AIBU to think that for £3,000 per term...

[OneHandFlapping]

DS should get more than 40 hours of lectures and 24 hours of tutorials at university?

If he went to a private school, he would get 25 hours of lessons a week for a similar sum.

Why exactly are we now paying unis such massive tuition fees? I imagine they make a profit on students now, which seems wrong.

forgot libraraies and on-line facilties.

Try OU instead, OP. It works out much cheaper. There is a choice after all.

£1000-£1500/week would equate to £35-£52k/annum for Uni students on 35 week/annum course, would it be better if English Unis charged £45k/annum instead of a mere £27k?

No the only choice is not to not go at all, there are lots of universities you can go to, there are private universities, there are other courses, there are overseas universities, all sorts of choice.

If your DS doesn't even bother asking about value for money and what he gets for his fees, then you really wonder what he's learnt in all the previous schooling?

Your son will also be able to benefit from a whole range of extra-curricular activities at university, provided to enhance his skills and develop his employability. These will be offered to him free of charge, but of course, he might not be telling you about these because he would then have to admit that he's not attending them because they clash with sport on tv/ the bar/ socials/ a hangover etc

bangs head on desk and goes off to try and locate yet more absent students

I believe that your son can go to any university in the EU for free, it is only the UK where you have to pay fees.

joins hopenglory banging head on desk

and starts to see where some students' attitudes come from

I believe that your son can go to any university in the EU for free

Not strictly true. Most EU countries charge some sort of fee for non-nationals. And non-nationals are rarely eligible for living allowances/maintenance loans outside their country of citizenship, even within the EU.

Op, the problem is that you are comparing apples and potatoes. The money for fees at school goes on school, and therefore the regime is a school regime. Universities are not schools. The money goes in several directions, but others have covered this ground.

If your dcs were to spend 26 hours pw in classes, the classes would have to be a lot bigger than a tutorial, or staff costs would have to rise a LOT, in whihc case fees would rise too; you can try this out in the Ivy League, where 18 is considered quite a small class.

Why would it be desirable for them to spend more time in class? Are you troubled that they are not getting enough independent work done? Do you not want them to be able to work independently?

Yes YABU. I've only just started at university and honestly I think 9k is not expensive.

I look at the teaching I receive, the buildings I learn in and the facilities provided FREE to the general public and the resources I have access to and think its not bad value for money. I attend a RG university. (Very proud of myself at my old age. )

However I think the current fee structure is going to bite the government on the arse because its unsustainable.

Forgot to add please don't be so naive as to moan about money being spent in research. I strongly suggest you educate yourself on what that research actually provides for you.

Students at my DH's university bring up contact hours every year or two. They say they should have more - it is then pointed out to them that the only way to do that would be for them to have mass lectures rather than small classes (5 to 9 students) in which they can discuss things properly. They are asked which they want...and the issue goes away again.

Oh, and while there are some grants to pay for research, there really aren't that many. Much research is done by the tutors/lecturers/professionals, with no extra funding, mainly during the part of the year that they are not teaching/lecturing/marking/doing pastoral care.

Fees are £9000, which is high. When I was a student it was free and I got a grant.
But, when I started work I was paying basic rate tax at 30%, now a new graduate (or anyone entering the job market) starts paying tax at 20%. Even with repaying a student loan they wouldn't be losing as much out of their early pay packets as my generation did.
It's all the same money, there are just different ways of getting to it.

YABU, but the government should be paying the fees, not the students.

YABU.
They are supposed to spend as much time outside of the lectures/tutorials doing reading/research and writing papers. They aren't kids anymore, they will only get out of it as much as they put in, no one holds their hands

YABU. And if you feel like that about university education, you should have considered OU.

A lot of students don't seem to realise that seminars, lectures and tutorials are only part of what they're meant to be doing at university. And quite a lot don't seem to manage to turn up for these oh so expensive and rare seminars anyway!

As someone has already said there is a massive difference between training which basically teaches you a process and requires little if any original thought , although may still be very rigorous , and education which in my opinion should be much broader and about expanding the mind .

They are two completely different things and one of the things which has gone wrong with our modern education system is that we have confused the two.

Schools now train children to pass exams rather than educating them and allowing qualifications to be a by product of that education .The result is that teenagers arrive at University expecting to be told how to pass an exam rather than spending three years expanding their knowledge of an area of academic study and thereby acquiring a degree.Hence the obsession with contact hours.

From what I've read the tuition fees are still subsidised even at £9,000 a year.

You want to know what the money is spent on? Have a look at the university's annual accounts on their website.

Some examples from my former university:

academic staff: £55m
non-academic staff: £40m
bursaries: £6m
books & periodicals: £1.6m
property leases: £4.4m
insurance: £0.5m
energy & water: £2.3m
repairs & maintenance: £4.1m
rates: £0.4m
IT maintenance & licences: £1.9m
postage & phone: £0.7m
marketing: £1.5m

Total expenditure: £155m

The income from tuition fees was 'only' £76m.

OP you are being staggering narrow-minded about this, really.

University should be a mind and life-expanding experience, not something trimmed down to the bare bones in order to cram students through subjects in the cheapest way possible.

YANBU

I think that 9K is absolute rip of for a degree in politics. Especially as many politics graduates are unlikely to ever pay back their student loans.

Far too many students are going to "University" studying useless subjects. Frankly many undergraduates would be better off in a school than a university. A lot of students would be far better off doing an apprenticeship or a vocational course at a technical college.

I feel that UK universities are not doing enough to bring down the costs of university education. Projects like Coursera
or www.class-central.com/
provide high quality lectures from some of the best people in their field. There are facebook groups and bullitin boards which allow for discussion.

I think there are a range of ways that students could broaden their horizons beyond the traditional student union. I would like more flexiblity with degrees so that people can combine paid work with part time study.

If you look into paying privately for journal search engines that'll give you an idea of just ONE of the many things you get for your money as a uni student.

commercial courses don't have the same access to all the facilities, extra material, resources, support etc that you get at a university course

clubs and socs are heavily subsidised, these are a godsend when you finish CV wise and help you to come out the other end looking like a well rounded graduate

I think that clubs and societies are over rated frankly. Often having proper work experience is far more saleable. Plenty of people join sports clubs and societies without going to uni. Lots of mature students or those with children never go near the student's union.

Universities need to adapt to the needs of the 21st century with more flexible courses. People also often need to retrain through out life.

I have a politics degree,it may not have led directly to a specified career but I have never been unemployed and I graduated nearly 28 years ago.My ds is now reading a politics related degree,unless you are doing a vocational subject, university is about how you learn not what you learn.Not everything has to be so utilitarian some things just enhance our life or our understanding of life

Most graduate recruiters are as interested in what societies you are in and what extra curricular activities you have participated in as they are in your degree .There are many people, as you say, with a politics degree its what else you have done to expand your skills and experiences in addition to the degree which makes you stand out