Of course, the year isn't over until Results Day next Summer, but the deadline for applications has passed, and 140 have been made by Beaumont (or recently ex Beaumont) students. This figure matches the last couple in the sense that around 95% have applied to a university or higher education establishment. This is despite the much higher cost of taking a UK degree course when compared to five years ago (tuition fees, loan interest rates and accommodation costs have all soared in this time) and also a reported fall in the income gap between graduate and non graduator employment.
If the cost of a degree is rising and the returns are falling, then one would expect demand to fall. So why is this not the case?
It could be due to the perceived value of the alternatives also falling in attractiveness.
Or it could be a local effect with Beaumont students not being average over a range of drivers, including quality of access to degree courses, the value placed on education for its own sake as well as, no doubt, some greater degree of financial comfort.
Or it could be that in a more economically uncertain world, accumulating greater education is seen as an insurance policy against financial dislocation, providing a global passport to future opportunities.
It is most likely a combination of all three factors at work, but is always interesting to monitor the impact of recent, dramatic change in the higher education sector. This is definitely not the end of this story.
Sunday 15 January 2017
Sunday 8 January 2017
What's the value of taking a fourth A level?
As the latest A level reform finally starts to develop some consistency, with all reformed for a Sept 2017 start, this is a quality question. Universities will only make an offer based on three A levels, because they cannot discriminate against applicants who have been unable to take more, as these are likely to have been studying at less well-funded school and colleges. At the same time there is increasing doubt over the currency value of the new AS level. These changes can lead to a reasonable assumption that a full focus on just three A levels is always the rational choice.
However Beaumont retains a curriculum model that allows many A Level students, should they choose, to take four A levels (or a Double BTEC and two A levels, which amounts to the same teaching contact hours). This is because we see several important strands of value to the four course offer.
Firstly choosing to start with four, allows a student to take a subject with an element of risk, perhaps because it is new to the student or because it is more out of the GCSE comfort zone. If the subject does not work out, as the course progresses, then it can be dropped without damage. However it could become the centre piece of future study; my daughter chose, with some doubts, to take A level Psychology as a fourth AS level. As she had other options and interests at this stage, I doubt she would have chosen to take it as one of a narrow suite of just three. She went on to take an undergraduate degree and masters degrees in Psychology and now is employed by a large engineering design firm as an Occupational Psychologist. When she was a fifteen year old faced with making her A level choices she was not consciously aware that she had created an option for herself which would turn out to have tremendous value.
Secondly, the four A level option creates a safety net should one not work out either due to its academic challenge or a decline in interest in the subject content. Students have to do a minimum of three A levels, and the best possible grades must be achieved at the end of two years to progress in whatever direction is chosen.
Finally, some students have sufficient interest and ability to pursue four subjects all the way through the two year course. This can create further university course and career options for them. Also a decision to do more than the minimum and to succeed in doing this cannot fail to be an attraction to future employers.
However Beaumont retains a curriculum model that allows many A Level students, should they choose, to take four A levels (or a Double BTEC and two A levels, which amounts to the same teaching contact hours). This is because we see several important strands of value to the four course offer.
Firstly choosing to start with four, allows a student to take a subject with an element of risk, perhaps because it is new to the student or because it is more out of the GCSE comfort zone. If the subject does not work out, as the course progresses, then it can be dropped without damage. However it could become the centre piece of future study; my daughter chose, with some doubts, to take A level Psychology as a fourth AS level. As she had other options and interests at this stage, I doubt she would have chosen to take it as one of a narrow suite of just three. She went on to take an undergraduate degree and masters degrees in Psychology and now is employed by a large engineering design firm as an Occupational Psychologist. When she was a fifteen year old faced with making her A level choices she was not consciously aware that she had created an option for herself which would turn out to have tremendous value.
Secondly, the four A level option creates a safety net should one not work out either due to its academic challenge or a decline in interest in the subject content. Students have to do a minimum of three A levels, and the best possible grades must be achieved at the end of two years to progress in whatever direction is chosen.
Finally, some students have sufficient interest and ability to pursue four subjects all the way through the two year course. This can create further university course and career options for them. Also a decision to do more than the minimum and to succeed in doing this cannot fail to be an attraction to future employers.
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