I've been teaching at third level in this country for over 25 years and, regretfully, find increasingly that some of the rapidly-growing numbers of students being enrolled on (now near-worthless) primary degree courses by our 'bums-on-seats' policy-makers (managers and administrators, mainly,
not academics) are astoundingly ignorant, illiterate, lazy and 'entitled'. Or, as an American colleague puts it — and Lord knows, he knows of what he speaks — they suffer from delusions of adequacy. Apart from lecturing and supervising postgrads, I have regular contact with employers across a wide range of sectors and they are increasingly dismayed and baffled at the decline in standards. From
all institutions, I hasten to add. When I hear commentators calling for the reintroduction of fees, I might not share their logic but I do have to wonder whether certain of my undergrad students might take their studies a little bit more seriously, if it was costing Mom and Dad €9K or €10K a year instead of 'just' the €3K 'administration charge'...
(Incidentally, in response to an earlier poster's question, the capitation grant per student, paid directly to the institution by the State, is essentially the equivalent full fee for that course if the student were not eligible for a fees waiver (e.g. repeat students who fail the year first time around, or mature students funding themselves). About €6K and rising for a typical Arts degree, if you're an EU citizen).
Admittedly, this is a very old trope*.
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
Attributed to Plato, The Republic, Book IV (c.432 BC)
.)
I have to agree with those who suggest that something closer to the German (or Scandinavian) model would be of far greater usefulness to society. Not that that should be the primary concern of education, at any level but especially at "higher" level. Universities can never be simply the handmaidens of industry. But in Germany (for example), if you buy a cup of coffee, it will be prepared by a trained barista and probably served by an experienced waiter. Both of them well-paid. If you go to buy a pair of shoes, you'll have your foot size measured properly by someone who actually knows something about the shoes they're selling. And so on. Here the snobbery around degree courses, perpetuated by parents in the main, drives us to believe that 70-something per cent of school-leavers should go on to do a degree. In a proper Collidge, y'know? And to make sure they get there in satisfactory numbers, we'll now give everyone CAO points for failing an exam at their Leaving Cert.
When of course we should be flogging them in public.
Edit: some relevant stats and observations here.