in mid stream these days.

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RE: Higher education - 3/20/2008 10:41:42 AM   
wandersalone


Posts: 4666
Joined: 11/21/2005
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: popeye1250

Now these days you need to be very careful in as far as what type of degree you take. Many young people take degrees in what I call "the soft sciences", sociology, psychology, political science etc.
I can't tell you how many waiters and waitresses and counter help I've met with those "degrees." It's like getting a degree in "French."
They must be money makers for the colleges but worthless as far as gaining meaningful employment for the students.


Interesting comment Popeye...I have one of those dreaded 'soft science' degrees and have never had any problems obtaining employment in my field. However I live in Australia and the demand for Psychologists at the moment seems to outstrip the supply so it may be different over there. The good thing about my degree is that it has given me a wide range of skills which I can use not only in psych work itself but also in training and education, recruitment and career counselling...no waitressing for me...so far.  

Aneirin in answer to your questions I can give some info on how it works downunder (or at least I think this is how it works).  Most people who are undergraduates (studying for their first degree) are able to choose to pay off the cost of study when they graduate and start earning money.  Once you are working the money is taken automatically from your pay and the amount you pay is based upon how much you are earning.  There is some sort of threshold and if you are learning less that this amount they don't start deducting any of the money you owe.

If you are wanting to do further study eg. Masters, PhD etc the courses seem to be full fee courses where you pay up front.  At least that is what it looks like to me as I am exploring ideas for further study at the moment.  If I wanted to do a Masters I am pretty sure I could only afford to do it part-time and would still need to work at least two or three days a week to ensure I can still pay my bills.  The cost per subject for the courses I am looking at range between $2500 - $4000/subject, I think I worked out it would be something like $30 thousand AU for a 2 year Masters.

Mature age students over here can have alternate entry requirements for uni and some of the uni's take into account the person's work and life history rather than solely relying on academic records which may not be an accurate reflection of a person now. 

I used to work with people who had injuries and disabilities and a lot of my clients chose to do further study whether at uni or technical college to upgrade their skills and usually to obtain skills in less physically demanding work. 

I also know many people who are in their 30's, 40's and 50's who have decided that they want a complete change and return to college for this reason.  The ability to do this seems to depend upon finances (can they afford to study), commitments (mortgage, family) and a willingness to make such a big change in their life.

It now seems to be the norm to have two or three or more career changes (ie. significant job changes) in your working life. 

The uni's and colleges often have guidance officers/counsellors who could give you some more information on the number of mature age students they have and any extra support that they may be able to offer.


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RE: Higher education - 3/20/2008 10:49:47 AM   
DesFIP


Posts: 25191
Joined: 11/25/2007
From: Apple County NY
Status: offline 		My daughter's majoring in psychology, she expects to have no trouble being hired for HR after graduation. She will need some basic business courses or internships, but neither of those are overwhelming problems.

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RE: Higher education - 3/20/2008 11:57:12 AM   
pahunkboy


Posts: 33061
Joined: 2/26/2006
From: Central Pennsylvania
Status: offline 		college has gone up a ton since i went.    back in the day -tuition was $20 a credit hour- it had gone up from 18, 16.  so  today it seems a rip off.

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RE: Higher education - 3/20/2008 1:11:56 PM   
thompsonx


Posts: 23322
Joined: 10/1/2006
Status: offline 		popeye:
You are mistaken about the GI bill paying everything for you.  When you and I went to college the GI bill paid a fixed amount depending on how many units you were carrying.  If that did not cover your books,tuition,lab fees and food, clothing and housing then you needed to get a job or hook up a scholarship,grant or a loan.
Your degree is not in one of your so called "soft sciences" and you admit that you could not get a job with it?
Would you hazard a guess how much a translator gets paid.  At the low end,like being a translator for the court system, the pay starts out at about thirty dollars an hour.  That is 60 large a year.  
I was at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January and made the acquaintance of several translators who were assisting Chinese businesses there...five hundred dollars a day plus food and lodging...dang I don't know how they can scrape by on such wages
Writers ...you know those "English and Journalism" majors  didn't they just get a new contract from Hollywood? 
For anyone who admits to being unemployable with a "hard science" degree to denigrate some one who does have a job with a "soft science" is tantamount to a person with a paper asshole trying to fight a forest fire.
thompson

< Message edited by thompsonx -- 3/20/2008 1:17:15 PM >

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RE: Higher education - 3/20/2008 1:22:17 PM   
meatcleaver


Posts: 9030
Joined: 3/13/2006
Status: offline 		A lot depends on your current education. If you are starting from the beginning  at your age (40 if your profile is right) and thinking about going to college for a bachelors degree, probably the best thing to do would be a part time course. If you already have a bachelors and are thinking about a masters, the best thing to do would be to check universities themselves for the possibility for a bursary. Companies will sometimes give you a bursary if you are studying something that is convenient to them. There are also fellowships yopu can do some research on but you really neeed to be in the grove to be offered one of those. I can't think of a country in Europe where you are going to get financial help, not even through the EU, you usually have to be young for that sort of funding.

I've studied in both Holland and France and worked my way through both courses but I studied the visusal arts so my inadequate language didn't penalize me and language is going to be a problem for you in Europe unless you are studying the arts on the whole. Though most of the large European Universities have courses in English but they are usually science courses. You just never know unless you ask. My daughter's boyfriend (who is Chinese) has just got a bursary for Imperial London and Edinburgh but then he is 17 and doing a masters in Mathmatics so he a little special.

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