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Surely financing a degree should be a smaller issue now payment is done afterwards once income rises above a given level? The poorest students do get financial help while studying, as this is the only way universities can retain the ability to charge £9k per annum. The message about the changes to the funding system still doesn't seem to be getting through.A smaller issue perhaps, but still a huge one. I was fortunate enough to start uni when there were no tuition fees at all, part time work was much easier to come by and there were more generous grants for those on low incomes. Still, many of my college friends, several with superb A'Level grades were either feeling that university, although they would love to go, was completely financially unrealistic or they would dismiss the vast majority of universities (and, related to this, specific courses) because they felt that they could only go if they stayed at home. I can't see that the situation would be any better now. On another note, those that take part time jobs in order to cover living costs have a lot less available study time too! Katie > Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 10:24:45 +0100 > From: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] Encouraging teenagers from state schools to study science > To: [log in to unmask] > > Hi Richard, > > Think this might be what you want..... > > http://www.hesa.ac.uk/dox/performanceIndicators/1112_S49X/sp4_1112.xls > > On the page where you'll find this (http://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2060&Itemid=141 ) in the "Supplementary tables - sector level" you'll find several years' data. It may not be exactly what you want, but getting bespoke data from HESA is at best expensive. > > At the British Science Festival Young People's Programme this year, we had academics and others talking about their career paths. State school students rarely hear about the school attended by an academic other than in a session like that. I've never heard an academic or a school introduce someone doing a talk as "this is x, they went to a private / state school" or vice versa. What's more important in perception terms is showing students the number of ways there are to get into science, at a whole range of levels, and that people they recognise as 'like them' do it. Yes, the type of school attended is part of that, but in my experience, a local accent goes a long way to persuading students that a speaker is 'like them' - students don't tend to ask about the school someone went to, but teachers do. I have no evidence to support that, just imprecise experience. > > Surely financing a degree should be a smaller issue now payment is done afterwards once income rises above a given level? The poorest students do get financial help while studying, as this is the only way universities can retain the ability to charge £9k per annum. The message about the changes to the funding system still doesn't seem to be getting through. > > I would hate to see science festivals or other events selecting speakers (where cost isn't an issue) on any measure other than how good they are as a scientist and a presenter - how you define 'good' is a different problem. I have a disability and I don't want that to be either an advantage or a disadvantage - I want to get where I'm going on merit. School attended should be a similarly unimportant factor. > > All best > > Colin > > -----Original Message----- > From: psci-com: on public engagement with science [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of richard wiseman > Sent: 26 September 2013 08:48 > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: [PSCI-COM] Encouraging teenagers from state schools to study science > > Hi > I am trying to find out more about the percentage of teenagers from fee paying and state funded schools that study science at University, stay in academia, etc. There's lots of material out there on education in general - e.g., the 5 top fee paying schools send more pupils to Oxbridge than over 2,000 state schools - but I can find very little on science. Lots of the general work shows that financing a degree is clearly an issue, but also that many state school teenagers rarely hear about academics who went to state schools. > Assuming there is an issue, have any science festivals tried to address the problem (e.g. encouraging more speakers who had a state school education, placing a cap on the number of speakers who went to fee paying schools, etc.). > Any help gratefully received! > Cheers > Richard > > > Professor Richard Wiseman > Psychology Department > University of Hertfordshire > > ********************************************************************** > > Commands - send an email (any subject) to [log in to unmask] with one of the following messages (ignoring text in brackets) > > • set psci-com nomail (to stop receiving messages while on holiday) • set psci-com mail (to resume getting messages) • signoff psci-com (to leave the list) • Subscribe here https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=psci-com > > Contact list owner at [log in to unmask] Small print and JISCMail acceptable use policy https://sites.google.com/site/pscicomjiscmail/the-small-print > > ********************************************************************** > > ********************************************************************** > > Commands - send an email (any subject) to [log in to unmask] with one of the following messages (ignoring text in brackets) > > • set psci-com nomail (to stop receiving messages while on holiday) > • set psci-com mail (to resume getting messages) > • signoff psci-com (to leave the list) > • Subscribe here https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=psci-com > > Contact list owner at [log in to unmask] > Small print and JISCMail acceptable use policy https://sites.google.com/site/pscicomjiscmail/the-small-print > > ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Commands - send an email (any subject) to [log in to unmask] with one of the following messages (ignoring text in brackets) • set psci-com nomail (to stop receiving messages while on holiday) • set psci-com mail (to resume getting messages) • signoff psci-com (to leave the list) • Subscribe here https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=psci-com Contact list owner at [log in to unmask] Small print and JISCMail acceptable use policy https://sites.google.com/site/pscicomjiscmail/the-small-print **********************************************************************