University Fees for on-line Lectures

[Kastanien]

Latest this morning(sorry if it is already on here, I checked and could not see a thread)
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-52506283

Just wondering how those of you with DC due to start (or return to Uni) in the Autumn feel about full tuition fees for on-line learning?
I feel there should be a reduction as the teaching is not the same on-line as face to face.

As for it not being anything to do with parents I agree. It isn't. So our parental income should not be taken into account when assessing student finance should it?

I 100% agree. You do realise that universities have no say over how student finance works and that the vast majority were against the rise in tuition fees don't you?

SueEllenMishke

It doesn't matter. Universities charge those fees and staff work there. It is unrealistic and unreasonable to think that people who are paying out thousands of pounds a year for something won't actually have an opinion of what their money is paying for.

This year, for the students affected by both of the strikes and now Covid closures they have not received anything like what they have had to pay for. They should receive compensation for that. I don't even really think it should necessarily be in fees though. My dds entire degree will have been negatively impacted by the lack of tuition and resources available to her. Refunding her a few thousand pounds won't make any difference. Maybe she should be allowed to repeat her final.year, free of charge to make up the ground lost by all of this disruption?

You're wrong .....the student pays for fees. There is no expected parental contribution to the fees paid to the university.
The student will only repay those fees if the earn a certain amount.

Parental contribution is for living costs. This is completely separate from the tuition fees.

But if your daughter feels she hasn't been given what she was promised then she should complain.

I pay full tuition fees for a degree with the OU. I have never had a face-to-face tutorial, even before CV. I still pay full fees.

agile you passively labelled DS and his cohort racist. Name calling is name calling however slyly you do it. I'll stop if you will but you need to watch your own comments.

Are any so called reasonable academics able to comment on the value for money students are getting in lectures where they cannot actually understand a word that the lecturer is saying in the teaching of something like quantum physics and the associated mind boggling maths formulae that goes with it? (disclaimer not DS's actual subject but along the same lines of technical difficulty for illustration purposes).

Would you consider it extortionate that students pay 9k to be given a lecturer that connot even communicate in English clearly?

And all this before the lockdown problems this year!

Sue, I pay the fees and have done for all 5 children - over £18k a year for the twins alone (obviously my choice and I am helping tax payers out there too and the less well off as many with loans do not pay them all back whereas in our case the state is not losing out at all as I pay the £18k out of income already taxed at 40% +. My sons have a friend in a family where older child in work pays the fees for the next child down (very unusual but they do it in their family).

I am not too worried as my twins have enjoyed year 3 albeit it has ended 2.3rd of the way through and they have suffered the strikes (some of their lecturers went on strike and some did not). I hope empoyers do not say Ah hah 2020 GCSEs or 2020 degrees - exams done on line or teachers choose your marks so those will be in the mickey mouse category but 2019 and 2021 all hunky dory. That would be rather unfair.

just an OU course

An OU course is a degree the same as any other. Someone who does a psychology degree with the OU will still come out with a degree accredited by the BPS, just like someone who went to brick uni to do psychology. Compared to brick uni, the grade boundaries for 1st/2nd/3rd classifications are higher.

Are any so called reasonable academics able to comment on the value for money students are getting in lectures where they cannot actually understand a word that the lecturer is saying in the teaching of something like quantum physics and the associated mind boggling maths formulae that goes with it? (disclaimer not DS's actual subject but along the same lines of technical difficulty for illustration purposes)

I agree that this isn't acceptable. A friends daughter had the same issue a few years ago and I supported her through the complaints procedure at her university. Students need to make sure this is fed back though all channels - module evaluation, NSS, course committees etc.

It is rare Xenia for parents to pay fees and isn't always the best option.
The vast,vast majority of students aren't having their fees paid for by their parents.

More info for new parents: Do you know that if your DC take a sandwich placement and are not even at uni for that year or attending any lectures at all that the uni will still expect payment? They claim it's for assessment or something similar but this comprises of perhaps one visit to the sandwich placement. In return they charge thousands £££. In reality the student has no input from the uni they are just at the placement doing what they've been tasked to do and incurring new costs in the new location!

I'd say extortion is a very appropriate term.

Brass do you understand that fees cover more than just tuition? The management of placements is a huge, resource intensive job.
And again, not all universities charge full fees. Some take a loss and just charge an admin fee.

My sons have a friend in a family where older child in work pays the fees for the next child down (very unusual but they do it in their family).

Xenia what an amazing family! I'm going to float that past DS1 and see his reaction lol though he and DS2 will be students at the same time for a while so not executable in reality.

The management of placements is a huge, resource intensive job.

How is it when the students find their own placements? All of DS's friends on placement were expected to sort themselves out. The uni did nothing to match or locate them. This is another brochure fantasy that we need to extinguish.

Parental contribution is for living costs. This is completely separate from the tuition fees.

What subject do you teach? Is it how to split hairs"?

Living costs whilst at uni, wouldn't be needed if the student wasn't at uni so, as far as I am concerned, the small fortune that we are paying out each month, not only in living costs but for IT equipment and books (which are directly for studies) is for her university education. If she doesn't have the opportunity to achieve then that has all been a waste of money.

Why can't final year students be offered the chance to repeat this year, without detriment?

I would still like a legal opinion on whether the disruptions this year would be covered under contract law. How can they not be? Money is being paid for a service that hasn't been delivered. How is that not a breach of a contract?

I think we realise that many of you are working very hard at uni to provide services, teaching etc

The issue remains that open university costs 19k total compared to 29k for the courses being offered at ‘campus’ based. Of course unis have facilities to pay for but this cohort of students are not getting some of them. As some students on here have explained. I do think there should be more focus on HOW campuses can open as much as possible and its heartening to hear that some are working hard to plan for that

How is it when the students find their own placements? All of DS's friends on placement were expected to sort themselves out. The uni did nothing to match or locate them. This is another brochure fantasy that we need to extinguish.
Well that is pretty shit.
My university (and others I work with) have placement teams both centrally and faculty based. They work with students before and during placements.

I work in a university complaints team. If students are dissatisfied by the teaching being offered, they should complain. The process should be on the university website. The outcome might not get a huge refund of fees but it allows improvements to be made.
The most successful complaints are the ones where the complainant states clearly how this has affected them, rather than generally comments about it not being the experience they hoped for. Eg if the course handbook states the student will have 12hrs of contact time per week but under remote learning they are only getting one hour of contact time and no other replacement teaching there is clearly a gap that needs to be investigated.

@SueEllenMishke sorry you're getting all these shots fired (including from me!). Poor lecturers, Mickey mouse degrees, students getting ripped off - it's not your fault and it's not everywhere but it's so common. I went to an Oxbridge uni and had some really awful lectures from people who clearly had no interest in teaching whatsoever. I stopped showing up to many of them because it was a waste of time. I look back now and think I would have fared better with an online lecture course.

The face to face teaching I had was amazing though and for that I'm really grateful. Not just for the content but the whole experience of being in that learning environment. It just seems unfair the current cohort of students are missing out so much and yet paying so much more for the privilege.

But again - certainly not your fault.

Some universities are better than others, that's not news. Some academics are terrible at teaching, again not news. Some students always get a raw deal compared to others so it's not surprising that it's happening now.

Just to be clear, I'm not OK with that but the only way it will change is for the students to do something about it. They need to use the complaints procedures properly, they need to use their reps and the students union if they are still not happy. Universities do not care about the opinions of their academics (as a rule), but they all care about recruitment (NSS scores count).

Would I want to be a student right now? No. Would I want a discount? Of course I would. Do I think that it's possible without a massive chunk of the sector going bankrupt? No. It's up to the government not us, we are just doing our best under really shitty circumstances like everyone else.

The outcome might not get a huge refund of fees but it allows improvements to be made.

So what would be offered?

Taking this as a straightforward transaction simply improving things for future students doesn't compensate the current students for their losses does it?

If I go on holiday and get only 10% of what I paid for the company can't "compensate" me by promising to improve for the next customers.

Anyone can voice anything, but it's the students' voices that matter here, not their parents', in terms of feedback and the responsibility we have to them. Our working relationship is with the students, not their parents

Well, its this sort of contribution that annoys parents and incidentally contributes to students suffering from depression and, as happened in my DD 1st year hall of residence, a suicide, suitably covered up by the Uni, with none of the support initially offered coming forward.
Children of 17 do not suddenly become fully functioning and independent adults at 18.
Us parents pay a mtce loan contribution, buy things like laptops, car insurance, books and yes DD has a part time care job before anyone has a go at her for not contributing!

Imho this attitude toward parents is a mistake, Uni's would be better off working with everyone inc parents as we enter a very different world, instead of focusing on their own little bit of it?

So help them complain, but you can't complain on their behalf without their say so. Our contact is with the student, I am not even able to confirm that a student is registered with us to their parents without that students written permission. (Keep in mind that some students have very very awful backgrounds so this is for their protection more often than you might think).

My dd is going into second year and we have no objection at all to paying full fees. She's getting the same education as she does when she's there, as she doesn't bloody go to the lectures anyway!!! (A long story, MH issues, possible ASD) She's studying an academic subject which doesn't require practicals though, so will be less affected than some.

It's the social side dd is missing, but the fees don't cover that, so we don't need a reduction for that reason.