AIBU to have submitted 2 fake applications to The New College of Humanities today?

[ManateeEquineOhara]

Namely Agnes Nitt and Draco Malfoy.

Am considering doing Bart Simpson in a sec. I hate elitism.

Sorry but what is the problem with a private university?

It is not instead of existing universities. It is as well as existing universities.

Nobody has to go.

It is no more "elitist" than an expensive hotel. Sure, you have to pay lots to go there. But no-one is forcing you to. There are plenty of cheaper hotels to choose from.

Minipie - following the cuts, it is considered by some to be an indication of the way British HE may be going.

Alpine pony - I have finished my masters for the summer (I can't possibly afford 1 years worth of fees in one year!) and have free time. Besides, they only take 5 minutes each so I think I can justify it!

OldMac - But over 1000 people sending similar applications sends a message that they think NCH is a piss take...you dipstick. :)

Quintessential - that reminds me of Steiner School shudders.

I also agree with all who have commented on contact time, and if students are being spoon fed their education, and doing less independent learning, are employers going to value their degree so highly?

I'm not sure there is a complete correlation between contact time and quality of learning - it depends what is done during that contact time. As I said earlier in this thread, the contact time when I was doing my degree was very challenging and perhaps that is the model that NCH is going for.

I don't think most employers really think that much about the intricacies of the degree - it's the subject, reputation of the unversity (or the department) that matters with a hierarchy that generally has Oxbridge and LSE at the top and layers down to some former FE colleges offering very vocational degrees.

Where will NCH be placed in that hierarchy? It's a bit early to say but I think it would have to really screw up quite badly not to be on par with the RG universities, in my opinion.

BTW - I don't get why anyone is bothering to send in fake applications either. It seems a pointless waste of everyone's time - I can't imagine ACG will be having second thoughts because of it.

Lala - I am not sending the applications with any misconceptions about the general pointlessness of the whole thing, what is a fake application compared to celebrity status and money...

The reaction against it is very interesting and very amusing to watch. I see one of those against it has had to admit in a letter in today's Times that in fact there was nothing wrong under the contract in using the University of London syllabus that has been used.

Oh look. It is Xenia. Surprise, she supports NCH.

"Normal" people with have to pay 9k pa to got to a normal uni soon anyway. It's only twice as much. Can't imagine a "bought" degree place holds much weight for employers recruiting for real jobs tbh. Let the pompous twats get on with it, I say.

Grendlesmum - are you refering to my post about my DC and the humanities degree? If so you are talking rubbish as you don't have a clue as to which uni it is or which humanities degree I'm referring to. I have intimate knowledge about the course the dc took and can assure you that my post is absolutely correct. What's more this particular dc was far from lazy and is a the highest achiever, which was why the dc found the degree course so unfulfilling and disappointing.

www.thefirstpost.co.uk/80134,people,news,grayling-uni-faces-flood-of-fake-applications

Still don't get it. It's like when Michael Moore films security guards not letting him into a corporate building - yeah, let's get at the real bad guys (not that I necessarily believe that ACG or the others are bad guys).

manatee I thought you said you were a "uni administrator" - therefore I'd imagine you have real work to do - you know, what with "the cuts" 'n' all, surely you don't want to come across as a lazy sod who wastes time? But, how exciting for you! Now you've done these, will you be doing fake applications for public schools and, as another posted pointed out, fancy hotels?

I would suggest you "waste 5 minutes" looking at this site:

www.findmeahobby.com/

Don't you think as a uni administrator yourself that this is completely unacceptable and unprofessional behaviour? Yet, you are taking delight in it. What do you think your VC would think?

This is all very silly. Clearly people feel very threatened by Grayling's proposal but what is so threatening? There are lots of private higher education colleges in London offering degrees. Grayling is acting within the law, I assume. I think the attack is misplaced and should be directed at the government as it is a result of its withdrawal of funding for humanities and arts degrees.

What is the true monetory cost of a degree, taking into account premises, facilities, staffing and other on costs? If at last the academics are to be paid a decent salary for what they do, good on them. They will have studied for at least 7 years to achieve their PhDs, usualy at their own expense, and many more years living on a comparatively low salary, compared to medics and others.

Today's Guardian - an article from ACG and one from Simon Jenkins.

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jun/09/grayling-abused-over-new-college-plans

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/09/ac-grayling-caricatured-british-university-fuming?intcmp=239

I don't think anyone, least of all AC, thinks that Higher Ed is anything but a mess at the moment, but your actions are puerile and pointless. As Alpine says, I hope you also make fake applications to public schools - ah but - you have to send in 100 pounds along with your application for those.

I have no idea how this venture will pan out - no one does - but the comments about a "bought degree" are similarly odd. Does it mean students won't do the work? If the teaching is decent and more than a few hours a week, it might be better value than a degree bought for 8 or 9000 pounds from a second rate institution or even than some of our better ones, given the small no of hours teaching in the Humanities at many. Then there is the view that the current 9000 limit isn't sufficient for our state funded universities either and will need to rise in future.

As for complaining about a college for the rich, despite government targets, one of the better ways of ensuring entry for your child to a top rated institution is still to buy private schooling. Why does this particular venture annoy you so much? Look at the socio economic profile of other top universities - how different, in reality, are they? Aren't there far more useful things you might be doing to encourage fairness than wasting time over a college which will take a mere handful of students and might yet fail? I hope it doesn't.

And the Oxbridge tag was put there by the Sunday Times in its headline on the front page. It is not a claim made by Grayling.

YANBU. Go go go.

The reason this particular private venture annoys me is that they are going to be using the resources of another university instead of paying for their own- this will be to the disadvantage of those other students who cannot afford to pay for this more expensive option, but may suddenly find themselves without any room to work in their own library. The investors will be using tax-funded resources for their own private business venture to the disadvantage of students who will derive no benefit from it.

To the poster upthread (RevoltingPeasant I think) who said 3hrs/week at Oxbridge is standard, it's not, 10-12hrs/week is standard for Arts subjects at Cambridge, whilst English students have so many lectures in the first year they couldn't possible fit them all in timetabling-wise and Science subjects do 9-5 days. Don't know about Oxford, but imagine it's similar.
So if this place is offering 13hrs/week, that's pretty good, though I still doubt much of it will be taught by the advertised professors.

At least Eton and Marlborough don't try to save money by closing down their own facilities and using those of the local comp.

Though frankly, I think this is going to be a serious disadvantage for this new university. Students will look round the options and realise that Cambridge has wonderful facilities -including one of the best libraries in the world- and that Grayling University has no facilities whatsoever. Which is precisely what influences parents who consider private education.

Also, they will realise that you don't actually get to rub shoulders with those celebrities, or even discuss your subject in a seminar with them: some of them have already admitted that they have only agreed to give one lecture. And even with the ones who haven't said, it is easy enough to work out that they have commitments - and money!- elsewhere.The majority of the work will be done by more ordinary people.

Cory, will they be paying UCL for use of the library? Which other facilities will they use and surely there will be a charge, otherwise, why will they be allowed in? I assume they have UCL's blessing to use them, so why is the annoyance directed at NCH, not UCL? I've been involved in HE in the past and have an eldest DC in years 12. Probably naively, I feel relieved to see someone try to make some change to what seems to me, an anxious parent, a pretty moribund system.

I have come across several of these founding professors briefly in professional and personal situations and have a high regard for them which I admit biases me.

Cory, "ordinary" academics are absolutely fine by me.

I agree that students often don't come to their contact time lectures and seminars, I regularly have half the class missing at the end of term, and mine is one of the most popular courses which is ranked very highly! Where are they?!

I also agree with the person who said that a lot of students are not used to independent study. I put this down to changes in the A level teaching and syllabus. When I did A levels (humanities), we wrote essays, used original source books and did lots of independent studies, so by the time I arrived at university, it was just more of the same. I have taught A level since then as a tutor and nearly fell off my chair when I saw how the material was all divided up, little chance to practice essay writing, and you could have memorized the A level course book (no original source books needed) and come away with an excellent grade. Hence these students turn up at university really underskilled expecting the lectures/seminars to provide all their knowledge easily digested in chunks and are quite upset when they are asked to read actual books and stuff.

I do agree with cory though, that there has to be a set contact time that is adhered to, with minimum group sizes. Three hours of intensive tutorial at Cambridge is not the same as three hours in a large seminar group. However, you also have to take account of the fact that many many students are simply not intellectually bright enough to fill three hours with a vigorous discussion, some of my students look quite blank tbh when asked to go beyond their own personal experiences and discuss theories etc. And these are AAA/AAB students at a good uni.

crystalglasses - no, it was a post a few months ago where the poster had given the name of the University and the name of the course, hence knowing that the student was misleading her mother. Enough details were given that I could have found out exactly which student it was and told their tutor (a colleague of mine) to give them a boot up the backside, but no doubt the tutor already knew that she wasn't doing much work.

I've certainly been surprised by the criticism of it when we already have private universities awarding degrees and people go abroad already. I don't see what all the fuss is about. We will have to wait to see if it's successful or not. Given it takes about 50+ years for employers to regard institutions as good I'm not sure I'd risk a child going there unless we found they were getting 90% of the students into good jobs because the contacts and work experience were so good. Also you need a critical mass to have enough good people off whom to bounce ideas and yes nice buildings help too.

Lots of companies offer a service in return for money.

Why should education be excluded?