London universities overtaking Oxbridge and north left in dust

[BrendaBlackhead]

story here today:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30521423

Out in the sticks dcs are all dooooomed: ordinary pupil cannot afford to have a good London university experience due to having to live 20 miles out in a shed, so it'll be all rich overseas students and those lucky enough to have parental homes there that will triumph.

Re student costs...

My DS1 went to UCL and it was actually cheaper to live than DS2 at Bristol.

In London, there is a huge range of housing in Bloomsbury/Camden, including university accomodation. Food shopping is the same anywhere, and most things are in walking distance so less need for fares.

The HESA data (ie the "intensity" percentage) is an average over the academic year (I think it's the 12-13 year). So if a department returned all its research staff (100% intensity) and after the REF census date people retired or left, it will register as >100%

Yes, a lot of people delayed retirement until just after the census date (and will heavily bribed to do so).

There's also the issue of staff working in e.g. maths being returned under physics or vice versa (which happened in quite a few cases). Does this also affect the percentages - i.e. if somebody was based in a maths department but returned under physics, could it potentially make physics have a > 100% submission rate?

That's interesting, AMerryScot. There was a thread some while ago on here about someone's dd who was billeted miles out in a flat with only Chinese students who didn't fraternise. One doesn't know if that's representative or an anomaly. I also know someone's dd who was applying to change university because they were the only UK person on the course. You might say that's a wimpy reason to want to quit but if there is no one with whom to hang out/discuss work/form a friendship then it's at the very least highly disappointing. It's great if it's a bit melting pot of minds, but unfortunately it often doesn't seem to be.

Ulen - no, UoA is returned to HESA independently of dept or cost centre.

I have DD2 at university in London at the moment and halls of residence are more expensive than Bristol! I had a DD at Bristol too. Lots of students get very spread out in London for 2nd year onwards and my DD2 has friends all over the place. Lots are now commuting from home so don't stay on in the evenings. A lot of the overseas students socialise together. Nothing wrong with that, but the pool of possible friends is less because if there are just 10 British students on your course, it might be a bit lonely. LSE is a top destination for overseas students so it depends who votes on these surveys. A bright new campus might be good but that is not the overall experience of a university. My DDs have close friends at Uni in London, mostly at Kings, and they have not had the same experience as say, Bristol, because their friends are so dispersed around London. I have no doubt some students will have the time of their life in London, but if the course you want is 80% overseas students, this could present unforeseen problems for friendships and living arrangements. Unless you are prepared to live in a tip, no accommodation in Camden or Bloomsbury is cheap!

Hello Brenda. Even Bristol has a Chinese Student Society! Integration is not good! Some overseas students do mix, but a lot prefer to socialise with students who speak their own language and share their culture. The problem with some of the London universities (eg Imperial, LSE) is that the proportion of these students is pretty high. They can and do have the better quality Central accommodation along with the rich Brits. My DDs have friends paying £800 per month for accommodation and I paid £700 a month for my DDs hall of residence. There was cheaper, but transport costs would have been huge. Plenty of halls are £10,000 pa in London. It is possible with parental help but there is no great need to choose London over other world class universities!

£10K for halls of residence?!!!!! I am truly flabbergasted. Good god! I'd better not let ds see those...

DS1's hall fee was £73 a week at UCL, right on Gower Street (four years ago). He paid roughly £110 a week in Camden flats.

DS2 paid £140 a week for halls in Bristol and a similar amount for flats.

£10000 sounds astonishing Nothing like DSs experience.

DS, because of his interests, is friendly with a lot of international students. He equally know a fair number of Brits. I think that is an advantage. He seems to have something on every evening, whether related to his course, sports or simply social.

It is interesting that his friends at Oxbridge or elsewhere converge on London. It's a world city with everything going on. Some students may prefer Bath or Loughborough, but for many, London is hard to beat. I assume that is the same for academics.

Honestly Bonsoir, though there may be a lot of French students they will be in a real minority. If they don't choose to mix that's their problem. If they do mix they have the chance to experience a truly international education unsurpassed by anywhere else in Europe.

needmoresleep - French are the 5th nationality group (and first EU group) of foreign UGs in the UK but converge on a small number of universities/courses - they are more concentrated than eg Asian students.

I had the unusual experience of being a (very) mature (commuting) student in a humanities department of the LSE not so long ago. It was an interesting experience at a great institution but at the end of it, having seen inside first hand, I put my DD's off applying. I think the university is a bit distorted by its very high number of international students. Firstly, I think something happens to the teaching and learning ethos of a university when most of your students are extremely wealthy and many have paid £10s of thousands of pounds up front to be there - not just fees but living costs as an international student. Students become consumers and expect a degree, regardless of input and regardless, for example, of whether the quality of their written English is good enough to be able to communicate at a sophisticated level (some really should not have been allowed to study a humanities subject). Second, the institution seemed to have morphed into a giant and sophisticated recruitment agency for the city and top multinationals. I know that nowadays getting a job is much harder and that universities have to focus much more on employability, but I was shocked at the amount of emphasis on this - as if the university had become a high value kite mark for your cv, more than a place of learning. I did encounter great teaching and committed individual staff - and I was a postgraduate - so perhaps I am being unfair of the university as a whole. But the whole experience was very instrumental - perhaps I am too romantic but I saw very little interest among students in learning for its own sake. I also found a great deal of seminar teaching by PhD students and the quality here tended not to be as high as I would have expected - the expertise was there, but not necessarily the ability to teach and communicate.

If anyone wants some great writing on the sheer ridiculousness of REF measures etc and the harm all this is doing to uk universities, I recommend the brilliant Stefan collini's "what are universities for"? This collection of essays is getting a bit out of date - the last one is from 2012 - but is still well worth reading (while somewhat depressing).

REF results have no relevance to the UG experience (other than diverting members of staff away from teaching and into research) and to truly understand the results you need to know the details about each department.

For example, in my discipline, philosophy, Keele uni is proclaiming on its web page how it has the highest impact factor in the country...doesn't mention that this was true before the uni pushed out all the people who contributed to this score, downsizing from 12 staff to 2,5 posts. Birmingham comes out second, when I read this I had to visit their staff pages to check who the hell was so brilliant at Birmingham and I didn't even know their work. Turns out the Birmingham score is heavily inflated by the appointment of 0.2 posts from abroad. Despite 0.2 posts all four outputs counted in the submission so a. Umber of big names abroad with a tenuous connection to Birmingham suddenly inflated the score. I am not sure if Birmingham did this on purpose or it was an unforeseen consequence of a visiting scholar programme, but it is certain that it will be used by other unies next time.

Figment, did you actually READ any of your fellow international students' final coursework submissions or examination scripts? I suspect not. Spoken English or (more often) confidence to speak up in class are not a good proxy for the quality of academic written work. I speak as someone whose top-rated London masters' courses (not LSE) are full of international students. They have to pass a very tough English examination to even get their visa, on top of that we refuse them admission if their written submissions at application are not up to the level expected of a UK MA, and I've never given an international student on our extremely academically demanding MA a mark under 60.

In addition, the undergraduate places for at home and international students are ENTIRELY separate so your experience of a masters course will be very different from the undergraduate experience.

Sounds like you had a bit of a crap time on your course, but the plural of anecdote is not data.

I managed a first for my BA, a distinction for my Masters and passed my PhD with no corrections despite being one of them for'ners.

Just saying...

Me too booboo.

I have a DD at UCL, two of her flatmates are from state schools oop north and have parents who earn little enough for them to get the full maintenance grant. They didn't just survive, they saved. They had bursaries, and scholarships and they worked part time, easy to get jobs that will give you shifts as and when once you are on the student grapevine. And they didn't live in a shed twenty miles out, they lived in ex Council Flats, with shared living rooms, 3 tube stops / 10 mins by bus away. And they all had a great time.

Other DD has gone oop north, the uni highest rated for research in her subjects. It doesn't feel as if she is in the academic wastes. Some of her lecturers have travelled up from London.

I don't think the OP's premise applies at all. .

Figment, I think it might be a bit of a Masters thing. I was recently told, via a good source, that the Economics Masters can be equally frustrating to teach. A reasonable proportion of students are seeking to enhance their CVs by gaining a higher level qualification at a top ranked University teaching in English on their way to a top paying Finance job in their home country. The version I heard was that UGs tend to be more interesting and intellectually curious.

Similarly Bonsoir I cant see why the fact that French students like to stick together makes London a less good place to study. There are probably a fair few French on my son's course though he has not mentioned any. He does, however know students from just about everywhere else. Perhaps the French like specific courses in specific places because they would prefer not to mix. If that is the case I assume students from other countries are not too bothered.

One real advantage of an international environment is that students seem to work very hard. There seems to be less assumption the University is about getting away from home and doing lots of clubbing. Good if you are interested in your subject and enjoy being with similarly motivated peers.

Needmoresleep - I have never claimed, not do I think, that French students like to stick together. They converge on particular courses because those are the ones that (a) they are prepared for by the French bac (b) are convertible into employment or Masters degrees in their home system (to which they wish they want to at least leave the door open for a possible return when they leave home aged 18).

This is all so ridiculously shallow. It seems there are a number of MNers who are determined to 'prove' that their DC is at the 'best' university. Either Cambridge over Oxford, or KCL over both, or LSE over Cambridge. Etc.

Anyone else wish people could just give it a rest?

Molio, a tad sharp.

I assume you were referring to me. I hope others would never interpret my posts as suggesting any University was better than another. Indeed I hope the opposite. Having had my DC go through London day schools I have little interest or appetite for educational one up-manship. Our DC have their lives before them and it is a case of making or helping them make good decisions at each stage.

The shallow discussion seems to be in three parts.

1. The basis of the figures and whether they have any validity. Not my area, but interesting to read h
2. The MMM comment that London University provided a less good experience, which I initially responded to. The conclusion there seems to be that an accommodation cost of £10,000 was significantly overstated, and that some students really enjoy London.

1. Bonsoir’s point about French students. I don’t really understand the argument, but there is an interesting discussion in there somewhere. If I understand it, French students, along with many other overseas students focus their applications on a small number of courses in a small number of Universities. The courses are often quite vocational, eg engineering or economics, and London is popular. (Sorry Bonsoir, I have added a couple of assumptions based on decisions made by the French and other O’seas students we know.) This probably takes us back to a couple of old MN chestnut discussions:

a) should you do the degree you prefer or should you take the degree most useful for a future career.

b) is it better to have the Oxbridge experience (assuming you have a choice) or go elsewhere if you prefer the course.

Bonsoir also appears to open up a third discussion, which is whether courses dominated by overseas students offer a less good student experience. This is where I got lost. DS appears very happy in a seriously international environment. He is not a clubber, and enjoys his subject of study. Being with other students with different perspectives and a strong work ethic, suits him. He also enjoys, and I suspect this is not only because it is his home town, being in an international city with lots going on. I would have thought much the same would apply to French students. Bonsoir has previously posted about French students finding the British student drinking culture quite difficult. It does exist in London (note the problems both LSE and Kings have had with their rugby clubs) but is easily avoided. I assume French students studying in Britain are looking more for an international educational experience than a purely British one. British students have the same choice.

Given lots of British students don’t even consider studying in the Capital (Squirrels and Littleham’s DC may be examples) in part perhaps because of inaccurate preconceptions, I can’t see what is wrong with at least one advocate for London.

My DS is 4, Molio, so you couldn't be more wrong. I genuinely can't see how you got that out of the discussion, so I am assuming the problem is with your eyes.

I was talking to dh's niece yesterday, at a top university, highly competitive vocational course. She said that the number of foreign students was, frankly, ruining the tutorial experience. They spoke poor English and could not engage in discussion. She said that aside from the fact that they had paid mega-bucks to be there and were in all the most expensive accommodation, she didn't understand how they were going to do well and operate in their future careers.

Needmoresleep you're right, it was a bit sharp and I perhaps shouldn't have been. But nevertheless it is somewhat enervating to read so many posts across so many education threads where there is this uncomfortable and often quite bitter undercurrent that I referred to. If you recognise yourself then all I can say is you seem a very, very minor offender :)

It is a noticeable malaise on MN that some posters whose DC have applied to say Oxford and been rejected then slag Oxford off endlessly. Also that some posters whose DC have applied to say Cambridge and been rejected then slag Cambridge off endlessly. Good grace is surely the far more dignified option? And why does it seem to be only those two universities which trigger this angst?

Another thing I'd say to Needmoresleep is that her son is at a top London uni having lived in London and been at an independent London day school. The reason his school friends return is to do with the fact that they're familiar with it too and come from well off backgrounds so can afford the commute, costs of eating, clubs etc for their sojourn and enjoy free overnight accommodation to boot. Many, many Oxbridge students stay in their respective uni for the entire term are are fine with that, with no hankering after the metropolis whatsoever. Your DS's experience will be very different from that of someone coming into the capital from far out west, or north, or from a relatively poor or just plain poor background. It makes a colossal difference to the whole experience - so many students not in this privileged position find the social life fragmented and the accommodation meh. I have to say I've warned mine against it on those grounds. Two have turned down UCL offers at undergrad level, very sensibly I think.

are and