Should uni fees be the same for all subjects?

[camilamoran]

This is something I have been wondering about since a recent open day visit. We were listening to a Physics professor doing the 'Why study Physics?' talk. He remarked that Physics and Medicine are both among the courses that lead to the best paid jobs, and they are also the most expensive to run. (Labs, equipment, staff, etc)

So, if there is a big difference between the cost of running a Physics degree and let us say an English degree, why do students have to pay the same fees for either? I understand that you will end up paying more for your degree if it enables you to get a better paying job, but wouldn't it be fairer to charge you a different fee in the first place?

Is the current position that students doing Humanities degrees are subsidising those doing Science/Engineering and Medicine?

I think they should be the same - otherwise you'd see students who were talented medics or physicists going for degrees in other subjects because they were cheaper. A lot of the costs are shared anyway - everyone needs the buildings and the infrastructure.

I don't think it is so simple as to say you pay more for a degree that gets you a better job. That's not the case now. Yes, more prestigious universities can charge more (which is wrong anyway IMO), but I doubt that medics anywhere struggle to earn, really.

I think that it all evens out when students get jobs because the rate the loan is paid back is dependent upon salary. A medic will always be a higher earner, but other people will earn just as well with only a 3 year degree, so less loan to pay back. The science courses always have more teaching and higher costs but until we had course fees no-one batted an eyelid as we all agreed we wanted these types of people to be well trained. The bigger problem is that people doing arts degrees, English, Psychology etc find it harder to get jobs which reflect their worth, but at least their loans will be repaid at a lesser rate.

No they're not subsidising. Higher cost courses still receive government funding.

I think the positive thing about having fees is that it should allow education to become more efficient, by making people more aware of what they are paying for so they can decide whether it is worth it. For instance, should all courses be three years or could some be two years, do you want that infrastructure to be basic or more palatial, how much contact time do you have with tutors and so on.

It seems to me that some arts degrees are becoming not worth the cost of the fees, even taking into account that you will not be paying as much back as an engineer or a doctor, and I think if I was an arts undergraduate I might feel a bit bitter if I thought I was subsidising science students. If anyone is going to do any subsidising here, surely it should be industry, or the community in general.

I don't think they should be the same.

Titchy I don't quite understand what you mean - please elaborate.

Most (nearly all) degrees cost universities more than £9k to run. It's a bit like paying a blanket £7.85 for a prescription. The more expensive-to-run courses are typically those with a higher payback either socially or in income tax, eg medicine and engineering, so they "deserve" more subsidy.

Medicine and engineering cost around £20k per student. Students pay £9k, government the remaining £11k. Language degrees cost £11k, students pay £9k, government the remaining £2k.

That's a VERY simplistic example of how it works.

Sorry, to add the final illustration,Sociology receives no government funding.

It would be ridiculous if they weren't the same. Imagine all those kids doing law degrees because they're cheap as chips, medicine being the preserve of the rich, no-one being able to teach physics or chemistry in 20 years time because the degrees cost too much. No art or language graduates.

Uni fees shouldn't 'be' at all, in my opinion. Higher Education is still free in Scotland, as it was here until Tony Blair (perhaps inadvertently) got his hands on the thin end of the wedge. Then the Coalition decided to blow the old and well loved system to smithereens.

University education in England is now the most expensive in all of Europe.

Well done, (Westminster) Nick and (Eton) David.

Lots of our clever children are already planning to go to university abroad, where it will cost a lot less. Will they come back? My dd is talking about doing an MA in France.

Don't forget who buggered up English Higher Education when the next General Election comes round.

Thanks for further info titchy.

I wouldn't mind the fees if there was more contact time. DS has just finished Law and had about 10 hrs/pw and was finished by the middle of April each year but I accept Law is a 'reading' degree.

DD has just started a language degree and is timetabled for 4 hours language and 2 hours culture - she could do the 4 years in one if she snook into Y2 and 4 classes and missed the year abroad.

Is the current position that students doing Humanities degrees are subsidising those doing Science/Engineering and Medicine?

STEM subjects till receive some government funding. All other areas receive zero public funding.

Indeed, I know for certain of one university where the Faculty of Arts clearly and transparently subsidises the medical faculty. And £9,000 barely covers the cost of any student. Overseas fees are a far better indication of the actual total cost of any degree course.

The implementation of fees and their level is an entirely political matter, and nothing to do with the "worth" of a degree.

Chimney it's a lot more than STEM that receive Hefce funding. Languages, archaeology, computing, art, music do for instance. A law or other humanities student does NOT cost more than £9k a year. The Hefce unit of resource for these subjects was lower than that!

Oh and 'some' government funding?! It's more than double the fees for some courses which is pretty significant!

Ultimately its people in jobs which create wealth in the economy that subsidise everything else so you certainly don't want to discourage people from becoming scientists and engineers! (I don't mean they're the only careers which create real wealth, but they're the ones particularly relevant in the context of this thread)

Universities do have the power to differentiate fees by subject, and different universities can and do charge different fees ( although very very little difference in practice - eg £8500). Bench fees and studio fees might be a small scale illustration of those differences ( but in the £000 rather than £0000)

Administratively, it would be a nightmare. And as titchy eloquently illustrated with her almost spot on numbers, unit of resource funding to universities for UG teaching Is almost perfectly matched to mean that for every subject there is something approaching a £9k gap for covering with fees

I can only anticipate differential fees if the unit of resource funding differentials change - eg if there is no central funding for STEM, for instance. In that case fees for those subject would go up. Not fees for humanities come down.

Yes, they should- if they are going to exist at all.

If STEM fees and other fees of useful degrees, like computing and languages went up, it would definately put people off them. However, more people need to be encouraged to do these subjects.

Also, it could cause major problems within faculties, specifically faculties of Science and Technology- where a more theoretical degree might be a lot cheaper to run than a lab heavy degree like microbiology- but they will still be using the same buildings and facilities.

Also, would students paying less have the same right to use facilities (e.g. computers) being paid for directly by others? Would students paying more feel they have more of a right to support services than others paying less? It could easily create bad feeling between students on different courses, which wouldn't be good.

Who would decide exactly how much each degree costs? Should "reading" degrees have to pay more for the upkeep of the library? Should courses more likely to use journals have to pay more for the access to these journals (which does still benefit all students)?

It would probably also put greater demands on staff teaching the very expensive degrees to be very available and helpful to their students- which isn't always practical when they're doing very involved research.