OK I know that is not strictly true as those who have been to Oxbridge know it’s not a seperate MA but for “the great unwashed” (like me) who usually don’t know these things it LOOKS like you got an MA.
At the risk of sounding pretentious, anywhere in the UK where Oxford/Cambridge degrees are disproportionately represented will be familiar with how it works.
It does look good though to the average person. But to be honest, I’m not sure it makes too much of a difference if the degree was a deciding factor in the first place.
One thing I will note is that in the UK, you can do second bachelor degrees. As I’m in London, I’ve got friends who went back and did a 2nd degree from Oxford. In the US, you’re not allowed to do that at any top school which you could argue adds to the exclusivity of it.
Spouse has two Bachelor’s degrees (earned simultaneously) from an Ivy- a BS from the College of Engineering, and a BA from the College of Arts and Sciences. Not that unusual in the US. These were not double majors, majors and a minor- these were two separate degree programs in two different colleges (of the same university).
You can get a second bachelors degree in the US as well. Just not for the same major.
Either simultaneously or years apart.
Could be at the same school or different schools.
The same is true of Master’s and PhDs as well.
Spouse has two Bachelor’s degrees (earned simultaneously) from an Ivy- a BS from the College of Engineering, and a BA from the College of Arts and Sciences.
That’s not the same thing though - you do that simultaneously.
Plenty of people do that in the US - I’ve got a friend who did a similar thing at Wharton with their a degree from the College of Arts and Sciences and Wharton.
But once you’ve graduated from a college, you can’t go back and get another Wharton undergrad degree. Going to an Ivy is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Once you’ve graduated from college, you can’t go back and do it again.
You can go back and get a second degree at Oxford. I know of one 74-year-old (at the time) who went back to get a BA degree from Oxford after getting a BA degree at Cambridge in the 1960s.
Yes, you can get second bachelor degrees years apart in the US.
But as far as I understand it, you can’t do a bachelors degree at a less prestigious institution and then go back years later and get another bachelors at a prestigious Ivy-standard institution (not counting Columbia GS and various extension schools). It’s school-dependent but most Ivy-standard schools don’t allow that.
So the way I view it is that you can always go back and get an Oxford degree later in life but you can’t for a US ivy.
Yes off topic - but have had the thought…
As one can only get an undergrad UK student loan for a 1st degree in the UK, could she still do a UK degree with loan if she had a US degree already?
A retirement degree lol, where one will never actually pay it back.
Or a different subject where you might be excused the first year so get it in two?
Please nobody look into this unless you are interested - I was just museing.
Edit: Nothing online so I phoned - and any 1st degree from any University abroad would disqualify you for a student loan for University in the UK.
Yeah, you’re not eligible for a loan but Oxford does offer a scholarship though for a 2nd degree though. Plus, you can do it with senior status - this means you skip the first year and just do the second and third if you already have a degree. So an Oxford degree in 2 years is not bad either.
And if someone is thinking of a retirement degree, I’d expect they’d have enough to pay for 2 years.
(Don’t worry, I was slightly exagerating wrt Oxbridge being a “safety”, but this was to refocus the thread due to posts questioning things that had been explained upthread and had clearly not been read).
At this point it seems that it’d be a better deal to either do your undergrad degree abroad (France, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland?) or just borrow £7,000 per year (using savings for £2,000) and pay directly w/o going through the student loan, which at this point has become a “tax for life” where people seemingly repay way more than they’ve been lent.
Or for English people who can, to move to Scotland and work there (free university tuition for Scottish pupils).
It’s crazy that the UK expects its residents to borrow more than the US expects, for public university, with nowhere near the scholarship&grant system that exists in the US.
I just quite fancied doing a degree and looked into it last year but would be disqualified for a loan on age basis this Sept so couldn’t… I’ll never have a ‘retirement’ and will have to work till I drop, but have noticed people retire then die quite often so the upside is my brain and body will have to keep going - no feet up by the pool for me. I like to say I had an early retirement in my 20’s and 30’s though - all that travel, even though I did actually work. Very off topic.
Yes, my brother in the UK could certainly afford to pay for his kids, but they just take the loans as he doesn’t expect them to earn enough to pay the loans back. He’d rather keep his assets and gift the money to them for a house downpayment later on.
It’s a different way of thinking about it compared to the US, where escaping from student loan debt is much more difficult. However with interest rates on the UK student loans now very high (as they are linked to inflation), it seems like a decision that could backfire for them if they do ever earn a lot.
Just to be clear, I didn’t think there was an age limit for getting a tuition loan (the large bulk of expenses) in the UK.
I did a quick google and the UK government website says as much.
You can do it at 70 or even 90 if you want.
You’re no longer eligible for maintenance grants or loans but that would never have covered the bulk of your expenses in the first place.
As long as you can afford to pay your other expenses aside from tuition, there is no age limit.
But I do realize we’re veering more and more off-topic so I’ll stop now.
Don’t let that stop you from getting a degree. I always admire older people going back and getting a degree because it takes a lot more effort than the traditional route.