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University Fees for on-line Lectures

999 replies

Kastanien · 04/05/2020 09:00

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.

OP posts:
CatandtheFiddle · 09/05/2020 10:50

It's not the universities fault, but I wonder what changed

It happened way before universities: the league tables, the surveillance and disciplining of teachers if their pupils did not get the A-C grades at GCSE (teacher friends have told me these stories for years).

The conversion of aims to targets - so teachers teach to the test - and pupils become dependent on knowing what they have to put in the exam, rather than learning as self-development and growth.

Pushy scared parents - pushy because scared that their children aren't "achieving" and so will not earn "enough" (whatever that is).

Neo-liberalism.

You only have to read the HE forum here on MN to see a certain type of parent ... (on this thread, even Grin )

But I regularly see most of my anxious dependent first years become much happier entrepreneurial creative third years. They change & grow enormously between 18 and 21/22.

CatandtheFiddle · 09/05/2020 10:52

Having anxious thoughts does not mean you have an anxiety disorder, it means you are a normal human in a stressful situation

Yes! Thank you for putting that so well and rationally, @heroku

According to some PP, I am an unempathetic monster, but I think we are in danger of having pathologised quite ordinary stresses and anxieties of growing up and becoming independent.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 09/05/2020 10:55

I hope to god no new hire comes to me saying "I think you should know I've been having some anxious thoughts". I definitely wouldn't have the patience that some of you guys seem to have

Ha Ha. I have two junior staff (male) working under me atm who have said exactly this. I'm doing the work of one because he is 'distressed'; read really behind because he has faffed instead of doing the work. Given that middle-aged women don't have MH issues even if they are overworked or grieving I'm picking up for him.

Fortyfifty · 09/05/2020 13:13

NameChange84 @fortyfifty That is exactly the model the university I work at, and others have. However, I still have students coming to me with pastoral problems; relationships, problems with friendships/housemates, envy of other students who are doing better on the course, even about a coil going missing at one point

Ugh, goodness. That's so much. Like many others my age, I barely communicated with academic staff outside of lectures/seminars. As for my parents getting involved.. .!

Perhaps the model needs to change in schools so that teachers just teach and pastoral staff are employed for the other stuff. I realise there's a cross over of usdues someone's eg.. workload impacting mental health. Young people must be getting the idea from school that teachers are there to sort out their every issue.

There should be support at universities, of course, to help students transition and to catch those who need extra support but
I also wonder about the sense of sending young people away to university when they have serious pre-existing MH issues. If either of mine fall into that category I'd want them home and going to a local uni or continuing to work on their personal problems and letting them go in a few years time.

Sorry, I feel I've derailed your thread.

Hearhoovesthinkzebras · 09/05/2020 13:24

Who is meant to.stop young people from going to uni if they have mental health issues? As you keep saying, they are adults and parents shouldn't be involved, so who exactly is it that is meant to be preventing these young people from attending?

CatandtheFiddle · 09/05/2020 13:56

Parents could do the parenting thing?

Hearhoovesthinkzebras · 09/05/2020 14:19

What's the parenting thing? Do you mean by preventing students from going to uni? How exactly when the students are adults? Care to explain how that works?

Xenia · 09/05/2020 14:39

Yes, they change a lot and living away at university for 3 years is a really important part of that process of growing up. One of the thing I like best about Bristol where my twins are is their ideas, thinking, reading - it is why you read a subject at university rather than get taught it - it the expansion of the mind which is so good.

My 5 have all had pretty robust mental health so we are lucky - I don't know whether that is genes or how I brought them up or luck. perhaps we need a stocism, mental strength, medical test before people get accepted by universities to pare down numbers (as well as needing high grades).

titchy · 09/05/2020 14:40

I don't think anyone's disputing that there is no sure-fire way to stop an 18 year old adult with or without MH issues going to university. Hmm That's really not what the comments about students with MH issues are about. Talk about totally missing the point. But I guess you're the type of person to be adversarial just for the sake of it 🤷‍♀️

Hearhoovesthinkzebras · 09/05/2020 15:08

titchy

Posters have said that students with mental health issues shouldn't go to university.

How am I missing the point? What are the comments about?

titchy · 09/05/2020 15:16

The comments are about the reality of lecturing as a job. A lot of students aren't ready mentally to deal with university, and in an ideal world wouldn't go until their MH was up to it. But we don't live in an ideal world and have to deal with student MH in the same way A and E staff have to deal with paralytically drunk people every Friday night. In an ideal world people wouldn't get so drunk they put their life at risk, but we don't live in an ideal world, so that's the reality of working in A and E. But don't let that stop you berating nurses.

Really - you didn't understand that? Gosh....

Hearhoovesthinkzebras · 09/05/2020 15:30

Then what have the "parents could do the parenting" comments got to do with it?

How does that fit into your supposed claim that all you're all saying is that ideally students wouldn't attend university until mentally able to deal with it? And you're comparing students with mental health issues to drunks in A and E? Really? Haver you heard of the Equality Act? Pretty sure that drunks in A and E aren't covered under it, but people with mental health conditions are - might want to reconsider your attitudes towards people with mental health conditions.

Do you think students with physical disabilities shouldn't be at university either? Are they also like drunks in A and E?

CatandtheFiddle · 09/05/2020 15:53

HearsHooves you really are looking for an argument aren't you?

Let me try to be clear so you don't deliberately twist my words. I'm taking in general terms here, just in case you take this (erroneously) as some sort of personal swipe although I know that won't stop you

Parents are always parents of their children. We know our children are adults, but it doesn't stop us parenting them, in all sorts of ways. My mother still mothers me, although I'm 60 and she's 85. She parents me in a different way from when I was 8 or 18, but she still parents. We still care, we still worry, we still try to make our DCs' lives easier, or happier. We still advise, we can still admonish ... all sorts of things involved in parenting our children throughout ours & their lives.

However, once people are 18, they are legally adult in this country. So people who are NOT the DCs' parents (or legal guardians) must - by law - treat these DC as adults.

However this may not necessarily change the way that a parent interacts with their child. I would imagine that parents still advise their DC all through late teens and into their 20s, their 30s.

But university lecturers are not the parents of the people they teach, nor are university staff &in loco parentis^. Because most young people at university are 18 or older (although I was 17 when I went, but that's bye the bye).

University staff have a responsibility - a duty of care - to their students as any professional in any public relationship has with a "client" (for want of a better word). Like a doctor, for example.

So, while university staff can give likely applicants to university advice about attending university at open days, or admissions interviews and so on, we do not - nor should we - advise on the very basic question "Should I go to university?" We can give them information about what it might be like, in general terms. But we don't know intending applicants in the domestic, intimate way that a parent (or other guardian) does.

That is a discussion for a teenager to have with his or her parents (or guardians).

As a PP says, if a parent knows their DC has a MH issue which will make university a more than usual challenge - and university should be a challenge. It should be hard, it should be difficult, it should have stressful times - hard work, learning difficult things, can be stressful. Certain kinds of stress are good for us - the stress of learning something difficult, and then learning to do it well. This is learning - it is not easy.

If a parent sees that this might be almost too much for their child to cope with, then it is their job to discuss this with their DC.

I should have thought this was pretty obvious, but there you go ...

feelingfragile · 09/05/2020 15:59

I totally disagree if anyone has said that students with MH issues shouldn't go to university. That's a horribly judgemental thing to say and completely unrealistic.

Some of our most creative and hard working students have mental health issues, they have huge amounts to bring to their cohort and their future workplaces.

The issue as I experience it, isn't mental health issues, it's the medicalisation of 'normal' experience and the habit of rescuing to make people feel 'better' rather than learning to sit with discomfort and find a way through it independently.

At university we begin to expose people to those unfamiliar experiences, allow them to take risks and experience failure and ultimately to learn, but that's really hard when people (parents and students) don't understand the importance of that. This is where complaints, tears and phone calls from parents come in. 'I read my daughters assignment and it was definitely worth a better mark' Hmm

Of course that doesn't apply to those with more significant mental health issues who may need a more targeted support plan.

CatandtheFiddle · 09/05/2020 16:01

And I am NOT saying that universities should not admit students with MH issues. You'd have to be reading anything I've said upside down to think that.

I am suggesting that if parents think that their child has MH issues which may be of a seriousness which suggest that they might struggle more than is bearable, fruitful or productive at university, then it might behove those parents to discuss this with their child.

For me, that is a responsibility of a parent.

As I say, the undergrads I've taught with serious MH issues, came to university with those problems - they were not the product of university, nor were they the result of these monstrous imaginary academics who really occupy far too much space on your head, HearsHooves

Xenia · 09/05/2020 16:09

If we weeded those out with MH issues we would probably reduce numbers by half at some places - my twins cannot believe how many people are on medication for all sorts as if GPs are handing these things out like smarties to teenagers because that is cheaper and easier than therapy I suppose (although obviously I accept it is better they are on pills than dead of course and sometimes they are essential).

I would certainly support every student when they join university being asked to consent to their parents being consulted about all important issues including concerns about their mental health so the parents can help the child, get them home for a weekend etc as needed. Obviously students could refuse to consent.

Hearhoovesthinkzebras · 09/05/2020 16:15

CatandtheFiddle

And there is only so much that parents can do. Yes, I too think it's normal for parents to continue to parent, into adulthood, as you've said. Test on this thread, any parent who dares to express an opinion about their child's university experience is accused of being a pushy parent. Parents are excluded, by universities, when their child starts. No doubt you will now tell me that's how it should be, students are adults etc etc. Yes, of course they are. But you can't have it both ways. If parents aren't told that their child is struggling or having declining mental health issues then they can't help can they? It might not even be mental health issues but just life issues - being away from home, relationships, money problems, too much drinking, whatever. Students are on their own. If they need help who are they meant to go to?

Maybe universities need to be a bit more responsible in their recruitment campaigns and be honest about the support that is really available, be honest about the realities of university, rather than presenting it as something it isn't. I've sat through so many open days with my kids - all of the unis stated the seemingly unlimited help and support that would be available - of course it's untrue but you can't blame students for believing it.

As parents we have no control over this at all - no control over whether our child goes to uni, but expected to pay towards them going, no control over what happens once they are, no right to informed if anything is going wrong but expected to solve all of the problems and pick up the pieces.

CatandtheFiddle · 09/05/2020 16:18

Xenia, sometimes from the student's point of view - sadly - it is the parents who are the problem ... I've had students where one parent has a restraining order against the other; or a student who's fater had a serious addiction problem, and expected the student to be his carer; another who ... every year, I hear really ad stories of the way that parents' behaviour has a deleterious effect on the student's ability to thrive and focus on university work.

So no, I don't want to interfere in those sorts of family dynamics! Even if the student exaggerates or prevaricates, my professional relationship is with the student, not her family.

JacobReesMogadishu · 09/05/2020 16:20

I haven’t seen anyone say that students with MH problems shouldn’t go to uni. But just suggesting that it might be better if they take some time out and sort any MH issues out first.

And for students with more serious MH issues I’d agree that it’s worth considering. I teach on a very pressured, stressful course. Even students without MH issues find it hard going, it’s a tough course. There’s a lot of content, a lot of hours, a lot of assessment and that is not going to change. Every year I see students who come with existing anxiety issues really struggle and often drop out. We emphasis at interview that it’s a tough course and they have to be prepared, both mentally as well as academically and practically. People think they’ll be ok and they’re often not ok. Then they drop out, they’ve wasted their money. If they’d waited until they were in a better place they may have managed better.

JacobReesMogadishu · 09/05/2020 16:22

Parents legally don’t have a right to be informed of any issues their adult children are having. That’s not down to the university. If you as an adult we’re struggling with something would you be happy if your employer rang your husband and told him even if you didn’t want him to know? We advise students to talk to,parents and get support but ultimately it’s their choice.

Hearhoovesthinkzebras · 09/05/2020 16:22

I am suggesting that if parents think that their child has MH issues which may be of a seriousness which suggest that they might struggle more than is bearable, fruitful or productive at university, then it might behove those parents to discuss this with their child.

I'm quite sure that most parents with students in that situation have discussed it with them. Do you think they've just ignored it and dropped their child off without having done so? You are being ridiculous. The fact is, a parent can't stop their child from going, even if they know they are going to struggle.

And I'm really not understanding your point - on the one hand you're saying that you're not saying students with mental health conditions shouldn't go to uni but then you're blaming parents for allowing said students to go (but what's wrong with them going if you're saying you don't have a problem with them being there?) and another poster has compared students with mental health conditions to drunks in A and E so, yes, I am very much struggling to understand your point tbh.

Hearhoovesthinkzebras · 09/05/2020 16:28

JacobReesMogadishu

But then you can't hold parents responsible for not stopping their child from going or for not intervening once there.

Parents have no right, nor power, to stop their adult child from going to uni and nor can they do anything to intervene once they are there, if they even know there's a problem.

I fail to see how parents are to blame here? Of course we would all hope that students would have enough insight to work out how well they will cope in an alien situation before they go but it's not really surprising that many don't, is it?

titchy · 09/05/2020 16:38

Wow. So determined to find an argument. Must be hard being you and so very very angry with the world.

Why would you think saying some student's MH isn't strong enough for them to cope with the trials and tribulations of uni life the same as saying people with MH or physical disabilities shouldn't be allowed to go to uni? Maybe you conflated my post with Xenia's.

I totally disagree if anyone has said that students with MH issues shouldn't go to university. That's a horribly judgemental thing to say and completely unrealistic.

Don't worry Xenia is the only one who has said that and she's got some pretty odd ideas generally. No one who works at a uni thinks that at all.

Hooves do you understand the concept of nuance? I didn't compare students with MH issues to drunks in A and E - I compared the helplessness of the academic in having to deal with situations not within their gift to resolve permanently, and the relentlessness of a situation which you are not equipped to deal with yet crops up time and time again. I was comparing the staff in those two situations. In response to someone upthread who said that lecturers shouldn't be teaching unless they were prepared to pastorally care for young adults and their problems in the same way a loving parent would.

titchy · 09/05/2020 16:40

No one is blaming parents, or students. Hmm You though are blaming academics. I'm unsure why.

SueEllenMishke · 09/05/2020 16:41

Not a single academic on this thread can do anything worthy of a positive response from hear
Despite the dozens and dozens of posts from people working in Universities hear still thinks they know best ..... it's really not worth arguing anymore. Positive comments either get ignored completely or twisted into something unrecognisable.

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