Why are we okay with students being locked up in their dorms?

[JKRowlingIsMyQueen]

I just heard about the students in Manchester who are not allowed to leave their dorms.

Why on earth is this allowed to happen? So the rest of us who are not students are allowed to get pissed in a pub, get on a plane and travel abroad and back etc., but if you are a student you are not allowed to LEAVE your dorms?

What science are these kind of rules following? The science of Boris needing more ammo to blame young people for spreading the virus?

I'm losing hope.

People saying students should have deferred, if large numbers had done this the HE sector would have collapsed, Unis would have gone bankrupt. Students are doing a huge bit to support the economy by not deferring and we need to support them in this. I honestly think that there some government support for tuition fees this year to reflect the experience students are getting. People saying tuition fees should be less do not understand how the HE sector works.

From my inside knowledge I also don't think Unis lied to students. More that Unis advised students based on the advice given by government to HE sector...and once again the advice given by the government did not fully anticipate ongoing restrictions at this time...

I agree. I work with universities and most of them were bricking it about too many deferrals. Friends 18y olds were all debating deferring and many of them really had to be persuaded to go - and as others have said, it was only really because there were little other options available in terms of travel and jobs. This is the government's failing.

I meant to say there should be some government subsidies for tuition fees this year. What people don't understand about tuition fees is that they have gradually replaced the funding that Universities used to receive from central government via HEFCE back in the 90s. People think that because tuition fees are higher than ever that Universities are doing well financially when in truth many are financially just surviving year to year.

Again, I agree. Rishi Sunak needs to get his magic money tree out again. There been a lot of support for self employed people, now support the bloody students.

Christ almighty, Williamson has gone full Ben Swain.

Surely tuition fees are only repaid if students are in well paid jobs though, so it’s not like they need them reduced as most never pay the full amount back.

I am absolutely not ok with this and I think some people are not understanding the effect that social isolation for months, followed by stress of the A level fiasco then what is going to happen now will be having on some.

DS is a year younger than some of them and just started weekly boarding for 6th form and reading between the lines a lot more struggling at the beginning than usual. It’s the massive contrast between isolation lockdown and this and dealing with all the Covid stuff too. He is getting there but with a high level of support that most of the students at university won’t be able to access.

And as others have said, so many options other than university that usually would be available now aren’t . All a complete mess and some people really are quite vitriolic on here to the young people we are going to be relying on to move forward as a country after this.

‘Many of these halls will be catered so the students could have been sitting next to anyone in hall at meal times hence not easy to only isolate close contacts.‘

If that’s the case then whoever runs the halls has fucked up unacceptably. It seems to be standard in schools now to have a set place to sit in the canteen. It takes some organization but reduces infectious contacts. A free for all in a student dining area if it’s impossible to have social distancing equivalent to a restaurant would be bonkers.

@CovidChristmas

Surely tuition fees are only repaid if students are in well paid jobs though, so it’s not like they need them reduced as most never pay the full amount back.

Depends if you think £25k per year (plus 6% p.a interest rate) is a very good salary?

Try buying a house on that wage, London rents would take 2/3rds of your take home pay then there are bills/food/tuition fee pay back -even in Plymouth, rent would take 1/2 your pay packet.

If most never pay them back, then what exactly is the point of 'fees? j

If most never pay them back, then what exactly is the point of 'fees?

It's a crazy government pyramid scheme that wasn't working anyway (£140 billion of loans currently owing, most which will never be paid back), and covid19 has now toppled it.

I thought some universities and private halls companies would go under this year. Still think a few might. Then next year will be carnage.

I don't know many students or their parents who think that paying 27K in fees for 3 years, plus that again in living cost makes a £25k per year (plus 6% p.a interest rate) salary for the next 30 years stack up. Most people going to university are expecting to earn a much higher salary than that, at least long term, and most graduate schemes pay more than that from the beginning.

Looking at the younger people in my team that have been to university in the last few years, from last year to 6/7 years ago, all of them, 20-odd are earning more tha that today, without exception.

@CovidChristmas

Surely tuition fees are only repaid if students are in well paid jobs though, so it’s not like they need them reduced as most never pay the full amount back.

Assuming they can get jobs at all. Ds graduated in 2019, most schemes he applied to were pulled and even local cafe and admin jobs demand experience and are competitive. Opportunities are still very limited and likely to continue so in the current circumstances.

@JamieLeeCurtains

Christ almighty, Williamson has gone full Ben Swain.

Oh my god...I’ll have to watch it on catch up

Is he all blinky??

Eventually someone in government will do the sums and realise that a one off adjustment to discount student tuition bills by 33% for this year (while still paying the full 9,250 to universities) will cost them relatively little given how many graduates don’t repay their full bill anyway.

@RufustheSniggeringReindeer Williamson started trying to hector an honourable lady about listening to the answer, and then realised this was Questions not Debate, so he was talking into silence and had the floor and wasn't being interrupted at all, and so could give the answer, and he faltered.

He thinks of himself as the consummate professional, but he comes across to me as always on the verge of a mantrum.

‘Many of these halls will be catered so the students could have been sitting next to anyone in hall at meal times hence not easy to only isolate close contacts.‘

Have you been near a university? - majority are self catered and those in catered are very spaced out and eating in bubbles only. No opportunity for socialising.

Why did no one see this coming? My niece went from an area that was locked down to university On the other side of the country. Apparently that is allowed because it was for educational reasons. I’m Sure she is not the only one who did this. Of course some of the students were going to take the virus with them. The rules are that if someone you live with gets symptoms and then a positive test, they have to isolate for 14 days. It is also common knowledge that the biggest group affected at the moment are student aged people.

Surely I’m not the only one that is not surprised that university’s have had to lock down entire areas of accommodation?

I have lots of sympathy for the students caught up in it all, we had to isolate for 2 days and it was rubbish, I really feel for them, Alone with people they don’t know and no one to help them with supplies etc, but this should not be a surprise to anyone!

Williamson in Parliament just said the OfS should press universities to make the refunds, knowing those universities will go under without some government-backed fiscal underpinning.

There was also a 'friendly' question from a Tory MP about focusing on, to paraphrase, more useful degrees ... so I think we can see which way this is going.

Fewer or smaller universities. Fewer degree places. And crucially, for the government, the end goal of fewer loans and a smaller debt book. And a bit of elitism thrown in.

Well is just adding to the anti-student narrative that degrees are mostly useless and students are just at uni to party.

‘Many of these halls will be catered so the students could have been sitting next to anyone in hall at meal times hence not easy to only isolate close contacts.‘

What hall? what meal times? what catering?
Are you on glue, it's uni, not boarding school, lol.

They are on their own, self catering and locked in, so can't go out to buy food. They are imprisoned and whatever the age it shouldn't be allowed and is unsafe.

Even in catered halls the food offering is limited for those self isolating. Only in the last few days has any food been made available, otherwise salad and sandwiches. Not ideal in the Scottish climate for two weeks.

Find it strange that people don't know lots of halls are catered. At Nottingham everything on main campus is catered. It's not unusual.

@mumsneedwine

Find it strange that people don't know lots of halls are catered. At Nottingham everything on main campus is catered. It's not unusual.

Lots aren’t catered though

At ds1 uni there were 4 accommodation blocks

Only one was Catered

I don't know many students or their parents who think that paying 27K in fees for 3 years, plus that again in living cost makes a £25k per year (plus 6% p.a interest rate) salary for the next 30 years stack up. Most people going to university are expecting to earn a much higher salary than that, at least long term, and most graduate schemes pay more than that from the beginning

Nurses, Physio's Radiographers, OT's, teachers Paramedics all require degrees and all do not pay high salaries even after 6 or 7 years.

We really do need these people.

They will all however creep over the threshold and will pay back the graduate tax @ 9% of earnings over TH probably for the next 30 years and will still never pay back their borrowings.

@jasjas1973

I don't know many students or their parents who think that paying 27K in fees for 3 years, plus that again in living cost makes a £25k per year (plus 6% p.a interest rate) salary for the next 30 years stack up. Most people going to university are expecting to earn a much higher salary than that, at least long term, and most graduate schemes pay more than that from the beginning

Nurses, Physio's Radiographers, OT's, teachers Paramedics all require degrees and all do not pay high salaries even after 6 or 7 years.

We really do need these people.

They will all however creep over the threshold and will pay back the graduate tax @ 9% of earnings over TH probably for the next 30 years and will still never pay back their borrowings.

Yet we need all of these professionals.