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.

@MysticMeghan this is depressing reading. I'm in England, which perhaps explains why I know people from my state school who got offers from St Andrews. Hadn't thought about the imbalance of Scottish students

It's a running joke within the people I know that we paid 9k a year to teach ourselves a degree.

I don't understand this mindset.

Students at university are supposed to be independent learners. The lecture & seminar approach is par of the course. Lectures (in the lecture hall or online) to share the key themes and seminars to put these into practice either through discussion, group work etc. Reading compulsory and suggested papers enables students to participate and contribute to collaborative learning that takes place in seminars. Then they have to sit down and do their course work or prep for exams. Practical sessions such as lab or studio work are also conducted independently. They'll get an induction on how to use equipment and off the go.

Once students join the workplace, they will be expected to be think on their feet and get on with it by being thrown into the deep end. What else should lecturers do? They share their expertise in the field and convey their passion. The rest is up to the independent learner. Personal tutors hand hold a little to make sure the student is on track or signpost to the necessary support if needed.

What do people expect from University if not the opportunity to learn independently.

Sue Ellen - you are out of date. It over 5% now - we applied last week.

Of course it makes a difference. If you are paying £200 rather than £300 a month to student finance you could have used that money for rent/mortgage etc

But the monthly repayment is directly linked earnings NOT how much you borrowed.
It won't matter if there is a reduction in fees ...the graduate will still be paying the same amount each month.

Of course it makes a difference. If you are paying £200 rather than £300 a month to student finance you could have used that money for rent/mortgage etc

That isn't how it works. The size of your loan makes no difference to how much you pay back each month, just how long it takes to pay it off. So it might take 18 years rather than 19 to pay off if you get a fee reduction, but you'll pay the same amount per month in years 1-18 (that duration entirely made up, of course)

Nobody is teaching themselves a degree. Students aren’t devising the curriculum, pulling together lecture and seminar teaching material (even if online) or setting assessments or marking their own work. Of course students are expected to do independent study, read around the subject, etc. They always have been.

And the interest is 3% +RPI which is currently 2.4% so interest is 5.4%

Too be blunt teaching in many undergrad degrees is a complete waste of time. I didn’t attend lectures and bunked as many tutorials as possible while I was studying my undergrad in a Russell group because there wasn’t any real benefit in going. I was only paying for a foot in the corporate door. Don’t get me wrong I learned a lot but it would have been much cheaper to just buy the books and sit the exams for a reasonable fee were it an option.

How can you say it was a waste of time if you didn't actually attend?

@DuchessUke once people join the workforce they’ll be paid for it. You can’t really compare the two.

I would expect at the very least for lecturers/tutors to provide something that an undergrad can’t get from a book in a quarter of the time. A few have ime. They’ve all moved on pretty quickly though.

DS has access to pre existing video lectures and that's about it. They were not produced as a response to lockdown. No extra cost was incurred by the uni. I don't see why DS should be paying this portion of the tuition fees as he isn't getting tuition.

I wonder what lies behind the “that’s about it”...

Prerecorded lectures. That's it. What don't you understand? There is no other input. They had assignments already issued which they were given deadlines for. He's just waiting to hand those in. There are meant to be online assessments but no information has been forthcoming about those. There has been no tuition, no contact with lecturers since uni's shut and the kids went home.

Stop trying to make out like a third of this year's fees are justifiable. In DS's case they certainly are not.

I would expect at the very least for lecturers/tutors to provide something that an undergrad can’t get from a book in a quarter of the time.

So you can work out what should be on the syllabus, locate the relevant books and articles in the library, pinpoint the key information, understand it, and summarise it effectively in fifteen minutes, while it takes your lecturer an hour? And you know that despite not attending your lectures and tutorials? You must be some kind of genius!

There has been no tuition, no contact with lecturers since uni's shut and the kids went home.

If it truly is the case that your DS has had no contact with his lecturers since mid-March, then he should definitely complain.

However, I know from direct experience that there is frequently a very big gap between what students tell each other, their parents, sometimes even themselves, and what the reality is.

Exactly whatagilelass said.....
If that truly is your DS's experience then he has cause for complaint.
However, I'd be very surprised if that's actually the case.

Well that is not the case here 🙄 he's not some miscreant teen, he's an adult with no income wondering why he's being slapped with a fee for which he's getting nothing in return. In any other walk of life you wouldn't be fleeced why should students.

He hasn’t been slapped with any fee yet... that’s just not how SLC works.

Like I said, if this is accurate, he should complain. All universities have a complaints process.

Then he should complain.
I think this rare though.....I was in a meeting today with people from various universities and the consensus is that we're all seeing and supporting students far more than we usually would be.

Are you being purposely obtuse?

The fee goes out at the beginning of every year. It's already been paid. He won't be refunded for the summer term so yes he's already been slapped with it.

He doesn’t have a student loan?

agile I simply don't have the patience for people like you today

I'm a mature student - I'm perfectly happy if they remain online teaching next term, but I will begrudge paying fees if the interim solution of putting last year's recorded lectures online and calling it job done that some lecturers did this year (and I fully understand why they did it in the short-term and appreciated their efforts) continues to be viewed as the solution. They'll need to be more organised with it and clear in communication when online teaching is actually taking place in timetabled blocks versus the "I'm putting X task up on X day to be done for Y" - that's the issue we've come across since campus closed down. That and general inconsistent messages, u-turns and appallingly communicated indecision from management - but that one's normal for our uni where my department are fab, and management are a sack of shit.

I'm more pissed off about teaching lost to strikes where we ended up with a month of content missing, that we NEEDED for the exam and me and a few others cobbling around Google from the lecture outlines to try to fill in the content so we had a decent set of lecture notes. Paying 9k for that DID piss me off.

But agile has made valid points.

There is also a huge assumption that online delivery/recorded sessions are easier and cheaper. This is really not the case.

Fair enough brassbrass

Do come back and update us on the outcome of your DS’s complaint