University life for 'freshers' (2019/20) - first year campus life suspended, sitting out/surviving the pandemic and staying on top of studying [Edited by MNHQ at OP's request]

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I don’t think students should pay the full amount in this situation should it continue into September. Perhaps universities should get some support, perhaps from their Chancellor’s salaries.

Well the job cuts have started.

There will be significantly less staff next year.

But most pupils are not paying tuition fees directly to the uni, yes I know they pay them back but it’s really just a graduate tax. It would be different if the student loan company stopped making payments to the unis but it isn’t. I’d rather continue as usual rather than risk the unis going bust or the quality of teaching being affected once they fully reopen.

It’s a difficult situation for unis I know, but I do feel that there should be a fee reduction for this term and for any further terms where teaching is reduced and online - the students are simply not getting what they contracted for. I am very sorry for anyone who is being made redundant - the whole situation is so bad, but it is bad for the students too and they should be compensated for their losses by reducing the tuition fees correspondingly.

baytreemum so students not having loan repayments reduced by a small amount at some uncertain date in the future is more important than a lecturer with maybe a family and mortgage to pay being made redundant?

Right-O

Obviously a superfluous “not” in first line there 🙄

It is less to do with compassion for lecturers with mortgages and more to do with weighing up potential losses. How much are the things that will be lost worth? More or less than the saving students (or parents) hope to make?

When a lecturer is made redundant and not replaced, their teaching and their time is lost.

That means students will have fewer optional modules to choose from throughout their course, bigger lecture and seminar sizes, less access to lab time and field trips.

• How much value do you place on being able to choose six from 20 options, not six from 10? On not having to take options that you are not interested in or not good at, that will drag down your final degree classification? How much is it worth to be taught in a seminar group of 10 rather than 20? What price do you put on being able to access a lab after 5pm? On your field trip being to Madagascar rather than North Wales?

They will have less contact with staff during office hours and vastly reduced academic, pastoral and career support. The hours and hours that staff spend above the bare minimum providing additional support for dissertations, for students who don't understand things, for students we are worried about, who are experiencing mental health problems, issues with their accommodation, who have just disappeared, will all go as the remaining staff struggle with the increased workloads necessary to just deliver the course to the minimum standards.

• How much value do you place on four extra dissertation supervisions? On weekly rather than monthly office hours? On knowing that if your child falls ill, becomes depressed, is struggling and thinking of dropping out, there is someone who will notice, who they can go to in anticipation that they will have at least some time to speak to them?

All the nice things will be cut. There will be no lunchtime seminars, no evening lectures with visiting speakers, no employer forums. Library resources will be cut, up-to-date technology will not be bought. Small things like bursaries, prizes and fieldwork grants will not be awarded.

• How much is getting a high quality broader academic experience worth? How much is it worth to have access to staff who have the time to talk about specific potential careers, routes into employment, internships, vacation work? To invite employers to their department and run events?

And some students will find that their university or their course gradually shuts down around them. They will find themselves having to transfer to a different university part way through their degree or be 'taught out' by a shrinking skeleton staff.

• How much is it worth to know that in a year's time, you will still have a university to attend?

@Phphion you put it so well! I do get frustrated with the “value for money” thing when it is a much more nuanced and complex argument. And in respect of fees that are not actually being paid by the student Now and May never be in the future depending on earnings

Thing is , I actually want to sort out the loan and can't get on the SLC website. I have had this problem before; it's not new. The gov.uk site has a broken link and I can't log in any other way as nothing finds the right place. Last time I phoned them but this in's possible at the mo.

Which universities are your DC at @VanCleefArpels and @Phphion?

Benji don’t want to out myself - older child went to good RG Uni, graduated last year. Younger current student at non RG 1960’s Uni in the south of England. Why do you ask?

@Benjispruce My DC is a little young for university. I am an academic at an RG university.

@Piggywaspushed this should work. If not they are v active on Twitter and sorted us out v quickly. Try website after 5pm as it gets v v busy & crashes earlier.

www.gov.uk/student-finance-register-login

Thanks, mum but nope, no joy. GRR

Will try later as recommended!

I don’t have a first year student but follow this thread to pick up tips for when my DC2 goes next year. I do think that @VanCleefArpels and @Phphion have valid points when it comes to requests for fee reductions. The fee isn’t just about time spent in a lecture/tutorial. Yes, teaching has been disrupted but the level of disruption is very much dependent on the university, which year group the student is in and the course. Some courses cost more than the tuition fees to run. The universities are dealing with an unprecedented situation and, even if first year students may not see it as they aren’t part of the particular co-hort, university staff are working very hard to help ensure final year students can still graduate which probably takes precedent at the moment.

I was asking as I didn’t recognise your usernames from this thread. This thread has been renewed several times over and has by and large been the same posters with DC that started uni in September 19. We’re mostly parents and use this thread to share, panic, moan, celebrate hence why you might find that posts are often from a worried, protective parent point of view. I’ve found it very helpful to speak to others going through the same thing and feel it’s been very supportive, unlike some other areas of MN. Forgive me if I’m not well informed on the financial status and workings of universities, I didn’t attend and I am supporting my eldest child through her first year.

Poor youngsters, they will get their final results, but finding jobs is going to be harder this year even when lockdown is lifted.

I'm an academic and the parent of a first year student and I'd agree with what @Phphion said.

I'm not clamoring for dd to get a fee reduction.....I'm far more worried about a reduction in teaching staff, etc affecting the rest of her degree.

I’ve been here since the start Benji but infrequently!

justasking I completely agree - I know that various grad schemes are being terminated, recruitment being frozen etc. Will be hideous for this year’s graduates, some of whom are contemporaries of my older child (did 4 year courses or stayed for Masters) and they are full of gloom about no graduation celebrations etc as well as seeing a fairly bleak future

benji also I think it may be different being second time around for me - I totally understand that with the first one it seems like a completely different universe doesn’t it (and I went to uni in the 80’s!)

Benji, I post sporadically across various threads on the HE forum when I can offer specific advice or comment from my own experience on 'the other side' that I hope is of use to worried parents who, of course, do not know the ins and outs of all kinds of university processes.

@Phphion - it’s important too to acknowledge that mums have a valid a point of view too. We are funders and supporters and are stakeholders in decision-making.

Of course, anyone can post on any thread, I was just curious as there seemed to be lots of new posters lately.
It’s very frustrating for parents who are not also academics or university staff. We get no direct communication and rely on what our DC choose to tell us but we are funding and supporting three very expensive years. The costs are enormous, particularly at Durham where my DD is. It does feel like poor value this year. Crap accommodation facilities(1 bathroom between 10, no sinks in the two toilet cubicles), plus all of her tutors went out on strike on every occasion. They were at pains to explain that tuition fees did not only cover tuition but the whole uni experience and facilities and so they could not be compensated in any way. Now they are only receiving remote tuition( not the best quality) and no uni experience or facilities. I realise this is a global problem and every organisation is having to adapt but it is only fair that if my DD is now not receiving the world class education that she was promised, that she shouldn’t have to be indebted to the same amount.

benji if it’s any consolation for most courses the summer term provides little or no teaching even in normal circumstances and I remember thinking when my older one started the third term in the first year that it was a bit rich! There were just a couple of exams and associated revision seminars but that was it. Your daughter will, ultimately, still get a degree from Durham which you will appreciate is worth an enormous amount in the job market. No one will care what that degree consisted if in terms of modules interrupted or otherwise.