Anyone else feel like the HE system is collapsing?

[questconnect]

Hi all, in the scale of current world events what I am about to say seems relatively unimportant in many ways. But does anybody else feel like Covid has accelerated some sort of collapse of HE in the UK?

Maybe it's just my institution. I work at a top-30 non RG uni, which has decided attendance is basically unnecessary - but we still arrange our teaching around the traditional model, with a mix of on campus and virtual teaching.

As an example, last term I taught a module where attendance (online and virtual) was typically below 10%. On the assessment, about a third of students did not meet the deadline (they had extensions). Of the rest, HALF had to be referred for academic misconduct, some for quite serious offences. I struggled to award others much above a 2:2 but had to because ... they're the customers!

I know these problems are not isolated to modules I teach and it just seems as though the system is collapsing under its own weight. We are recruiting students who can't or don't want to take part (not blaming them, I understand it's a product of the system they find themselves in) and awarding degrees anyway. Having said that, while most students are lovely, increasing numbers are rude and unpleasant and I have had more of them this year than ever before telling me that they are paying their wages.

Am I exaggerating the problem? I'd love to hear from others on this. Personally, I am finding it so hard to keep going under these conditions and am considering options elsewhere - but what!?

Maybe collapse is too strong a word, but I think Covid ha changed the way in which students relate to the university, and whether this is temporary or permanent remains to be seen.

I have noticed a culture of students not coming to class, or not tuning in to the Zoom stream, because "this is going to be recorded anyway so I'll just watch it later". A very passive way of engaging with university study, and one that we, at my department and more generally, used to resist fiercely when conversations about "lecture capture" started a few years ago, but aparently it is now ok because Covid. Our university, to be fair, does not ask us to provide such recordings other than in a few very specific cases. But I am sensitive to pressure from the students themselves, and from colleagues who think that if you are not providing recorded or remote alternatives to everything that you do, to all students (and not just those who are genuinely immunocompromised and couldn't attend classes regularly), then you are a horrible, non-inclusive person. Some of them are still teaching all of their classes online because it is more "inclusive".

So I am concerned that there will be an expectation to provide more, to be available 24/7, and all of this disguised under concerns for inclusivity, mental health, disability and so on. I find it quite puzzling that a lot of the pressure to do so now comes, not from management, but from colleagues (who on the other hand are apparently concerned about the increase to our workloads). But certainly management will take advantage in due course.

@questconnect Where I am the extent of the issues isn't as bad, but things have definitely got much worse in the last two years.

With the introduction of lecture capture, attendance dropped to ~50%. It's now dropped even further, to ~ a third. And there's a significant minority of students (~20%) who aren't engaging with the content at all i.e. not even accessing online materials. Collusion has also increased.

Another issue is large numbers of students struggling with final year dissertations, and other more open ended/independent work. Those who have scraped through the prior years (under 'exceptional covid rules') are completely out of their depth. And there are students with good marks in previous years, who are trying hard, but struggle to do things that weak students previously managed.

To be fair to the students, they've had a really tough few years. But a lot of the things Universities, and individual academics, have done in response haven't helped. Hopefully things will get better post-covid, but it's going take time, and require doing things that are initially unpopular.

I think we are in the middle of a great reorganisation of the way it works, and we will end up with it looking very different . Whether that is fully online, or smaller classes, or full time teachers, I don’t know

At the moment we are only in the start of the changes so we can see them happening but the major themes and how best to deal with them isn’t obvious. We are only getting 30% attendance too and student mental health is awful.

I'm not an academic but work in professional services for a large university. I completely agree HE seems to be on the edge of a seismic shift which has been accelerated by the pandemic. We're seeing very little engagement at all from students this year. We've noticed that many first and second year students still don't seem to know the campus and are struggling with attending anything outside what is compulsory.

The pressure this academic year has been intense and suggests senior management are really worried about NSS and attracting students for next year. Pressure that sadly doesn't translate into creating more posts or even replacing the many staff that have now left the university.

It all feels a bit bleak at the moment and I'm not sure where we're heading.

First years are really struggling this year. Attendance is abysmal—only around 25%—across the entire university.

I'm noticing some of the same behaviours, but my university is much lower in the league tables than top 30. Interesting to hear that higher ranking unis are finding the same issues.

I’ve noticed a lot more students having to work part-time jobs to help support themselves. Might explain the lack of attendance.

I've noticed that all of my students want polar opposite things. Some want more face to face, others more online, some want more challenge others say it's too challenging, some want more contact hours others hardly any.

Universities try to promise students they can all have exactly what they want (and why not - they're paying ) even when it's a logical impossibility. Add in the expectation that HE will step into the gap that negligible provision of young peoples statutory mental health services has created. Then factor in inflationary financial pressures and frozen tuition fees and I can't see how HE in its current form can stay upright

Interesting thread. Attendance in my subject area (humanities) has been very poor this semester, and it’s clear that students are really struggling with the return to the classroom. The mix of post-Covid mental health issues, student as customer and staff burnout is potent. There’s a storm waiting to break over HE.

Universities try to promise students they can all have exactly what they want (and why not - they're paying ) even when it's a logical impossibility.
This is spot on. I find it highly ironic that we are expected to be inclusive, tolerant and accommodating of difference, etc., but apparently if I spend 5 minutes reviewing basic, pre-HE concepts at the beginning of a lecture, so that everyone is on the same page, then the more advanced students are within their right to complain in feedback, and I have to respond to their complaints. Seems the expectation to be inclusive only works one way.

Attendance is mandatory for all live sessions on my course, for both online and face to face. Students are asking for increasing levels of online though.

Only last week I was being asked to change some f2f stuff to online. I asked why, mix of the cost of fuel, parking, too much effort to come in for one lecture. Interesting when according to the parents on here all their offspring want face to face and it’s disgusting that universities are still teaching online.

Anyway my uni say 80% must be f2f so can’t move stuff online even if that’s what they want.

But the amount of extensions is through the roof. Everyone has mental health issues, and anxiety. Not had to refer anyone for academic offences though.

This is an interesting thread and o can relate with everything that has been said so far: poor attendance, lack of engagement, lower level, less resilience.
Generally students can't cope with modules that were totally fine with before.
They can also shift the blame on us, questioning the content of our modules, our marking, our assessment.
It's not a nice play to work in anymore and I know a few colleagues leaving academia for this reason. The whole pension stuff doesn't help either

I'm an ex-academic now working in professional services. I'm not student facing so my knowledge is sort of second-hand, but I opened this thread because I feel like that because of how all the staff I deal with - academic and not - seem to be at the moment. It really feels like everyone's on the edge of collapse. I still engage a bit with the twitter conversation around my discipline and it feels the same. The tone of it is... desperate. I don't quite know what I think will happen but it does just feel like it can't carry on like this.

I lecture in a RG and I've seen online learning causing a disconnection. They also stop relating to you as an actual person. I've seen the students mental health issues getting worse. There will definitely be a shift to universities demonstrating they hit specific targets similar to OFSTEd I think in order to receive the finance. This will be a shock to the HE system. I think it will result in some universities disappearing altogether.

There will definitely be a shift to universities demonstrating they hit specific targets similar to OFSTEd I think in order to receive the finance. This will be a shock to the HE system

I agree with this. The B3 reforms are going to mean course closures in lots of places - whole departments being shuffled off - and probably some institutions going.

@HardbackWriter

There will definitely be a shift to universities demonstrating they hit specific targets similar to OFSTEd I think in order to receive the finance. This will be a shock to the HE system

I agree with this. The B3 reforms are going to mean course closures in lots of places - whole departments being shuffled off - and probably some institutions going.

Yep. Plus the Augar consultations - MER and FY fee slash.

Far more unis now on OfS radar to be watched because of their finances than ever before.

Really interesting responses. Totally agree that students want different things and we seem to be promising to deliver all of it when that’s just never going to happen. I can’t help thinking the sector will shrink and it will be painful. Not sure over what timescale.

I'm not sure the system is "collapsing". But its definitely changing, mostly for the worst. I feel like lots of the changes that were put in place during Covid to specifically respond to the pandemic situation are being locked in place as standard practice.

At my top-10 RG university we used to have a really strict policy around extensions. Students had to apply for extensions in plenty of time and have a mass of evidence to support their applications. This was to support students to develop time management skills and to help manage academics' marking workloads.
During Covid, we introduced "no questions asked" 1-week extensions to any student that asked. At the same time, the burden of proof for longer extensions was reduced so that students could ask for up to one month with little more than a self-referral/self-diagnosis. Fine, it was Covid.

But now its not Covid (in the sense that we're back face-to-face and any leeway for staff has been very quickly rescinded). Yet the same policy around extensions is in place with no signs of rolling it back at all. What is that teaching students about time management? About personal responsibility? About the 'real world' of work that we're preparing them for? I'm not saying students shouldn't have extensions but there should be onus on them to apply early and to provide a significant amount of 'proof'.

Moreover, what does the retention of the extension policy say about staff's value? Staff's time? It says the university doesn't give a shit, that we should just drop everything to mark work which is coming in weeks and week late with no real explanation or context.

But the retention of our extension policy, and the changes in HE more generally, speak to the culture of universities. I find that any staff who question whether we should be a bit 'harsher' with students to instill some resilience and life skills in them are absolutely piled upon.
We're called unsupportive, exclusive, or ableist.
So, who the hell is going to stick their head above the parapet and argue in favour of returning to the old extension policy? Not me.

yes, that is true at my place too: extension slip, ignoring deadlines, giving flimsy excuses or none at all for lateness. I don't see how we can get back from that - and online/offline, double iterations, students chopping and changing and generally getting confused but also really demanding that all be accommodated.

This is a really good post @KStockHERO. I relate to almost all everything you say. (I am exams coordinator in my department). Students are expecting to get rather substantial extensions with minimal explanation, or even no explanation at all; once I queried a specific case in a meeting, and I was told by a colleague that to ask a student to explain why they are asking for an extension might revive "trauma". And the comment about staff time is spot on. Some of my colleagues have been on strike about excessive workload, yet they bend over backwards to accommodate students beyond what the university policy actually requires them to do, creating work for others (e.g. myself, our administrator) in the process.

My institution might be a bit of an outlier. We require loads of evidence for extensions and quite a bit of notice.

It would be really interesting to find out how many places are still covid-style lax and how many aren't.

Students seem quite surprised we aren't just handing out extensions upon request, so I assume they're talking to friends in other places that are more relaxed.

We fail essays that are late without an extension too - no leeway after 24 hours.