Today Listener Series: Is university worth it?
Best of Today
BBC
4.0 • 837 Ratings
🗓️ 17 September 2024
⏱️ 17 minutes
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Summary
Earlier this year, the Today programme gave our listeners the chance to look at an issue that matters to them. Anna and Chloe - along with Chloe's 19 year-old daughter Pearl - wanted to ask "University: Is it worth it?" and interrogate the value of a university education in 2024. As part of our coverage, Today has exclusively seen a blueprint for the future of universities in England. Universities UK, which represents 142 universities, is calling for a rise in tuition fees linked to inflation and more government support for students. Listen to the other stories explored by our listeners this week on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds between 6am-9am.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Tewish Tewish fees need to go up, as does government funding of universities. |
| 0:09.9 | That's part of the suggestion from proposals seen by the Today programme from Universities UK, |
| 0:15.7 | the organisation which represents more than 140 universities across the UK. In England, the £9,250 annual fees have not risen for the last seven years. And the issue of university education, what it is for and whether it's worth it, was raised with us by listeners when we asked earlier this year what you wanted us to dig into. I'm Michelle Hussain and here are those listeners, |
| 0:39.7 | Anna and Chloe, along with Chloe's 19-year-old daughter, Pearl. They've all been speaking to |
| 0:44.5 | education correspondent Vanessa Clark. Is that your university yours? Yeah, I was probably very |
| 0:49.9 | nervous deep down, but very excited also. And which time did you spend in that room probably 20 hours |
| 0:56.4 | and 24 hours looking at this picture now just makes me feel a bit sick i'm pearl i'm 19 years old |
| 1:02.0 | i dropped out after doing a year of law and i'm going to goldsmiths in september i'm chloe i'm |
| 1:08.4 | i'm pearl's mom i'm anna i'm chloe, I'm Chloe's friend and my son is Theo who gave |
| 1:14.2 | up university to become a carpenter. Pearl, Chloe and Anna. You contacted the Today Program. What exactly |
| 1:20.9 | do you want us to find out about university education? Where the money goes, the £9,250 per year plus housing costs, where does that money go and how can universities explain that it's value for money? |
| 1:36.9 | Peril, what about you? |
| 1:37.8 | Where's the personal connection and is it possible to get more face-to-face? |
| 1:41.9 | Was it quite a big decision to drop out? |
| 1:45.4 | I didn't have the best start. |
| 1:47.6 | There were a lot of strikes in the first few weeks, |
| 1:50.3 | so I didn't start for about a month in, |
| 1:52.7 | which was not great because it was kind of start, stop, start, stop. |
| 1:55.6 | And they don't really help you get stuck in. |
| 1:57.3 | Like if you don't turn up, they don't chase you about anything. |
| 1:59.8 | They don't encourage you to like pick it back up. There's no kind of conversation about how are you |
| 2:04.0 | feeling about anything. That's what I went with Theo as well, my son. He was not going to |
... |
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