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.

Remember that little to no teaching takes place for a lot of students in term 3. So if September's cohort are bring taught online for part of that first term, that is quite a big chunk of face to face teaching missed

I don’t think it’s necessarily helpful to speak of “online degrees” as though students registering in Sept will have the whole of their degree delivered online. I can see a scenario where the first semester is wholly or partly online, but that’s just one out of six or eight.

Then maybe give students a discount for the semester which is likely to be entirely or partly online? Surely that's better for all concerned than risking large numbers of students deferring and the unis being left with a massive hole in their finances? Once teaching goes fully back to normal, which could be as soon as January, then they can charge full fees again.

It's students of the future who will be disadvantaged by not having the choice of whether to do an online course (OU) or in person, the universities will likely have better profit margins doing it all remotely so happy days for them.

Greediness? You realise universities are under considerable financial strain. It isn't greediness, it is wanting to stay open and keep people employed.

Uni fees cover things like libraries, computer rooms, labs, sports facilities etc etc which students won’t have access to online. I know that people are worried about their jobs, but is everyone paying full fees for their kids sports clubs who might be putting online sessions on but no physical classes? There’s the point of view of the business, but also the point of view of the students who are taking on life long debt for a vastly reduced service and experience.

But as others have said, universities are businesses. They are not charities

Umm sweetie

Then maybe give students a discount for the semester which is likely to be entirely or partly online? Surely that's better for all concerned than risking large numbers of students deferring and the unis being left with a massive hole in their finances? Once teaching goes fully back to normal, which could be as soon as January, then they can charge full fees again.

Absolutely- missing the first term is actually a lot of teaching , as someone has already said. The third term is often a lot lighter. So maybe reduce some of the fees to reflect the changes in teaching the first term then charge as normal when it gets back to face to face - I would think that is a fair compromise to prevent masses of students wanting to defer. I think my DC would go for that, but she is reluctant to do on-line study for the same amount of fees so would be looking to defer, which is not in the university's interest.

Yes. I’m slightly less sympathetic to handwringing about the quality of online teaching when students (this year, at least) simply aren’t engaging with it. Less than 30% of my students have engaged with the online materials over the last 6 weeks, and this is broadly the case across my dept.

agreed, our course (law) is now online and its the same 4 people who attend the usuually 15 person tutorials. I think as attendence wasn't monitored, like it is via normal tutorials, lots do not bother,
Or (my pet hate) sit there with camera's off and say nothing. very disheartening for tutors i imagine.

It may well be that some or most courses will go ahead as usual in the Autumn . I'm sure lecturers are doing their best and working over and above to deliver tuition . Of course its not going to be the same .
Doubtless many Universities and their staff will face some struggles to survive and some course may very well not be provided .
Deferring entry means a greater pool of applicants next year and competition of course .
And as others I believe have mentioned on other threads student loans are currently not repayable until one has a job with a certain level of income . Challenging times ahead .

Whilst lectures can be live streamed then accessed at anytime, it’s not the case with seminars involving group participation or tutorials.

I personally took on board the fact that some students were regularly saying they couldn’t attend “live” seminars and tutorials due to parents needing laptops or not having a quiet space due to parents working from home and as a result, I scheduled extra seminars and tutorials outside of daytime hours especially for them. Today for example, I should be live teaching for a set of six students between 9-12 and I have moved it, at detriment to my own family to between 6pm and 9pm tonight. In addition, I’m running the exact same seminar tomorrow afternoon for other students. The students today have all ignored my emails and the likelihood is I will be sat in front of my computer tonight waiting for students who don’t show, which has been the case since the university went back after Easter.

This is despite me constantly asking for student feedback as to what would work for them, what can be improved, how can I best help them at this time and always being told, anonymously, that everything is great and comments along the lines of “I’m surprised at just how well online delivery is going. It’s still really good.”

The students who have been virtually attending have had breakthroughs, seen their standards of work go up, an improvement upon marks.

The same students whose attendance has been poor, have been emailing complaints regarding the fact that they are still being expected to complete assignments despite the pandemic. I think they feel they should have had estimated grades and not have to submit any work.

Giving students a “free pass” this year, especially third years, would call our licence to operate into serious question.

We’ve already made adaptations to end of year assessments, lecturers have been posting their own academic books to dissertation students to borrow, we’ve been uploading more academic publications online, sharing these resources with other universities, investing lots of money into new software which facilitated online teaching etc.

There are no easy answers for this.

Universities have lost a massive amount of income whilst still having huge overheads. If Halls remain closed, large numbers of cleaning, maintenance and catering staff will lose their jobs. Educators like me who are on year by year or hourly paid contracts will be the first to go, with no hope of finding alternative employment in academia in these times. Our precarious employment was part of why UCU demanded Strike action in the first place. I personally didn’t/couldn’t strike due to my contract and, again was working harder than ever with no renumeration, I ensured students still had access to high quality teaching.

You can demand a reduction in fees but it may well end up closing institutions entirely. That of course will have a knock on effect, as well as job losses; less teachers, doctors, nurses and allied medical professionals qualifying as just one example.

@IcedPurple My university is a charity and as a result cannot furlough it’s staff, for example. Most UK universities have charitable status.

Umm sweetie

Ummm honey pie..... everyone knows that whatever their technical status, unis are profit making enterprises and many are pretty cut throat in how they are run. Ask anyone who works for a uni if they feel they are charity workers.

The universities' greediness in charging full fees is going to come back to bite them in the longer term.

It isn't greed. Universities need every penny they get otherwise they will go under. I'm not an academic, but I read the news, and know that very few universities are well off.

Universities need every penny they get otherwise they will go under.
Well that's not quite true, is it? They don't need every penny. They could cut back on a few pennies of the salaries they give to their vice chancellors on £500,000 a year. Might be a drop in the bucket in the big scheme of things but would be an important gesture especially when students and teaching staff face such a precarious future

In my experience, preparing lectures for online learning is more time consuming than preparing face-to-face lessons. They end up being at least as good quality as in-person teaching, if not actually slightly better.

However, as a musician, I would feel uncomfortable about students paying the same fees when they won't have access to university facilities like extensive music libraries, excellent pianos for practice, studios, theatres for gaining experience performing in large venues etc. and I imagine that similar can be said for many more practical subjects.

I’m a lecturer in a college overseas, it’s intended for international students to get university credits.

The attendance at online lectures so far has been the same as normal, and generally it’s been if anything quite a positive experience. That may not continue of course but I do think online courses (depending on the subject) can be just as good as face to face.

My DDs are at uni, and in their third year. They're missing not just teaching, but their final balls, sports photos and matches, time with their friends, getting to discuss ideas and feeling part of the communities. Online seminars have been shorter because lecturers are trying to balance childcare. Texts aren't available from the libraries. Their friends are struggling to work as parents are so ill or relatives are dying. Additionally, DD4 has missed roughly 20% of her whole degree teaching due to strikes. And the VC is being paid vast sums of money during this, while living in a house paid for by the university. I think that reducing fees is more than fair.

All those talking about deferral, these students may be at a disadvantage for places due to competition next year. I have heard some unis will not be allowing a guaranteed place deferral, so that will be a big risk for some students! The scramble for places next year if they have big deferrals will mean grade boundaries will probably be higher next year. Think carefully what you choose!

I do work in HE but not academic side. I am student experience so God knows what that will look like for us next year!

@IcedPurple
"That 's mainly uploads of lectures."

No, That's not true. Until recently, I worked in the IT department of a major Russell Group University.
Lectures, were online, but online content included course content, materials, many extracts of papers, tutorials, seminars, even exams.
Some courses are advertised as entirely on line, with students around the world, and this is pre - covid I am talking about.
Quite a lot of library material is available, external lectures, research papers.
Some courses included interactive material.
Assignments, and guides were all online.
I do, however, agree, that laboratory courses may be much harder to produce on line.

Given the strength of feeling here from both families and uni professionals shouldn’t our focus be on HOW to get campuses open as much as possible? Shouldn’t gov be helping make this happen and fast? The chancellor at Durham said they were aiming to open in oct as much as usual. We should be lobbying MPs to make sure this happens for all?

All those talking about deferral, these students may be at a disadvantage for places due to competition next year. I have heard some unis will not be allowing a guaranteed place deferral, so that will be a big risk for some students! The scramble for places next year if they have big deferrals will mean grade boundaries will probably be higher next year. Think carefully what you choose!

I have already acknowledged that the universities probably won't allow a mass of deferrals as they can't afford the loss of income this year. I think it may come down to numbers, if a lot of students decided not to come at all because they don't fancy missing out on the full uni experience but still being charged full fees then the universities will have to act. I expect the top universities will retain their offer holders, but the less prestigious may find that students are not prepared to accept on-line for the full price fees.

Given the strength of feeling here from both families and uni professionals shouldn’t our focus be on HOW to get campuses open as much as possible? Shouldn’t gov be helping make this happen and fast?

How though? The virus will not have gone away by then. We may well be in the middle of a second wave. We would have to be honest that social distancing is not possible on campuses (it just isn't - teaching rooms are overcrowded, and there are scrums and bottlenecks in buildings at the end of the teaching hour, and that's before you get onto the social aspects of campus life). That is immediately going to put some students off. My husband had 4 students out of 22 attend his last lecture because there was a confirmed Covid case on campus and they were too scared to be in close contact with others. Many will want to defer places even when (and because) there is face to face teaching. Campuses are breeding grounds for the transmission of viruses at the best of times. We will have large numbers getting sick in the autumn term, and even larger numbers socially isolating and not able to attend classes. Then there are going to be students who can't get back into the country - tens of thousands of Chinese students, for example, trying to get back here from a country which is severely restricting flights. So face to face teaching is going to be seriously compromised, even if there is not another disruptive lockdown in the middle of term. The argument for online teaching is that it can mitigate many of the disruptions we'll be facing in the short term.

From a staff point of view, the situation is unbelievably shit. We are facing huge institutional financial losses which puts the courses we teach on, and hence our jobs, in danger. We are working many many more hours a week, in full knowledge that we may be made redundant at the end of it. We would love nothing more than to go back to normal. At the same time, many of my colleagues have health conditions which make them very vulnerable should they get the virus. Most of us get ill every autumn without fail. Standing in a crowded lecture theatre with 200 students coughing in your direction tends to do that. I have had freshers flu for fifteen years in a row and always worked through it, but would of course need to self-isolate if I had symptoms this year, as would every other member of staff. There are five thousand staff on my campus, and it's not just the case that it's fine to re-open because students are young and healthy and will be able to fight off the virus if they get it.

There is going to be massive disruption, and an existential threat, to the sector however universities decide to play it. The government has made it clear it will not be offering a bail out.

What do you mean teaching quality is not the same online?! if anything it should be better as less distractions. In my opinion a shit teacher is shit face to face or online.

Arguably it should be cheaper because it costs less to run online than in a venue that has rent, tax, security, cleaners, etc to be paid for.

But i cant see unis wanting to reduce their fees.

I don’t think it’s necessarily helpful to speak of “online degrees” as though students registering in Sept will have the whole of their degree delivered online. I can see a scenario where the first semester is wholly or partly online, but that’s just one out of six or eight

This is a likely scenario or we'll go down the route of large lectures being delivered online and smaller tutorials on campus.
Delivering content online is much harder - i'm an academic and i'm working really hard to convert my face to face content to work online. I'm also having to provide far more support (both academic and pastoral) which will continue into the new term.
We're also having to invest a lot in making sure we have the technology to make this work and that staff are able to make this work.

I don't think we should reduce the fees. Universities are still functioning just in a different way.

Lectures, were online, but online content included course content, materials, many extracts of papers, tutorials, seminars, even exams.

Yes, but - with the exception of a small number of entirely online courses - this was intended as a supplement, not a substitute.

Having material available online isn't the same thing as having zero face-to-face interaction or use of uni facilities. The product simply isn't the same, and there's no point pretending it is (not saying you are doing this).