So uni fees are going to increase?

[nearlylovemyusername]

University sector calls on Labour to raise tuition fees to ‘stabilise the ship’ (ft.com)

Given paywall, the essence it this:

"One former university vice-chancellor said the fact that Labour had acknowledged the sector was “in crisis” indicated that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and Phillipson, who have not ruled out a tuition fee increase, were likely to act.

“The short-term pain of putting up fees could be blamed on the Tory inheritance . . . and then traded against a transition to a better deal for young people, which Labour can deliver before next general election,” he said."

So it won't be limited by VAT on PS, uni fees will be up, potentially significantly and repayments for higher earning grads will go up much more - this is what artical says.

Whoever gets in faces the choice of either:

a) raising tuition fees,
b) increasing government input into the university sector,
c) encouraging high-paying overseas students to come and study here, or
d) sitting back and watching a significant number of universities go bust.

Which would you prefer?

I stand corrected (am not English but live here now). But I’ll vote Labour in the next election even if it takes decades to fix what the current government have wrought on the UK.

No really. They have been struggling for a long time, but let’s carry on the bashing.

Rory I thought people like him.

I wondered that too

There's quite a few of them on mn and they post continuously. Nothing else matters for the private school mum 🙄. Lots of unfounded claims made on different threads too.

Yep. It’s very hard to recruit healthcare lecturers, ie midwifery, paramedic science, OT, etc as they earn more working for the nhs.

Which is quite crazy when you consider that nhs staff are saying how poorly they’re paid.

i imagine other courses such as architecture, IT maybe engineering also struggle.

C would be the sensible answer which probably means it’s the least likely to happen! I imagine we will get D. And then A too late to help.

I bloody hope not! Got one about to go this autumn hopefully. The cost is already eye watering.

If tuition fees are increased then it’s almost certainly not going to be before those starting in 2025-26 academic year.

I’m in a specialist legal role in the sector. The harsh reality is that we need a number of the universities sitting right at the bottom of the league tables to fail. Not to reduce the overall amount of places available but to redistribute them. Even universities right at the top of the league tables make a loss on Uk students. If we lost 8-10 at the bottom those students would go elsewhere and the remaining universities would not be left with spaces on courses. It would cause major disruption for a few years though.
i think fees do also need to increase and it should be more normal to live at home and to attend university locally where possible. It’s a shame because living independently is a massive part of the experience but the reality is they do have the rest of their lives for that. If they weren’t paying £7-£10k a year in accommodation student debt would be significantly lower. It’s a cultural shift though that won’t happen on a wide scale unless people are forced into it.

Yes this is what I’m hearing more and more and it does make sense. Will be a bumpy few years and obviously not good for anyone studying or working at one of these universities when it happens. I think everyone is currently nervous as no certainty which ones it will be that go bust.

Unfortunately for many UK cities such as Nottingham and Sheffield the universities are a major source of income and employment and this has been embedded for the past 2 decades. If they fail then these cities will be much poorer with higher rates of unemployment which will feed into the electorate. No government would be able to stomach this.

And now international student numbers are reducing because of the governments attempts to reduce net migration.

Brexit also reduced the amount of research funding available to the UK.

So all in all, a perfect shit storm for higher education.

The government paid universities per student, so: taxes, like primary and secondary education.

Yes, it goes on teaching staff. A university's budget is around 50% academic pay costs. The rest is on professional service costs, Estates, IT infrastructure, etc.

Associate Lecturers are paid £19 per hour for things like marking, or £45 per teaching hour if there is prep involved. It is nowhere near minimum wage.

General running costs, for example the gas / electric bills have increased by millions, then there’s insurance, the cost of subsidizing food etc for students struggling with the cost of living. Cost of maintaining buildings. Updating learning resources, on technical courses equipment needs updating. The cost of student support where numbers of young people with disabilities and MH issues are increasing and the NHS is failing so universities are plugging the gap.

This, combined with the fall in income caused directly by this government’s decision making is what’s causing the issue.

Oh dear. Let me explain it: income (fees) has not risen in a decade. Staff pay costs have risen by about 3% a year. So from a university perspective, costs have risen dramatically over the last 10 years (as have all other costs), with income from undergraduate UK students staying the exact same.

Temporary bail outs and mergers followed by course rationalisation, restructures and asset sales. It’s actually unlikely to be places like Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester etc that would fail but most cities with two or more universities would actually be in a better position to deal with such a scenario (although nobody disputes the chaos that would ensue)
Everyone is waiting to see what will happen. There is fairly good awareness of who is in big trouble. Some of the published data shows various of those in trouble and unfortunately the measures that should be taken to assist (redundancies, pay and benefit restructuring, reduction in course offering etc) get enormous push back. In general however it’s a sector that was artificially inflated out of control and now the genie is out of the bottle it’s tricky to get the lid back on.
So the blunt instrument is fee increases (which are needed but are not the only answer).

Surely there also needs to be some governance around the 'degrees' universities can offer, the minimum entry requirements and a threshold for outcomes.

I've completed two undergraduate degrees, the first in the usual way at an RG, triple A entry requirement (pre A levels with A stars), the teaching was great, the expectations high, the facilities old and a bit rough around the edges in places.

The second was through work and necessary for my job, former poly, great facilities, lots of computer labs etc, the teaching was non existent, lots of the assigned tutors knew less than the people on the course (already working in industry) and other than the certificate I got at the end I gained nothing. The entry requirements for that were different because you had to be in the industry, but that university's general entry requirements are very low.

Aren't we doing young people with C-D grade A levels a disservice by encouraging them to accrue 60k in debt for a degree that is unlikely to impact their career choices or earning potential?

I say this from the position of someone who grew up in a rough area on FSM and was the first person in my family to go to university. In fact I'm still the only one to do it traditionally, I do have an aunt who got an HND then did an OU degree later in life.

Aren't we doing young people with C-D grade A levels a disservice by encouraging them to accrue 60k in debt for a degree that is unlikely to impact their career choices or earning potential?

personally I think too many go to university and accrue massive debt without really thinking it through and the mantra of “most never pay it off” is misleading since that’s partly due to the massive amount of interest.

on the other hand as someone who crashed and burned in a level maths and ended up with an E to accompany my As in other subjects, my life would be very different if I hadn’t been able to access university (although I received a full grant)

Surely there also needs to be some governance around the 'degrees' universities can offer, the minimum entry requirements and a threshold for outcomes.

Why would there be when they’re businesses with paying customers?

There was a study a few years ago that found 60% of lecturers were on fixed term or short term contracts. No sick pay or maternity, no pension, no reliable income, zero hour contracts. IMO students who are paying a lot of money deserve to be taught by full time staff who have secure employment and secure income.

Germany has a pure grammar school system. Approximately 45% girls and 36% boys go to grammar schools, the rest to schools that prepare you for more basic profession, which in the past was a perfectly valid path, not so much nowadays. Students can leave school after year 9 in the most basic type of school, when they're 15 years old. Only students who have got a-levels from a grammar school are allowed entry to universities the other 2 schools do not enable students to study a-levels. They are however introducing more private degrees that are paid for. German universities aren't really comparable with British ones. Students are a lot less supervised and it's not as structured as here. They also have minimal technology use, they're really quite traditional and highly academic. British children are no longer allowed to benefit from free German unis because of Brexit. Many German unis charge no more than about 100 Euros for the whole academic year, it's an admin fee basically.