Why is university so expensive?

[Zazedonia]

Can anyone explain why university costs so much (and will cost more when the fees cap is removed or loosened)? Many students have very little contact time, and much of it is in big lecture halls. Why does university cost a similar amount to private school, which provides so much more?

[Zazedonia]

Many universities in this country are not bastions of neo-liberalism. The one I know well is stuffed with former private school pupils and there's a distinctly Tory feel to it.
If we have a user pays country now, why are STEM etc students being so heavily subsidised?
And it's not necessary to use top class academics to teach undergraduates. In fact academics are split into 2 branches, those who mainly teach, and those who focus on research. The first type don't need to be brilliant researchers and don't need to be so well paid?
My DCs are likely to want to study something like English or a modern language. What they will get from university honestly doesn't seem worth the money to me. Especially as fees are set to rise. But without a degree there are very few jobs they could apply for.

[Zazedonia]

£30K is way above average for a starting salary after university, surely?

[titchy]

My 13.52 post explains why STEM has to be subsidised OP.

[HeadDreamer]

£30K is way above average for a starting salary after university, surely?

That's typical. See this ad for a graduate scheme

www-05.ibm.com/employment/uk/graduate-programmes/what-we-offer/

Graduate salaries start at £30,000. That's the minimum they'll offer.

[HeadDreamer]

A lot of computer science graduates will go into the finance sector. They pay higher than pure IT jobs too.

Aldi is offering £42k btw.

www.theguardian.com/money/shortcuts/2015/jan/12/aldi-graduates-starting-salary-pay-off-student-loan

[HeadDreamer]

And more examples of generic graduate developer ads with a search of 20miles from Reading.

London investment bank £30k-£40k
Reading £35k
Bracknell £25-35k

[HeadDreamer]

Zazedonia I think you are out of touch what graduates earn.

[Zazedonia]

You are looking at the graduate employment schemes that are no more than a dream for the majority of graduates, and which pay way above average.
I've met 2 recent graduates from our local top 10 university who work as a cleaner and as a canteen assistant respectively.

[HocusCrocus]

Zaz , My DC is studying History. He (and I) do think it's worth it, including having top rate 1 to 1 tutorials, which I think he thinks stretches his brain more (crap way of putting it but can't think of a better way at the moment) . There are those who value the ability to absorb large amounts of information, analyse it, and marshall it into a reasoned argument. I hope at some point one of these types might offer Ds a job. Re Needmore's post above (whatever you think of the various options of ways of funding universities, and I am leaving that to one side ) £9k p.a. (not being required up front) is good value in my opinion for what he is getting compared to a private school charging the same amount (if you could find one) . And y y to - if he is being subsidised less than medics , dentists , vets, engineers other STEM type disciplines etc etc - well so be it - these courses are expensive and we need their expertise.

[Zazedonia]

If you read the threads on here about the cost of uni and having to pay the loan back, you'll see that many people consider that their children will likely never need to pay the money back, or at least not for many years, as it doesn't have to be paid back until they earn £21K. You don't hear of anybody anticipating that their child will jump into a £40K job on graduation. The big accountancy and investment bank graduate schemes make a lot of noise, but employ a relatively small number of graduates. check out job rates in the regions, where few people of any age earn over £40K per year.

[disquisitiones]

Unfortunately, to get a salary of £40k, an academic needs a PhD (so eight years university education) and typically a minimum of 6-8 years experience post PhD. In other words, you would need to be 32-34+ before getting such a salary. And that's if you get a lecturer job at all: many people have to move around on short-term contracts for a long time before getting a lecturer position (even highly respected researchers).

Certainly lecturers in my group, in their mid 30s, would be earning far, far more outside academia, and more working in academia in most countries outside the UK.

Postdocs get 30k, but they have a minimum of four years high-level specialist training to get a postdoc job (and usually need a first to get a PhD position). It's hardly reasonable to compare them with starting graduates: getting a funded PhD position is at least as competitive as getting onto a top graduate scheme, in most research areas.

[MultishirkingAgain]

Why does university cost a similar amount to private school, which provides so much more?

You seem to misunderstand what a university is. The one thing it isn't is a school.

How many private school teachers do original, cutting edge research? How many private school teachers write books (not just text books)? How many private school teachers are actually working to advance knowledge, not just repeat what is already known?

£9k per year for a degree in this country is cheap.

[MultishirkingAgain]

I would assume £40k is starting academic salary surely.

My junior colleagues would roll on the floor to read this. They start at between £29 and £31k. They all have PhDs, plus publications and/or research grants. They earn somewhere between half and two-thirds of the PA of my friend who's a City lawyer. Her PA doesn't even have a degree.

[MultishirkingAgain]

And it's not necessary to use top class academics to teach undergraduates. In fact academics are split into 2 branches, those who mainly teach, and those who focus on research. The first type don't need to be brilliant researchers and don't need to be so well paid?

Zazedonia you're seriously misinformed about all this. You don't want your children taught by the best people in their field? Why not?

You are prepared to pay fees for school, but not for university?

Must be a wind up.

[Needmoresleep]

I once saw a chart showing Government funding as a proportion of overall funding for several top Universities. It is surprisingly low. Unfortunately I can't find it now but I think LSE was just over 10% and Imperial not that much more, and Oxbridge in the same ball park.

There is a choice presumably. France and Germany provide a much higher subsidy per student yet are relatively poorly represented on international league tables. Scotland does not charge fees but this has meant that the competition for places on the really competitve courses has increased and to some extent local students are being crowded out by higher qualified students from elsewhere in the EU.

Its not easy. If Universities want to compete internationally they need to be able to pay top salaries. Funding then either needs to come from the Government or from other sources including University fees. Reducing fees for home students would increase demand from the EU for the available places, and lead to a great reliance on non-EU students who bring in the higher fee income, and would almost certainly require a higher contribution from the UK taxpayer. In short the tax payer would pay more and there would be fewer places for UK students. Or standards would drop and UK students would not longer have access to top flight tertiary education.

Whichever way, UK students get a good deal, at least for top courses. Whether the same applies for all courses is a different matter.

[Mrsmorton]

Fees that humanities students pay subsidising science students then?

Only til they both start paying tax (or not as the case may be)

[Sparklycat]

30k is def not the average starting salary for a graduate...it's taken me (teaching) and my husband (engineering) 8 years after graduating to get to 30k. Unless you go into a job in the city I think it's highly unlikely to get 30k straight off.

[maybebabybee]

OP I have an English degree. I did it because I love the subject and was good at it. Arts and Humanities graduates don't always go directly into the fields they studied. Most of my peers didn't - I only know one or two who went into publishing or journalism. But we all have relatively decent jobs. You can do loads with an arts/humanities degree.

I'm a PA, which I enjoy, and I wouldn't be on the salary I'm on or do the projects I do without my degree. My main passion is creative writing though, and I do that in my spare time.

Don't make the mistake of thinking the sole point of a degree is to get a job directly related to it. It isn't.

[disquisitiones]

If Universities want to compete internationally they need to be able to pay top salaries.

But UK universities really don't pay top salaries - that's the point. Cambridge has been pretty much unable to fill some of its named chairs, such as the Lucasian, because the salaries are so ridiculously low compared to international standards. Oxbridge are lobbying very strongly to be allowed to increase the fees much more, or get more government subsidy for top universities, so that they can actually compete internationally.

Again: 30k is not paid to 22 year old academics. 30k is paid to academics who have a top first degree, four years study for a PhD and a couple of years experience as a post-doc. Getting both PhD and post-doc positions is extremely competitive (far more so than typical graduate positions).

Must be a wind up.

I do suspect this thread is partly a wind up, although it is surprising to see how people don't realise that most academics are employed to spend half their time on research and that they will be penalised if they don't produce world-class research. (It is definitely not true in the UK that academics split into those who teach and those who research, as OP claims.)

[Georgina1975]

"Average" salary £70,000!?!

Professorial salary perhaps, and then only towards top of the scale. At my institution professorial salaries range massively. One professor I know earns £56,000 PA after a 40 year career and bringing in over £1.4 million in research grants for the University.

I think the starting salary is pretty decent, but it slows down quickly IMO.

In terms of cost, you're not just paying for "contact time".* What about running a massive institution? Subscribing to academic books and journals, facilitating 24hr/7day library opening. Sports facilities. On campus accommodation. Wifi, VLEs, computer suites. Water, heating, lighting.

And not many private schools do this for 20,000 students.

• we should have a thread on this. Contact time is such a red herring and so wildly misunderstood.

[defunctedusername]

The op has a point, Humanities courses should not be used to subsidise STEM courses. The solution is to scrap any cap on course fees so STEM subjects would be able to charge those rich Tories the true cost of university and then humanities wouldn't have to subsidise them.

We could also stop the government allowing so many people going to university. Put a ban on children from private school (maybe high achieving state schools as well?) going to university Lets get back to the good old days when only a few were allowed access to higher education. That would really stop all those rich right wing oppressors from entrenching inequality.

As for the ridiculous fees which punishes unemployed comrades. If we capped wages at £21,000 then no one would ever have to pay universities back. That would be the crowning glory to start off a new state of socialist equality.

[HeadDreamer]

Zazedonia you are conveniently ignoring the links I found on jobsite. They are not graduate schemes. Just normal software companies looking for graduate developers.

And why would you have to worry about fees if you graduate and only can find a job as a cleaner? You don't have to pay it back unless you earn over the threshold.

I know plenty of graduate developers. My company employ a lot of them. Most aren't from RG universities because they go to the big graduate schemes from well known companies or finance. I was a postdoc at a RG uni. My DH still is one. All the students who did their final projects with him find graduate jobs in field. Many joined the IBM scheme (it's local to us). Those who needs work visas tend to go to smaller places that will sponsor them.

There are definitely jobs for graduate developers who can code. We will never earn as much as finance and law. But it's a decent salary.

[Mrsmorton]

Hahaa jeremycorbyn what happens when the humanities graduates never earn enough to pay an appreciable amount of tax? Or to pay their student loan back? The STEM graduates will be subsidising them of course. Swings and roundabouts.

[disquisitiones]

"Average" salary £70,000!?! Professorial salary perhaps, and then only towards top of the scale.

I said the average professorial salary was £70k. This is an underestimate according to official HESA figures, mentioned in:

www.timeshighereducation.com/features/times-higher-education-pay-survey-2015/2019360.article

but the official figures include professors who are also deans, heads of departments, pro-vice chancellors etc, so may be a bit misleading.

At my institution the minimum salary for a professor is around £65k. The average salary for professors who do not carry other management duties (such as head of departments) is around £75k. World leading professors can eventually get to around £100k - more in subjects such as economics which have "market rates" or engineering which have huge industrial grants. (Salaries of over £100k are also mentioned in the article above but it is clear that the number of academic staff getting such high salaries is a very, very small percentage.)

[maybebabybee]

I think Jeremy was being sarcastic.