Paying for Accommodation - for 100% online teaching!

[DidoAtTheLido]

This year's students are getting such a rough deal.

My DS is about to start Uni. To begin with they promised 'blended teaching' - online lectures, in person tutorials, and lab time. It is a lab-based practical subject.

Now he has had an e mail, ALL teaching will be online until at least Christmas.

So basically they are paying full price for a course that is delivered in a second best way, and paying to move cities and live in expensive accommodation (in hall) when if it is all online they could stay at home.

Teachers are having to go back to work , this is the age group least affected by COVID, they are away from families so not spreading to older members.

I think this is totally unfair treatment of young people taking out massive loans and parents paying huge sums of money. If they really can't deliver the education properly, the students shouldn't have to pay for it.

Does anyone know of any campaigns or petitions about this?

they should not be making on site accommodation a condition until they can offer some normality.

On site accommodation isn't compulsory for anyone. It's entirely the student's choice. I'm not sure why all of a sudden people are just realising a lot of teaching will be online - it's been in every bloody newspaper and MN thread for months.

@titchy Blended learning was certainly the way most universities stated they would go during the first term...

Accommodation is not compulsory but if they don't take up the offer first term and pay then there is no option of accommodation for term 2/3. So it's effectively not giving students a choice unless they know others who decide to do the same and then try and find private accommodation in term 2/3 off campus.

There is hardly any benefits to being on a campus if a lot of facilities are limited and its online learning. My Dds uni she could rent a room bills Inc in the nearest town for a fraction of what she will be paying on site. If there had been a group of them going I would have certainly suggested they look at private accommodation.

I don't have an issue with Uni tuition fees.

It si complicated. My son signed for accommodatino (£6k) in July but will be at home online with no date for that to change. I suspect he will go back in September if his friends are back there but it is disappointing they can make no arrangements for a date to open up anything at all face to face (other than the library IF you book and meet all kinds of requirements hopefully being open fro 21st Sept - course starts 7 Sept).

Students coming to London will have massive accommodation costs for this same post grad law course which they won't know whether to start incurring as there is no start date for face to face.

"With social distancing rules still in place it is difficult to guarantee when, and in what circumstances, it will be totally safe to return to the physical classroom. However, in order to ensure your studies are not unnecessarily delayed, all September courses will start on the dates scheduled but initially using our market leading online technology, migrating back to face-to-face teaching as soon as it is safe to do so. We are committed to returning to face-to-face teaching. We will monitor the social distancing situation closely and as circumstances evolve, we will provide options safely to return to the physical classroom."

So in other words might never be face to face (the course ends in April).

I wouldn't pay for that accommodation - if they told your child that learning wouldn't be entirely online and have them changed the terms, I'd say you were misled.

1. Yes, I think they were misled. There was a detailed e mail about ,blended learning' - which had clearly taken much hard work and planning to be able to offer, so why have the Uni thrown all that work away to quickly create the whole course on line with no practical work?
2. Teachers in primary and secondary education are back at work with bigger groups and with more chaotic children - why are Uni staff at more risk? they have more leeway to plan small group teaching, and lab work has everyone kitted out in PPE anyway!
3. Why is it OK for people to be in bars drinking themselves silly, but students learning the stuff that will hopefully be of benefit to us all in the future have to sit in their accommodation in hall on their laptops?
4. It was a late Uni decision and the student accepted and committed to the accommodation before this 'online' decision was communicated.
5. I know everyone is badly affected, and that Unis are under financial pressure - but with office workers being urged back to work, why can't Universities find any way to function more normally? It makes no sense.

If any student did decide to stay at home and participate online where do you think they will find their necessary research materials - your local small town library? Don’t think so!

Yes it’s going to be difficult for this year’s freshers and different to what they expected. But all this talk of sitting in small bedrooms with no interaction with anyone is just ridiculous. Campus facilities will be open in the same way as they are in your town: shops, cafes and bars. Libraries will be open. Students will gather together in off campus restaurants and bars (and furtively on campus I’m sure). Some student societies will still be able to operate, gyms and pools will be open subject to the same rules as at home. And the kids will get the same experience of having to do their own Shopping, cooking and laundry and all that other great “life” stuff which to my mind is almost equally important as the studying.

That’s a horrible post, Angelik.

You may well have an alternative perspective, but would you really be happy being misled into paying out thousands unnecessarily? Should this cohort of parents ‘suck up’ paying out needlessly to keep universities afloat? Would you not agree that they are in a very unfortunate position?

Guilting parents into feeling responsible for brain drains and failing local economies when they are not to blame for anything is just so unreasonable.

The reality for university teaching staff is that in the face of normal teaching they might be in contact with hundreds of students each week if teaching across cohorts. Timetables and rooms simply cannot suddenly accommodate small group teaching across all courses. If you have 100 students in a lecture you'd have to deliver it 4 or 5 times to try and fit it in face to face with social distancing in the same room. The lecturers can't suddenly do 4x as much teaching and there are not suddenly 4 x as many rooms. And as soon as one student tests positive then everyone would have to quarantine anyway. Online isn't perfect but it means that classes can go ahead with minimal disruption, maximum planning and keep students and staff as safe as possible. It's not ideal but it's better than cancelling everything in week 2 and vulnerable students and staff getting very sick.

I actually agree with Angelik - the marketisation of higher education means that many see it purely as a transaction (I pay you this so you give me that) without understanding how the finances of universities work and all the other bells and whistles that have to be funded out of income (that great sports facility that tipped the balance when it came to applying, the fabulous award winning architectural library building that so impressed on the open day, the cleaners that made the Halls look so inviting etc etc etc). Even if teaching is online, the staff still need to be paid, their pension contributions met, the buildings lit and heated. Income streams such as conferences will have disappeared and the already inadequate income from fees and Hall rents will be even more stretched. Many market towns with “new” universities do rely heavily on student spending and they provide local employment.

Set against all that do you seriously think a petition is appropriate?

There’s also no point comparing with schools. We’re being told children are at very low risk of Covid (even though they may spread it). It is also a lot easier to ‘manage’ younger children’s behaviour and compliance with rules etc. University students are a different matter and universities also have a duty of care to students, not just staff.

Students should still pay fees if they are getting online tuition. But they shouldn't have been cheated into paying out for expensive accommodation that they won't need. Universities have become businesses - you don't buy a degree but you do buy a level of service. This was partly the universities own doing - they whacked those fees up as soon as they could. They can't really complain now if students view the experience as transactional! Student accommodation is really expensive and they won't be getting any of the normal student experience which helps to justify the price. The university is just rinsing kids by charging 6k for a room in halls this year.

As for the library, most resources are accessible online these days. The student can log in to the university system and read from the comfort of their own home. If universities haven't done this,then that's where their focus should be right now.
I feel sorry for university staff, especially admin etc, who are not well paid for what they do. I've not seen a poorly paid vice chancellor though.

Incidentally, one of the best universities I viewed with ds was University of Bath - it looks like a 1960s concrete car park, but is so hard to get into because the results are amazing. Universities don't need all the bells and whistles - they need to produce graduates who are in demand from industry.

I can tell you the sequence of events for my son (and his institution is the one I quoted above). 1. Gradually realised how once in a life time gap year travelling after graduation with his friends was over. It can never happen again as they will all be at different stages next year etc. I feel sorry for him.

1. He had to make a decision as to what to do. His twin had applied for this law conversion course last October 2019 to start Sept 2020 andd he had thought about law anyway for after the gap year so decided to do the same.
2. I preferred he did the law course than sat at home for a year trying to get a job in a bar or a masters in something he may not really want to do just to be near his friends. So I took the risk it might all be on line when he signed up for it earlier this year and I took the risk to pay his rent so I certainly accept responsibility for and am paying his rent.
3. The fact so many of his friends are doing 4 year degrees or now going back for a masters to Bristol made him happier about the ruined gap year so I felt it was a reasonable although for me very expensive compromise (compared with him doing the course in London and living at home).

So I accept it was our choice but the institution could surely give more indication of when some of the course might be face to face given the course ends in April. I suspect it could end up just about all being on line (no fee reduction - their course fees have always been as high as their London face to face fees for on line).

What I would prefer is if they could say from week one there will be one session even if just with 4 students and a lecturer which are face to face. it is the uncertainty when other institutions have been able to make commitments about some face to face teaching from day one that is slightly annoying.

Teachers in primary and secondary education are back at work with bigger groups and with more chaotic children - why are Uni staff at more risk? they have more leeway to plan small group teaching, and lab work has everyone kitted out in PPE anyway!

Classes at university are larger, not smaller. The rooms are used all day for completely different groups of students, so thousands of staff/students could use the entrances and exits for one single building. Demographically, teachers and academics are different: the age profile of academics is much older (about 50% of my department are over 50). Rooms are poorly ventilated and often in very poor condition (as in schools). Students are adults, who current research indicate are more likely to transmit the disease than children.

As pp has indicated, breaking classes down into smaller sizes hits limitations on facilities - most universities were already using all available teaching space for 10 hours per day. Now they need to clean it more regularly so less availability, but breaking classes into smaller groups means they need more space. I know a number of universities have pushed teaching into evenings and weekends to allow for this. (Academics are just expected to teach on evenings and weekends, regardless of childcare constraints. Many academics are working insane hours at the moment, with no annual leave in sight.)

As for functioning normally, walk into a typical university building and then compare it with a nice City building. It has already been pointed out that the Government is unrealistic and many City firms cannot work as usual because social distancing is not compatible with the space they have. For universities it is far worse, as their estate costs were already underfunded and their buildings were overcrowded, across both academic and professional staff offices. Universities are bringing back their lab based researchers, but they can only work in shifts because the labs are so crowded.

I actually agree that universities should be offering some face to face learning, particularly in lab subjects, but OP hasn't identified the university. If it is in a city with spiking numbers, it may be more reasonable to hold back on teaching face to face. As we have seen with transport corridors, changes often have to be made at late notice, based on new information coming in from testing data. I suspect that the decisions being made may seem more reasonable to posters within the the 4-8 weeks as the number of cases escalates.

I suspect it could end up just about all being on line (no fee reduction - their course fees have always been as high as their London face to face fees for on line).

I think there is a conceptual misunderstanding here. Online does not mean no face to face interactive sessions. The amount of contact time is the same or higher - so really not comparable with traditional online courses which did not usually have interactive face to face sessions.

Not sure what key learning would be lost in online face to face teaching cf physical face to face teaching in a subject like law. I certainly accept that there are limitations to online face to face in some subject areas, and that universities should be planning hybrid teaching wherever possible to give students physical face to face sessions.

I don’t understand the comparison with schools and teachers @DidoAtTheLido? University students are not children and are not taught in discrete classes. There is also the issue of the university population. Leeds has around 38,000 students and 9,200 staff, for example. Students will be arriving from all over the country and international students are still coming - albeit in smaller numbers. This is a really complex Health & Safety operation and most are working in partnership with local authorities to safeguard the local community too.

But the bottom line is that remote learning is not easier or cheaper than face-to-face. And it is a lot more hours for those delivering with no overtime or time off in lieu etc.

I have said it before on here and will say it again - most universities are not making a ton of money off the back of tuition fees. Have a look through public ally published accounts. Income has reduced significantly. Perhaps the system would be fairer for all if some institutions did not benefit from landowning (I guess Oxbridge is a case in point) and/or huge private endowments from wealthy alumni (a handful again) - but that’s life, I guess.

And what @dwnldft said about evening and weekend working - which academics do anyway. It’s just including scheduled classes now.

I have had 3 days of annual leave since March. It is what it is...but I could do without an online petition about the crap service I am providing. How about targeting complaints if it is crap? All the way up to the OfS if required.

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously and what happens if/when social distancing rules change part way through the academic year? How will those students who chose to stay at home participate then? And it’s laughable to expect universities to digitise their entire academic resources in short time. All resources are absolutely not available online , good old books are in high demand and guess what- in university libraries (which also provide space for group project work and access to computers for those who don’t have their own laptops).

At my DD’s Uni they are doing lectures online and using larger lecture rooms for group seminars (on a week on week off rota) and this will all be revised at the end of this semester. A sensible pragmatic approach in my view

I work in HE. Let me give you an example of my building. It is over 5 floors. It is student social space as well as very open plan offices. We have been told by the uni that we can have 20 people working in the building. Normally when it is full (by November in term 1 as students have found us and realise its a fab space) we would have 500+ people in the building (staff and students). Staff alone is 60 in our building so we are all on a rota for working. This is the constraints we are having to work in and its really not easy. We are working to give a great student experience with a mix of in person and online events.

VanCleefArpels, if SD rules change, maybe universities can offer accommodation in the 2nd and 3rd terms.
If a student cannot afford their own laptop, they can't afford accommodation fees. Maybe being spared those will enable them to buy one.
Many resources are online, certainly at the university DS attended. If this isn't universal, then it's something they have to change, if they are offering online teaching only. As for group work, my ds had to do this online too last term, with students in different time zones. I won't say it was easy but it was possible. Actually, I think it was good for him to do this because in the workplace he won't always be face to face with colleagues and it taught him to organise himself, plan and cooperate with others.
Like I said, I think charging for tuition is fair. It's hard for universities to just adapt their way of teaching and I'm sure staff have worked really hard to make this work.
I wouldn't pay for on site accommodation though, just so my kid could sit in Costa on campus!

As much as the government and some parents seem to want universities to be sausage factories for churning out graduates with specific knowledge, the reality is that for most students uni is as much about learning to live away from home as it is their degree. University provides a safe place for young people to learn, make mistakes, party, have relationships, make friends and learn all other aspects of navigating life without their parents AS WELL as learning to think critically and get their degree. That's a huge part of it but just one that isn't quantified in the league tables. Doing an online course from home is not the uni experience no matter the strange circumstances of this year.

I agree that it is fine for lectures to be online. That was included in the blended learning model presented to begin with.

It is the withdrawal of any tutor time or lab time that is the issue.

It’s Bristol.

Certainly where I am there's no withdrawal of tutor time, it's just 1-2-1 online - and if anything they will get a lot more of it as we are all working to replace what we call 'corridor time' - those snatched moments between classes or at lunch (ie our breaks) when most students come to talk to us. Lab work is going ahead where possible, though some of the older lab demonstrators are terrified.

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously I’m afraid your comments show your lack of understanding about university finances and about the finances of some students. Those on full loans and bursaries might very well live in expensive Halls yet not have the family income to have their own laptop. And as I have said the income from fees and Halls rents do not cover the costs of providing courses. Universities rely on grants for their academics to conduct research and hiring out Halls and other facilities as an additional income stream- all now lost.

Your model would lead to several on the brink establishments going under, reducing choice and access for the next cohorts of young people.

And I note you do not cover the important aspect of the other benefits of our young people going away from home so brilliantly described by @tinselvestsparklepants

I think universities are doing their level best in almost impossible circumstances to provide our kids with the higher education they need - hats off to them.