Why or why did they open universities

[Alex50]

Universities should all have been online this year, students should never have been encouraged to go. It’s a recipe for disaster. The students will eventually come home as they can’t keep locking the students away week after week.

BecUsw the whole economy of some areas of university cities depends on it ?

People employed in all capacities at the university. All the rented houses / shops/ pubs / takeaways etc etc. The ramifications are huge.

And thats apart from student / parents signed up for house rents etc regardless of whether uni opens or not - contracts signed pre lockdown for the year 😱

Greed. Universities are a business who exist to make profit.

Because on line learning is lonely, isolating and shite.
Because young people have the lowest risk level
Because we have to accept that life needs to go on, we can’t have a whole generation of young people hiding at home

loads of young people getting covid helps us move towards herd immunity

@Vikingess

Greed. Universities are a business who exist to make profit.

Sadly, it feels like there's truth to this.

But the young are not getting the proper uni experience, isolating in a small room for weeks at a time, they would be better off at home. It’s not going to be just 2 weeks, it will be week after week as different people test positive. How depressing to be locked down in a small room over Christmas 😞

Unis are all in big debt. Who is supposed to profit? Some unis had to sign accommodation contracts in January. Should they become 10s of millions deeper in debt to enable online learning?

@AlecTrevelyan006 I agree but then don’t keep them locked in a room, let them mix together say all having meals together, A student bar which only students go to in the dorms,

Who says they’ll be better off at home? Some will, many won’t.

Do you have a child at uni?

Because universities will close otherwise

My son definitely wouldn't be better off at home.
He is in a shared house with 5 other lads and having a right laugh. They're a household so can go to the pub together etc

If he was at home he'd be staring at me and his dad bored out of his mind.

It’s such a shame that they can’t get a proper university experience- especially one they are paying so dearly for. But I agree- better off to be at home than locked up far away from home doing only online learning. Could they not be encouraged to keep some form of bubble aligned to their course if the alternative is only on-line learning?

Some courses need to be taught face to face.

@AlecTrevelyan006

loads of young people getting covid helps us move towards herd immunity

Bollox it does . If simply endangers all who come in to contact with them..

I despair.. it really didn't take rocket science to see this would happen when you move a couple of million people who don't socially distance around the country ..

Mine deferred.

Also don't forget universities employ a lot of people. My df's dh works as support staff at a uni and had to take a 20% pay cut, as did their neighbour due to the lost income from international students.

Greed. They're all online anyway, they may as well have been at home. Plus East Sussex are all on bloody strike because of their pensions, it's a waste of money.

It's a hard one. I live in Nottingham, which is now facing lockdown due to the huge numbers of university students testing positive. Only a week ago the numbers were relatively low. I can see why students need to be here, but I can also see why travelling around the country right now wasn't the best idea.

Because even the universities would have found it difficult to charge students for rooms they weren’t allowed to occupy. Or to justify huge fees for online only tuition.

It’s very simple really. Everything that doesn’t open brings with it job losses, both directly in the sector and supporting sectors. Not to mention less money for the treasury, which will ultimately result in public sector cuts.

The university sector is on its knees anyway. This will finish many institutions off.

I don't think it's better to be at home.

My new undergraduate DC is very shy but is enjoying getting to know their new flatmates. They are a little bored but at the same time would not have been out clubbing so it's ok.

My 3rd year DC has almost all online classes. Nevertheless they are also enjoying being with housemates.

Yes of course they would have saved money by staying at home. But university is about moving out isn't it?

My bf daughter (Nott Trent) is paying £135 a week to sit in her room with 3 hrs of lectures a week online... the person next door has Covid and the one above... so whole block in isolation. .. not exactly the 'Uni experience' .

They could have stayed home and done the classes from there with no cost . Until spring .. It's a money maker at literally THEIR expense..

Universities are a business, and the government, aka the taxpayers, cannot afford to bail them out.
Yes it will be shit for a few weeks/couple of months. The virus will burn it's way through. There will be a few casualties, at the same time many will gain long term immunity which will stand them in good stead for the future.

Don't forget the government turned higher education into a market. This was not the doing of the universities themselves. Universities are reliant on tuition, accommodation fees, conferencing revenue etc to cover costs. There is very little funding that comes from the government.
And the government also refused to offer any financial support to universities - UUK put a proposal together and it was refused point blank no negotiation So what was the alternative? Unless of course people think we don't need Doctors, nurses, vets, engineers, teachers etc anymore.

Universities are now businesses. No students, no income. Student accommodation is mostly the same, privately owned. No students, no income. They will have the Tory mps in their pockets no doubt.

@LimaFoxtrotCharlie I'm doing close to 100% remote learning with the very occasional lab on campus.
It's beyond shit.
I have around 3-4 hours a day of lectures and 'practicals', 5 days a week and then I need to spend around 3-4 hrs each evening reading and writing notes up. It's incredibly lonely and just 2 weeks in I'm struggling to have any enthusiasm for it.

My lecturers are trying hard to be engaging and provide the module content as close as possible to normal but it's still shit.

The govt wouldn't do any sort of bail out. The govt said they were safe to open. 🤷‍♀️