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.

I am not an anti-intellectual. I am a university educated parent of a child at a prestigious university.

However, now that undergraduates are in effect consumers - which they weren't in my day of free tuition and maintenance grants, we have a right to know what the money raised in tuition fees is being spent on.

As it is the first year of £9k tuition fees, it not currently a free marketplace. In fact, it has been suggested that there is a trend of "we'll lose prestige if we don't charge the maximum".

By the way, lectures attended by DS are attended by about 120 students. Tutorials are only about 3. I make that 8 hours and 20 minutes of lecturer/tutor time per student per term. For 3k.

That is a very expensive library subscription!

Many periodicals are not available on line and ebooks are taking a greater role than in the past. For many subjects like English great texts are available on project Guttenburg for free. There are search engines for journals and students can buy individual papers for a small fee.

OneHandFlapping

Your son's fees cover exam and marking fees as well as the library. It also the covers the cost of services like councelling that a tiny fraction of students need. There is no doult that arts students subsidise the cost of science, engineering and medical students. Whether this is right is questionable.

Should the average university student be expected to pay for research? Do we need every university to do research?

The world is changing. I am sure it will be possible to have one to one tutorials with the best academics in India for far less than what current UK universities charge.

Maybe he should be doing an engineering degree that will actually benefit society, rather than politics which will teach him how to want free upgrades to first class.

I'll get my coat.

Dragonwoman, way up thread you said this:

'Why do masters courses often cost less than one year of an undergrad degree though? The one I'm on costs 4600 for the year. You get all the usual library access and about 12 hrs of lectures a week. Plus many assignments which have to be marked, exams and a supervised project. But undergrads at the same university pay 9000 per year. '

The reason is that for the time being anyway UK universities get a subsidy from the government for every EU student they take up to an agreed limit. This is the system that used to be in place for undergraduates, and has now gone. I can't see the subsidy lasting much longer. In any case who's going to have the money to do a Master's as a self-funding student when they are already loaded down with £27k tuition fee loans and £10k+ maintenance fee loans?

onehandflapping, what's coming across as anti-intellectual is your equation of class time with time spent on the student. Class time is the tip of the iceberg.

I work 7 days a week, 6am usually to after 10pm. I can't really spend MORE time on my job. I took exactly 11 days holiday in the past 4 years, including Christmas day.

As well as undergraduates, I also teach graduates, supervise PhDs, and do a big range of other admin jobs. This includes things like library committees, graduate studies committees, college equivalents, syllabus re-creation, lecturing coordination... then there are reports, delivery of reports, and the endless letters of reference... disciplinary committee, harassment committee, equal ops committee, and as well, for every hour I teach in tutorials, I mark 2 essays of 2500 words or more.

Which of those should I stop doing to give your ds an extra few hours of my time so he need not solve problems for himself?

I also HAVE to crank out research, which is in my contract, and which means an endless round of writing, reviewing, peer reviewing, conferences, panels, AHRC review college assessment... and then the ceaseless, wearying search for scarce grant monies for me and for my graduates. (I would like nothing better than to stop doing the last of these, but the pressure is relentless, and my brightest graduates really need me to go on being a leader, or they too lose out...)

For this I am paid less than most subject heads at comprehensive schools.

sieglinde, I'm right in thinking you are an academic at a top university. (Oxford?) I feel awe that you actually get any work completed?

I feel that some people have lost the point of university. (Ie. a student should solve problems by themselves!) If someone is not a self starter and needs to spoonfed then they should not be awarded a degree.

I do wonder if universities could work smarter by collaboration. Is there any point in every so called university in the world having their own syllabus and producing their own exam papers? Also wonder if there are better ways of managing disciplinary matters than the time of top academics? (Unless ofcourse its a fellow academic who is under investigation.)

ReallyTired, I can sum it up; by driving myself mad. Literally true. :) If we don't get our REF items done, there is no sanction - that is, nobody cuts my pay - but there are plenty of black looks and no chance of any job elsewhere - and it's very unfair to one's students.

Somehow I forgot to mention Admissions.... 2 weeks of utter hell.

Yes, I'm at Oxford. The majority of my colleagues work like this too - I know because they email me at 5 am and at 11.30 pm.

And OP, could I just point out that we charge a third of what the Ivy League charges? I am myself Really Tired of saying all this.... and RT, are you a fellow sufferer?

Sieglinde, I will say this again:

I am not saying my DS should get more teaching time, nor that he should be spoonfed.

I am questioning why the time he does get costs so much compared to other forms of education or training.

As I calculated further up the thread, total teaching is 8 hours and 20 minutes per student for £3000 a term. That is £360 per student/hour.

It's irrelevant what Ivy League universities charge. It's also not entirely relevant what funding cuts British universities have suffered.

Universities may need to cut costs by working smarter, streamlining admission, having fewer committees, not replicating each other's work, getting rid of superfluous buildings and separating core teaching activities from research so that they don't need undergraduates to fund unrelated activities.

Oh and why should an arts student subsidise a science student's degree? If the UK can't get enough science undergraduates, any subsidy needs to be from the government. Anything else really is a stealth tax.

But he's not just paying for teaching is he,even if we took your very narrow view of what he is paying for , you need to include the time that his tutors take to mark his essays and scripts at the very least

outtolunchagain

Even if we took the "narrow view" the marking time is paid for as part of the teaching.

Do we have a school Admin boff who can comment on what it means for a school if a y6 child misses siting the KS2 SATs? Does the school get fined or marked down by Ofsted in some way?

I swear on mother's grave I did not post that last message on this thread, some malfunction with MNHQ-Tech!!

Sieglinde, I am not a fellow sufferer. I have a 2.2 in physics from a middling university. It doesn't require super intelligence to see that the position you are being pushed into is completely unsubstainable. The university system needs reform for the sake of the academics as well as the students.

OneHandFlapping The money from undergraduates has always been used to fund research. Without research you would have schools rather than universities. I don't think you understand the type of insitution a university is. Infact research is done on the cheap in universities compared with the scientific civil service. (The research I did was so dull that you would never have persauded anyone to do a PhD in the area I worked in.)

It is far cheaper to do a degree at the local FE college because the students are not subsidising research. However its not exactly the same experience.

I think we need to think what we want from our higher education system as a country. A graduate should be someone who has shown that they can think outside the box and work independently. The end product of a university should be someone who can learn for themselves. I believe an element of independent learning like coursea would help develop these skills of independence.

Very few people are capable of that type of higher level thinking however much money you throw at insitutions. They really would be better doing a vocational course at the local FE college than a degree.

Onehand, if it's not about teaching hours why do you keep repeating the number of contact hours in your posts?

However, I agree that my own university has far, far too many layers of administrators, generating work for everyone. They multiply all the time.

As for too many committees, I would NOT like to see graduate studies handed over to the above; the best people to make judgements are the people at the coalface.

Would you really think it good for there to be a single syllabus in all universities? It's impractical, to begin with. What we ask undergraduates to do couldn't be done everywhere else without extra monies for foundation years. Or do you mean we should lower standards?

What do you mean by 'streamlining' admissions? I shudder at the word. It usually involves hiring more administrators. See above.

What do you mean by separating 'core teaching' from research? I assume you mean that there will be teaching staff and on the other hand active researchers? Evidence suggests that this is NOT what students want as it disimproves teaching.

Most buildings in Oxford are listed, which involves ferocious maintenance costs, and we can't house all our students as it is.

The Ivy League IS relevant IF the UK wants to compete in world terms. Oxbridge and the other top unis here offer a very high-value world-class service in international terms.

You are paying huge - and i mean absolutely enormous - electronic journal subscription fees. If you are bothered about this, get behind the campaign for free access.

Well, for £9000 per year, students should just be given a degree - why should they have to actually do any work when they are paying that much. They're consumers now and should get what they pay for regardless of anything else or so some of them seem to think!

Cannot comment on all of the points raised in the thread for my own blood pressure's sake, but can say on two points:

• masters degree fees are not set by government and universities will currently charge for an individual course depending on the costs for that course (which are calculated at course approval stage on a sliding scale). Not all masters degrees at one university cost the same as each other.

• universities have to build shiny new buildings because otherwise parents will not let their PFBs attend. If a halls of residence was built 20 years ago and has had no improvements since then, do you really think that somebody would CHOOSE to live in that space for the next year?

• students will not choose to go to an institution that does not offer excellent social opportunities such as sports clubs or arts/culture events. All of these add to the overall "student experience" which has to be first rate because students (as pointed out) are now consumers rather than academic. When students stopped being purely academic, I'm not sure, but it does mean that universities HAVE to offer more than courses.

• universities are losing money. As a low level administrator currently on maternity leave, I am now (quite nervously) waiting for the information on how many compulsory redundancies will be made this year as they have not received enough voluntary redundancy requests. Do you really think they would be getting rid of staff (at the ultimate expense of the all important "student experience") if they had money?

I agree there can be inefficiencies with the way universities spend money, as there can be with any business, but the overhead costs for a university are completely different to a private profit making company, and for making these complaints without taking these issues into consideration (or indeed even acknowledging that they exist) you are being VVU.

Universities may need to cut costs by working smarter, streamlining admission, having fewer committees, not replicating each other's work, getting rid of superfluous buildings and separating core teaching activities from research so that they don't need undergraduates to fund unrelated activities.

onehandflapping I'm afraid you've shown just how little you know about what a university does, and what it is for. And you demonstrate how little attention or respect you've given reasonable, informed posts by those of us actually working in the system.

I'm a Head of Department, and participate at various levels in my University's governance, including organisational structures and budgets. I know how we cut costs, work smart etc etc (basically, academic staff donating between 20 and 30 hours a week of free labour over & above the 37.5 hours we're actually paid for).

When I compare the productivity of universities against other professions and industries, I know we are a jewel in the crown of British industry and culture. I recognise Sieglinde's account of her workload -- mine's pretty much the same, and has been for 25 years, although my classes and seminars range from 120 students in a lecture to 15 in a seminar or tutorial.

But your posts show me the philistinism and anti-intellectual utilitarianism that we're up against. It's a pity ... I think in 50 years time (probably fewer years, the rate things are going), we'll look back and really mourn the passing of one of the best HE systems in the world. And it won't be academic staff or their universities who've bring on the wrecking ball. It'll be people brought up with the sorts of attitudes you express, and who resist reasonable and informed debate.

Which is why this post is phrased in an unreasonable way. I mean, why bother reasoning with someone who can't or won't understand?

Oxbridge is different, they offer a very different experience and "value" to students than some other institutions.

In the US there is a whole graduation of Universities based on how they teach, the quality of the academics, the quality of facilities and the reputation. All of these things are reflected in the level of fees.

Yes Harvard's headline rate is much much higher than anywhere in the UK, it also provides a better teaching load, facilities and resources (for academics as well as students), it also offers access to top Academics. However there is a whole range of Universities who offer a different experience for less money, sometimes far less than in the UK. Most students I know in the US do know the relative ranking of their University for their subject, and it is not as simple as Ivy league, Private, State.

We do not have this in the UK. So whilst £9000 may seem like a bargain at Oxford even for English Lit with few contact hours; the same cost at some other institutions seems like a total rip off. At those: you don't have access to world class minds, you may have little opportunity for even "office hours" as the Academic doesn't have their own office; lectures are large and mundane, and there maybe limited opportunities for the extra-curricula activities which can add so much.

The other thing that really worries me is the high cost of accommodation at some Universities, does every student really need a bed-sit with ensuite? Is it even the ideal way for them to live, where they can isolate themselves in their room with few inter-actions with the outside.

Finally the whole of education is changing, which is frightening and challenging. Not only is the question, is going to University worth while financially? But there are new options, so is it worth going to Blogs University as opposed to studying some low cost courses online at MIT and working at the same time?

The other thing that really worries me is the high cost of accommodation at some Universities, does every student really need a bed-sit with ensuite? see comments above about parents' demands for their PFBs. The complaints that I get about accommodation from parents & their demands something as a lecturer I have nothing to do with have to be heard to be believed.

I really think that some of this generation of parents has a lot to answer for. When my DC complained, I just told them it was a good learning experience: living like a student should involve a bit of making ends meet, a bit of temporary poverty. They didn't have en suites at home ... oooh, bad parent alert!

Would you really think it good for there to be a single syllabus in all universities? It's impractical, to begin with. What we ask undergraduates to do couldn't be done everywhere else without extra monies for foundation years. Or do you mean we should lower standards?

No I am not suggesting that students all do the same syllabus as Oxford. That would be completely impractical. It would mean that the likes of me take ten years to get a physics degree instead of three. How to do we measure the learning of an Oxford graduate compared with someone who went to Imperial, Durham or Salford (ex poly). Especially when some very bright people might choose to study at an ex poly for financial reasons.

I'm talking about the middlingly to dare I say it low repruation universities. Does it really make sense for the local FE or even the ex polys college to have a its own degree syllabus and degree awarding powers. The whole thing is a complete mess and actually harms all graduates.

Many employers would refuse to interview an Oxford graduate with a 2.2. How do you compare a Luton graduate in media with a 2.1 with an Oxford 2.2 in say English? Certainly plans have been muted which would stop the Oxford graduate with a 2.2 doing teacher training. I know that universities do try to moderate each others degrees, but how managable is this with so many universities and courses.

I feel that the lesser universites would do better to follow a syllabus set by one of the more high flying universites. That way they could honestly say that a first from your local FE college means something.

Universities may need to cut costs by working smarter, streamlining admission, having fewer committees, not replicating each other's work, getting rid of superfluous buildings and separating core teaching activities from research so that they don't need undergraduates to fund unrelated activities.

Pretty much every university has a business efficiency programme of some sort and is learning to work 'smarter' - which seems to mean longer hours for less money.

Admissions are pretty streamlined - but the constant changes in the HEFCE arrangements and the PBS make this area a nightmare to work in and fairly resource intensive.

What superfluous buildings? We're full except for the buildings we can't use (asbestos and no capital funds to remove it). Everything has been sold that can be sold - lots of buildings have covenants applied specifying educational use

Heaven forbid that students should be taught by leading researchers or be taught what is happening at the cutting edge of their field. Separating teaching and research is absolutely the opposite of what students ask for. If you don't cross fund then you can expect your kids to be taught almost exclusively by GTAs whilst the people who can bring in the research funds do just that and never meet a student.

Universities aren't making a profit on teaching and never have. Students are paying to work in buildings with heat, light, security, where the bins get emptied and the floors swept, with chairs and desks, PCs with software and access to journals, library services, online learning resources, where they can be found placements and internships and be insured when on and off campus, where their SEN requirements are catered for, where there is career advice and counselling services, where they can access occupational health, where their lab work has been properly risk assessed and managed, where there is wifi, where there are people to advise them about money, about their loans, where there are sports and cultural facilities.

And all that is the tip of the iceberg and the minimum expectation of students and parents - and it's before you even get near teaching and learning

Most universities are barely breaking even (those with strong endowments are doing better) and the profit centres are catering, conference facilities, licensing IP possibly - not teaching by any stretch of the imagination

And it's near impossible to let bedrooms without en-suites these days which means those universities with older residential estates are having huge problems

The problem with many efficiency programmes is that the "savings(?)" are "identified" by people who know nothing about the job of runnng a university. It ends up being a farce rather like local governant or the civil service.

I

That hasn't been the case here but I can imagine it is at other places. One of the massive problems is the need to invest to save when many universities are struggling for capital. It will cost millions to implement energy saving measures like replacing the windows or the heating system but it will save so much money in the long term

I'm completely on the same page as sieglinde and thecolliedog - sounds exactly like my (routinely 60-70 hr/week) workload (in fact I'm actually signed off work ATM for work-related stress and exhaustion having not had a sabbatical or even a holiday for about 5 years). There is not much waste going on in administration here - in fact we have so few admin and support staff (who mostly deal only with institutional and financial admin), that we basically all do the admin for teaching, courses and admissions ourselves. As thecolliedog says, the place only runs because it depends on lecturers contributing an additional 20-30 hrs a week in unpaid admin work. I have a workload that would make your ears curl (and still get paid at a level that means I can barely afford to pay rent where I live, never mind think about buying a house!)

My university's Full Economic Costing accounts put the true cost of providing a degree here at closer to 17k per student rather than 9k - the university actually uses research and endowment money to subsidise the teaching rather than the other way around. And that's with a lot of the contact time being provided by graduate students who are paid around minimum wage rates for teaching. And we're still being told to cut teaching provision - because the university can't afford the level of current provision under the new fee structure. The idea that students are subsidising research or admin inefficiencies is completely wrong!

Agree too with the poster above who said the new fee structure is a huge mistake that we will really regret, collectively, in a few years' time. Even now our tertiary education provision is woefully uncompetitive internationally - many other Western and Easten economies are already sending double the number of young people to higher education than we are - and state-funding it too. We are going to end up with a low-skill population and only low-skilled wages and industries, competing with countries who have invested far more in education than the UK taxpayer has been willing to do. It's an absolute disaster, and happening now, right in front of us.

(Just to clarify my final paragraph - our HE system itself is actually hugely globally competitive - one of our only remaining truly global sectors, incredibly efficient for the money spent on it and currently in the process of being absolutely crushed for no apparent reason. I mean that nationally the amount of money spent on tertiary education provision for our own UK young people is woefully uncompetitive compared to other countries, some of which have up to 80% tertiary education participation. Basically, our fantastic universities are and will be educating lots and lots of the brightest young people of other countries because for some reason the UK taxpayer would rather we do that for profit rather than invest public money in educating our own workforce. Don't get me wrong - it's fantastic that we attract great students, researchers and teachers from all over the world, and it helps keep UK HE globally competitive - but we are not investing in our own young people.

Higher education just costs a lot of money to provide well - the analogy with a school just doesn't work: schools don't have overheads for many, many buildings, multiple libraries, state of the art labs for teaching biochemistry, the need to employ a range of specialists in different areas rather than subject all-rounders who can teach all the curriculum from 11-18, and so on. Plus a lot of old buildings are very expensive to maintain and upgrade to be fit for purpose - safety, current lab standards and so on.. Most of the new buildings my university has built were costed on the basis that they were far cheaper to borrow the money for, build and run than necessary upgrades and maintenance, heating, legislative compliance etc. for the older buildings reaching the end of a maintenance cycle, even the post-60s ones. This goes for student accommodation too - a lot of the newly-built halls of residence are actually much cheaper for the universities to maintain than older buildings which cost a huge amount of money in energy costs, fire safety upgrades etc.)