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.

The government paid.

Also when fees were £3k the government also paid an additional £4k (7k in total), then fees went up to 9k...in 2012...

Some courses like humanity ones cost around 7k to run where medicine/engineering costs £15k+

Around 40-60% of universities are going to be in a deficit by 2025/6...due to rising costs, lower student numbers. Lower because of reduced birth rates, less people choosing to go because they feel it isn't worth it/can't afford it because maintenance loan isn't enough to cover living costs and reduced international students who pay £15k-20k fees

Whole universities could shut down, there's whole courses/departments being made redundant and people are not able to find work as other unis are freezing hiring

Check out this thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/academics_corner/5020125-redundancies-at-your-university

It isn't true at all, universities are businesses just like any other business and greedy like the rest of them. Just because they provide education doesnt mean they're not all about profit. Of course they'll kick up a stink if they're profits aren't obscene, they'll also cut back on what they provide students to maximise their profits, hence the online learning when there's no further need to have it. This country is becoming mkre and more like Anerica but unlike America we have very limited resources and space which means we can't infinitely chase profit over everything else, might shock some people to learn that their model doesn't work here.

My. Dd is at a RG too and my experience of costs and hours per week is similar to yours.

In her first year she has had approximately 8-9 hours per week of direct teaching/seminar time.

It's ridiculous. Students pay the same whether their course is 8 or 25 direct contact hours. This simply isn't ok.

I have a relative teaching in a decent but financially struggling uni. They say that the international masters students at their uni are 60 percent genuine applicants, and 40 percent people who basically want the 2 year work permit to work in the UK you get after a masters degree. These latter group pay the fees but don't show up to lectures or tutorials, get essay mills to write their dissertations, and plagiarism is rife. However the staff are under enormous pressure not to fail them because then the local recruiters will say "not X uni, they fail a lot of people" and then X uni will not have enough international students to keep the uni going. It's very serious and obviously reflects a huge dilemma for universities - if you rely on international student masters to keep your uni afloat, then you need to turn a blind eye to wrongdoing in that cohort. It is seriously reducing standards (and driving my serious academic relative absolutely mad at the unfairness of it).

We can't have a university system that is two tier, where home students are held to completely different standards of academic conduct than international students, and where people are effectively buying the chance to work in the UK for 3 years, rather than gaining a qualification.

Incidentally my young person is a CCC A level person doing fantastically well on a vocational degree course. Young person has ADHD and has always struggled with exams, has a "no exam" degree in a creative subject that will lead to a career in the industry, and is on course for a first.

To those who say we need fewer unis - and more apprenticeships. The point is businesses could already set those up, but mainly aren't interested
@Ifyubrgku is absolutely correct. Many businesses just don't want to bother with training. That means that apprenticeships just aren't being offered in nearly the volume we need to allow people to do them instead of University. It is more difficult to get onto a degree aporenticeship than it iscto get into Oxford. It's also the problem with T Levels. Businesses don't want to offer 45 days of work experience. The government doesn't want to confront them or even talk to them and ask why. They don't want to fund FE to enable people to be trained vocationally.
And re the OP's scaremongering, Tory immigration policy would take out so much funding from the university system that many would close down, close courses, and would still need to raise funding. The funding would go further spent on golf course management and media studies than it woukd be spent on stem degrees which need much more equipment and class time.

University is a choice

It's less and less a choice. I don't have a degree but you couldn't get my job without one now - that or 10+ years experience working your way up to it.

I have the experience, but even the entry job I started my career in requires a degree now - so there is no route in for new, unqualified applicants.

But I agree with pp - someone asking for it publically is clearly trying to put pressure, which means it's not something that's a firm plan - otherwise they'd shut up and let it happen. They are using the paper to influence the way it goes which means it ain't going the way they want at the moment...

The big elephant the room has been that around half of students do not pay off the loans. I know of grads who don’t look for grad work so they don’t pay anything back! Live with parents and don’t have any ambition to use their degree. Scientist too. So the government is seriously out of pocket by billions! £206 billion to be precise! We are paying because many students aren’t! So we need all the facts when looking at the uni sector.

We don’t have 50% of 18 year olds going to uni. It’s nearer 40%. Around 50% of the workforce has a degree and this will grow. A degree gives an earnings premium - still. However some degrees don’t. I think we do need to shrink the sector. It’s bloated. We need to revert to local colleges if HE and release student flats to families.

We do need employers to step up and train but for many it’s not worth their while. Recruiting a grad is cheaper. They haven’t paid for their education. 18 year olds going into degree apprenticeships is well under 10,000 pa. It’s not a system that’s working as intended. It’s a system that retrains existing employees.

Uni is not school. You don’t expect teaching in the same way. You research yourself and do work for your degree out of the lecture room. So no one just does 8 hours a week. Those who expect to have hours and hours of teaching, are not suited to uni. They need to have a different outlook.

More like 35% if I was going to be pedantic @TizerorFizz 😀 Covid I think created a bit of an artificial mini peak.

expanding on your point though it is 50% for DC from London (and close to that for NI), a bit less for the South East and quite a lot less pretty much everywhere else. Probably reflecting our heavily skewed economy.

I always wonder when people say fewer should go is there starting point far fewer from London should go. I suspect possibly not.

and 100% agree that Uni is not school. Isn’t is supposed to be reading for a degree, which includes self-directed study and research? - with facilities provided to enable students to do that.

Hindsight is always a wonderful thing but if those behind that expansion policy 30 or so years ago could see where it has now led us to perhaps they might have acted differently.

We have been saving for years for our DCs to go to uni, into their child trust fund/then junior isas. I appreciate most people can’t do that, but those that can should do. How about a uni specific savings product! That would be a good start.
It’s a bit like banks failing though, we shouldn’t be letting unis go bust. The Government needs to work with the weaker players to amalgamate and find solutions. Given our funding model of over reliance on international students we can’t let unis fail. Even if it is true that the sector is a bit bloated.

@boys3 It’s well documented that many immigrants in London are driving these figures. Thanks for saying 35%. I actually thought it had remained higher. Clearly the majority do find other training and work. We also know the grad earnings premium is getting smaller.

I would actually advocate some unis reverting to colleges of HE. I looked at “engineering” degrees at my local uni recently. I was appalled. Yes, we need more engineers, but at this uni, these degrees were so far away from an academic degree, it was sad. So what are they worth? Very little. Had they been HND, fair enough, probably. We need a far more bouyant middle way for middle academic dc. We should not be pouring £ billion into mediocre courses with poor outcomes for students.

We have expanded some subjects way too much. Eg psychology, environmental science. We don’t need so many. Law is another huge growth area. Since when did fairly straightforward jobs in the nhs need a degree? Staff without one years ago were admired and trusted. The NHS has greatly expanded uni provision and we pay £billions for it. It’s not needed. We need a reset.

@Roundeartheratchriatmas previously only 10% of people went to University, it was Blair that pushed for 50% of people to attend University. I was a very young member of staff before tuition fees were introduced. The John Major commissioned a report by Lord Dearing and he was the one who originally mooted this as an idea but Blair’s government introduced them in 1998.

Of course the UK would never have suddenly had 50% graduate level jobs for these graduates so now people need a degree for jobs that just do not need them at all. We had a very nice junior secretary start just before I left, she had a masters level degree.

By the time I retired early I felt like a fraud because there is no way every single one of my students was going to have the opportunities my generation did because there are just too many of them. DH subject is vocational so his students have some of the best post graduation employment statistics in what is for most a lucrative career.

Higher education is in crisis many institutions have put forward redundancy plans. DH and I have friends that work at five Universities, we know 3 have plans. Three of my friends already took what was redundancy but dressed up as something else from the University of Birmingham during covid.

It is going to be awful for the staff left behind and students who will never get the one to one attention they used to because of staff cuts. Our own DS who has heard his parents discuss this over the years is on a degree apprenticeship, no tuition fees, a wage of 29k and a guaranteed job at the end. Horrendously competitive and small numbers compared to the usual route but worth it if it’s the career they want and can get a place.

Overseas students pay as much as 40k per annum for a place, at DH institution they pay close to 30k so yes they are propping up the system.

@TheDarkMonarch you are a perfect example of why expansion has not worked out as well as expected, good luck in your career. It was social engineering with unintended consequences but some of us could see it all those years ago. You voiced that opinion at the time and you were seen as exclusionary.

Yeah @ViciousCurrentBun I was lucky. I started in a really junior role in IT and was at a very senior mgt position within about 10 years - all those experiences have meant my career now is solid. But I am really conscious that anyone wanting that same starting role now is expected to have a computing degree and TBH it actually doesn't make a jot of difference to their ability to do that job.

All that time and effort and money and it doesn't result in anyone better qualified to actually do the role

Slightly random @TizerorFizz but apparently Buckinghamshire is perhaps the single strangest part of the UK when it comes to the provision of higher education.

Who knew😀

Your 40% is almost spot on for the female percentage @TizerorFizz - 41% female, around ten points higher than that for boys.

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?

Totally agree but sadly in the current climate this is getting worse. So the course I run not that long ago was 128 ucas points, central admsisions have insisted we drop it to 112 and told me anyone who gets 86 or over on A level day will be accepted. It's all about bums on seats. I argue till I'm blue in the face that I then have to deal with students who can't cope with the work and fail/leave (not all but some).

Couldn't this be partly to do with A levels having got an awful lot harder over the past few years (COVID years excepted)?

Not necessarily. It depends on the subject. My university takes a lot of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. I've seen plenty of mine get great careers that would not have been possible without uni.

Uni is good for social mobility.

BUT and big but, when you create competition between institutions and run them like businesses, people are let in who shouldn't be. This in my experience happens at clearing when they let standards fall. It is very hard to say no. I get over ruled by admissions managers.

There needs to be much better support for kids from disadvantaged backgrounds. I think there should be free foundation courses for them to help them prepare. It's wild the difference between them and their middle class peers.

Sorry this is responding to the poster in bold type quoted.

Yes, it is about widening participation in Higher Education. Equal access to opportunity.

You could take your argument to the next level, and say is it really worth sending kids who perform poorly at primary school to secondary school? Sounds horrific, right?

There is no correlation between league table position and those universities in financial trouble, though, so your argument makes no sense.

A secondary point is that those with lower league table positions are typically those with widening participation agendas - radically helping to improve social mobility.

Finally, which league table? My own university is consistently ranked in the top 10 by Times Higher Education and Bottom 10 by the Guardian. These tables value different things, evidently.

Teaching is generally better at Post-92s than at RG universities, as evidenced by almost all league tables and NSS outcomes.

No, I’m talking a change from this year to next year purely due to falling applications/not filling places.

No, I’m talking a change from this year to next year purely due to falling applications/not filling places.

@Blimpton yep, I agree. My own institution doesn't use fixed term contracts, except for mat leave cover, etc. almost all lecturers are on permanent contracts, and we are doing well financially.

I was talking about Hourly Paid Lecturers in my post above (so some casual labour, a couple of hours a week, usually done by PhD students).

You really don't know what you're talking about. Universities are charities, there is no "profit" to be paid to shareholders or VCs. A university is either in surplus or deficit. There is a legal obligation to put surplus directly back into the university. There is no mechanism by which there can be any profit from universities.