New universities are in the government 's sights?

[mids2019]

www.theguardian.com/education/2022/jan/20/ofs-publishes-plans-to-punish-english-universities-for-poor-value-for-money

The government plans to penalise universities whose courses are "poor value for money' . Won't this disproportionately effect newer universities and by extension students from poorer backgrounds? Are we starting to see the end of social mobility being extended through education?

Or.....is this a sensible approach to prevent students wasting time and money?

I think too many students go to university studying degrees which do not improve their employment prospects. They are pushed down this road often by their sixth form when really it doesn't suit their skills. There seems to an almost obsession of getting a degree at all costs.

@twelly

You could argue that Classics and Nordic Studies do not have an immediate vocational destination yet graduates of these Oxbridge degrees sail onwards to glittering careers.

Newer universities offer more vocational degrees and yet employment prospects are reduced. Why is this?

There may be too many students at university but how do you make the decision who is worthy enough of a degree?

Should there be a minimum A level threshold which would bias towards the middle classes or possibly a system where degrees are only offered to those that can demonstrate a degree will demonstrably link to their career goals?

@mids2019 why would an AL threshold be biased towards middle classes? Universities have widening participation and contextual offers to accommodate disadvantaged students

I've said for a long time that the govt or someone, anyone, should be looking at what's happening in universities. I've taught on a degree where people were getting in the course with E2 English qualifications. They could barely write simple sentences. And this was an academic arts degree. Lots of courses are put together to enhance a member of staffs standing at introducing a new degree rather than providing worthwhile, quality education.

It depends what you see as the purpose of a university.

When students pay £27k for tuition and often another 25k on living expenses, they do so in the expectation that their qualification will given them access to a career, eventually a skilled and reasonably paid job.

If a degree does not do that, then it is a bad investment for the student and for the economy. Why waste money & time on something of no value.

If, however, the student pays £52k for 'the experience', even if the quality is poor, the student may not be disappointed (perhaps they have wealthy parents), but it is still damaging to the economy.

The UK is a world leader in higher education for overseas students, and poor quality degrees damage that global reputation and the revenue it brings.

I don't see why new universities would be affected. They are superb at putting on both fantastic vocational and more esoteric courses. I think a lot of old universities will be held to account for how they have treated students in the last two years.

I don’t have a problem with niche industry linked vocational degrees at newer universities or classic degrees at the RG universities for the super bright.
It’s the popular degrees at the newer unis where there are far more graduates than actually needed. Examples that come to my head are psychology, media studies. There’s a popular criminology degree at my uni which every other prospective student I come across seems to want to do. How many criminology / CSI type jobs are there actually needed compared to uni places?
I think I would only encourage my children to go to uni if they weee true academics or doing something vocational such as medicine /nursing. Otherwise I would encourage them into industry straight from A-levels and seek training/ education through the industry they are in.

My local uni I mean. I am way past uni age!

Broadly put, the market is just too big, unregulated, and no longer a meritocracy. I don’t think anyone passionate about social mobility thinks that underrepresented students should be pushed into inappropriate degrees that won’t improve their situation, surely the ethos is about levelling the playing field so that those without all the advantages of coming from a more educationally savvy background have equality of opportunity, according to ability.

I agree with posters upthread about getting one shot at uni and taking it when it makes more sense to do so, but there is a whole industry centred on exploiting 18 year olds and getting them onto any degree possible.

I have my own beef with unis - I have a good STEM degree from a RG uni, but then went into a phd. As a widening access pupil with limited cultural and social capital I thought it was the right thing to do (and the least scary option). I then squandered a decade working in HE and my career and value has only just started to catch up.

Universities by and large are about increasing their own market share, and not really about improving society or inequality whatever they may claim.

As an employer, we take 4 grads every 6 months, to work in a city-based tech firm. We already ask them to compose a business letter and a short presentation on a current affairs topic as part of the interview process.
We were finding too many grads who couldn't spell, couldn't present their ideas, couldn't think on their feet and who knew nothing about the world they would be working in, so we need to filter them out.

@ElftonWednesday

I don't see why new universities would be affected. They are superb at putting on both fantastic vocational and more esoteric courses. I think a lot of old universities will be held to account for how they have treated students in the last two years.

I actually think this received wisdom that newer universities are just better at teaching is largely a myth. Academics a who have no experience of post-92s assume it’s true. But it isn’t necessarily.

I know so many academics in research intensive universities who are both really expert in their subject and excellent teachers. They really care about the quality of the teaching and learning in their subject areas. They think carefully about higher education pedagogy and how to help students to really engage with and understand their subjects.

In contrast the (mid-ranking!) post-92 I worked bought its own ‘we’re so good at teaching’ hype. But in many cases - not just in my subject; I had a leadership role that meant I saw examples from across the university - the teaching doesn’t stand up. I saw so many colleagues (including those who branded themselves as teaching and learning specialists) who were dogmatic about ‘active learning’ but didn’t seem to understand that it matters what you are getting them to do. It has to support them in understanding the key ideas and developing skills. Just being busy isn’t enough.

And I saw so many colleagues hampered by their lack of subject expertise. It was remarkably common for long serving colleagues to have simply been graduates of the degree they taught on - with no experience or subject knowledge beyond that. Many of them had never learned the concepts they were teaching properly and they were teaching genuinely inaccurate material (in such a way that the students never read anything or encountered accurate information).

The newer staff tended to have much better subject knowledge. Shifts in university policy meant they wouldn’t hire lecturing staff without a PhD after about 2014. However, 2 things happened: 1. The research active staff tended to be given almost no teaching at all; and 2. Departments found creative ways to keep hiring their own graduates in teaching only roles.

That’s in contrast to my experience at the kind of universities where everyone assumes that ‘research stars’ do no teaching. That wasn’t my experience - as an academic or a student. World leading professors would teach students at all levels. They’d contribute to first year courses, as well as offering specialist modules on their research areas. Yes, the female staff disproportionately got the time consuming pastoral stuff not the career enhancing research roles, but it was actually in the post-92 sector university that I saw the teaching fall to the least knowledgeable people in subject areas. None of the professions in my faculty did any undergraduate teaching. None. Most did not teaching beyond that associated with doctoral supervision. Young academics with REFable profiles were given little teaching and the non-REFable staff were overloaded.

I think we make loads of assumptions based on stereotypes across the HE sector. But they don’t necessarily reflect what’s happening.

One thing that is apparent is that course accreditation and quality control is simply not working from the above posts and maybe we should focus on that?

Schools are constantly monitored and great effort is made into ensuring consistent of A level standards - why does this philosophy not extend to BE establsihments?

I think if social mobility is a remit of universities then the main engine of mobility may be through the newer universities rather than WP and contextual grading as c ontextualisation in reality means maybe a grade lowered by one point for one subject for applicants from very deprived backgrounds.

For those that wish to marry HE directly with vocation; how many classics degree holders do we need it language degree holders (as many people in the world have a high standard of Englsh)? Why is the Oxford psychology graduate more knowledgeable in psychology than one from the university of Sunderland?

The idea of graduate not being able to spell or form sentences is sorting but surely these are skills learnt at school and so is the failing happening because GCSE English is not vigorous enough? Are these non articulate graduates lacking intelligence or simply suffering from conditions such as dyslexia. I am making the presumption that the comments made above were about students from post 92 institutions (or I maybe wrong?)

One thing that is apparent is that course accreditation and quality control is simply not working from the above posts and maybe we should focus on that?

This is the real crux of the matter. If a qualification is at degree level then it should have a standardised level of academic rigour.
I've never understood how one degree can be much easier with less academic rigour than another. Chemistry v Classics, different yes, but not "easier".

When nursing and other healthcare professions became degree courses a number of years ago they made the courses more scientific with research skills taught, and brought some subjects eg. Anatomy up to level taught in degree courses.

So even if it appears to be in a more practical subject such as patisserie then there could be a large element of food science, consumer research etc to make sure the knowledge is actually at degree level.
Likewise a course on say Golf course management, again quite practical, could have large element of financial and business management.
Then the graduate will have a higher level of knowledge and academic skills transferable across many sectors and employers will be more willing to take a chance on them.

@patritus

I agree.

Gaining consistency amongst degree standards is going to difficult. Firstly as you say different degrees need differing skill set (classics v chemistry) and importantly if their is standardisation of degree rigour then that levels up our university 'hierarchy' and us that desirable (discuss).

Degrees as a qualification now stretch across a broad band of educational courses to an extent where the discussion what is a degree is needed.

Standardisation makes perfect sense in immediate vocational degrees such as medicine and nursing but for other academic degrees it becomes problematic on many levels.

I do have sympathy for careers advisers at university as presumably the career advisor at the University of Cumbria will talk about the same career opportunities as those available at Oxford. Many employers state a degree classification minimum but don't (overtly) state institutions. One question is with presumably equal access to interviews why do graduates of the two universities have different average salaries?

The point about newer universities is that they offer working class pupils often without stellar A levels (possibly due to home or school environment) the opportunity to gain a degree and compete. for graduate roles.

I don't think this is universally popular as someone who has done maths at Imperial say will be upset if employers go down a 'univesity blind' recruitment avenue and they are competing on a fairly even footing with those from less prestigous institutions.

I think I have maybe a slightly different take on this. As far as I see it, a ‘degree’ particularly with honours is about a certain depth of academic study. It’s about rigour, academic skills, essays and exams - in that regard it is perfectly easy to create specifications where classics and chemistry are comparable.

The vast market of degree subjects available now includes a whole suite of subjects that would never have been and arguably don’t need to be degree subjects. I’m not sure a ‘degree’ in patisserie adds anything for the vast majority of learners, and indeed such qualifications would have been provided by the technical schools and by apprenticeship programmes. Sure, you could write essays about the history of patisserie (or if we are being picky Vienoisserie) but does it add anything to the skillset of most people who are going to become pastry chefs? Arguably not.

I use the basic principles of my degree daily in terms of transferable skills and I have moved out of my subject area, but some of my peers joined the organisation straight from A level and have worked their way up.

The idea that everyone needs a degree and that degrees in a whole plethora of non academic subjects is perpetuated by universities on the make. The system is truly broken.

Thinking from a personally relevant perspective- what about the degree-awarding institutions to which e.g. world class music / drama / dance conservatoires are linked? All fields into which conservatoires lead tend to have poorly paid and insecure employment, though the world would be poorer without brilliant musicians, actors and dancers….. The degree-awarding institutions these high quality conservatoires are linked to are often a ‘marriage of convenience’ (Iirc Hull, BCU etc).

If quality is measured on graduate employment, and equally all parts of a university are judged as one (so not the conservatoire separately) then it seems likely that all conservatoires and similar institutions would end up being shut down.

@Comefromaway

A friends Ds applied for the bakery and patisserie tech degree. He is currently on a very similar degree elsewhere.

He has known fir a young age that he wants to specialise in patisserie. I actually think that type of degree is a good thing if they are industry linked.

A degree that often gets a lot of flak as being Mickey Mouse is Theme Park Managment at my local Uni. Nothing about the fact a massive local theme park identified a lack of training/suitable graduates and partnered with the university. Students on the Visitor Attraction & Resort Managment degree get 20 weeks PAID placement and an excellent graduate employment rate.

But why do people need an actual degree for patisserie or theme park management? Surely these things should be learned on the job without paying 3 years of uni fees and the other accompanying debts? Maybe the people on these type of courses want the 'uni experience' but it seems like they are being ripped off really.

If quality is measured on graduate employment, and equally all parts of a university are judged as one (so not the conservatoire separately) then it seems likely that all conservatoires and similar institutions would end up being shut down.

Yep. See also fine art.

But why do people need an actual degree for patisserie or theme park management?

Theme park management degree - I think if Alton Towers say they need graduates (and actually I would guess that managing a multi-million pound park with hundreds of staff and hundreds of thousands of visitors is a pretty significant undertaking), perhaps as the main employer we should trust their judgement. Or do you know better?

@Policyschmolicy

The question is (and I don't have an answer) what constitutes a degree?

If we use your definition which is entirely reasonable then academic rigour and associated skills for benchmarking degrees i.e. degrees are a measure of academic ability. The problem is again how to objectively quantify rigour without an agreed standard to work to? Cambridge et. al.will resist a system which equates their degrees with those from newer institutions for similar subjects e.g. French, psychology etc

I think the genie has been let out of the bottle in terms of vocational degrees (degrees awarded for essentially showing competence within a relevant profession ) and so society now accepts degrees in nursing, early learning etc. I think whether this was justifiable in hindsight is a matter of discussion.

I agree a lot of academic skills are transferable but they would be transferable regardless of the institution they were obtained at (given some benchmark of intellectual rigour).

I think you could have a god debate about whether the study of food equates in terms of intellectual endeavour to a study of ancient civilsations. I guess food production and it's role in civilisation may merit academic gravity...I can't comment.

I think at a societal level we have to consider newer universities can offer opportunities of higher education to those that would not have had them otherwise.

I know of a politics lecturer who got 3Ds at A level but studied politics at a newer institution and is now an academic. Do we say to her that she did not deserve entry on that career path simply because of a less than perfect set if A levels?

I agree that there are some very substandard courses out there and yes some universities are exploring students but I don't know the best way to identify these problem courses

Just to comment on degrees in nursing and teaching, the requirement for a degree came about as a way to quickly redress the sex imbalance and make sure uni wasn't a mainly male destination. So remove those requirements and immediately watch women's work esteem and salaries plummet.

@titchy nurses are hugely undervalued as it is compared with medics. I know several advanced nurse practitioners who are specialists in their field with years of experience and hugely competent yet paid similar/less to junior doctors.

@titchy

Good point.

With nursing as well as the obvious practical skills there is scope to pursue a more academic career through publication on areas such as the impact of nursing strategies on morbidity.

I think teaching will always be a predominantly graduate career but as with nursing there are going to be a significant number of entrants from the newer institutions.

I think the gender argument is interesting as for most RG universities the gender split is 50/50 overall.

If we look at jobs which could in a way be argued working class (if you agree to that term) a lot of skilled non graduate roles (construction, HGV driving, electricians , plumbers etc) which attract reasonable salaries are dominated by men. If salary is a consideration do the newer universities help women overall gain a foothold in the labour market by allowing a degree to get those higher paying jobs?

Your posts make depressing reading @BurntToastAgain. DD has to read and fully understand 30 page pubmed articles for her degree (biomedical sciences at an RG university)

Her dissertation supervisor is a professor who works on covid wards, and so far has proved to be pretty helpful and supportive.

Going back to the newer universities - I see that some of them are handing out uncondition or unconditional conditional offers pretty freely again.

What is everyone's opinion on this?

@RampantIvy

It's not great. Essentially unconditional offers remove a minimum A level requirement which does to an extent undermine the validity of the degree

However there may be some alternative assesment say through a personal statement or additional evidence.

I think ultimately it's employers' views of this practice which is important.

Upthread I have suggested newer universities add to social mobility but I can see the perspective of someone who is routinely reading publications as part of their degree being annoyed that similar rigour is not part of other degrees.

In the world of student fees there are relatively few 2:2 s and below being given out especially with newer universities

I know of someone who did a work based degree with fairly limited to one at university who gained a first. At the end of the day he has

B.Sc (1st Class) after his name. Did he feel it an achievment, I really don't know.