Unis request to raise fees to insane levels

[FlakeSnow]

Fees for 2023 and 2024 are agreed to be £9250. Article below appears to be calling for increase in fees to circa £24k ie on par with overseas students.

Do anyone think this is a remote chance this will happen? My initial reaction is one of horror. (Not read beyond the paywall).

Times uni fees article

The shortfall is made up from overseas students.

And staff working for free to the tune of around 6 extra weeks per year (that's the latest figure I think?) @Lipsandlashes

I don’t think it would be a bad thing for some universities to go bust. There are too many people paying huge amounts for degrees of limited value. Some have become businesses rather than anything to do with education. Government removing subsidies for subjects that require intensive teaching and in London was ridiculous and needs re-thinking.

In our case, the price includes heating, electric, water, internet and contents insurance, plus on-site laundry and onsite management staff up to 6pm each day.

With regular cleaning and refurb, I would imagine they don't end up making a massive margin.

On the accommodation front, my understanding is that in Europe people tend to go to local universities more often and are less likely to move away from home to be in student halls whilst they’re there.

Thats my understanding from German and Austrian exchange students anyway.

I don’t think it would be a bad thing for some universities to go bust. There are too many people paying huge amounts for degrees of limited value.

OK, I'll bite @BungleandGeorge

Which specific universities?

Which specific degrees (and at which universities)?

Similarly, in the States students who go to university ‘in state’ pay much less in fees than those that go out of state. It also makes financial sense for them to do half of their degree at community college and the other half at a residential college. This is how my niece is doing her law degree. Maybe the UK should look at this model and utilise FE colleges (which are also under funded and broke)

£24k/year is not typical in USA. Not an average amount to "domestic" students, anyway.

Could you expand on your comment? I’m not sure what point you are making.
I’m not comparing £24K to the fees in the States. I’m just saying they have cheaper ways of doing it, that we don’t explore in the UK.
The average for Harvard, without any scholarships, is $200K for four years - not many, who truly deserve to go, will be able to afford that, so they have incredibly generous scholarship programmes - or they just don’t go at all.

Perhaps we need to reduce the timescale from 3 down to 2 years for the typical degree course. Students only get 20 weeks of actual "education" each year anyway and usually the first year is ignored (i.e. marks don't count towards the degree grade/classification). Obviously, some degrees need longer, but lots could be done much quicker. If the "bog-standard" degrees were over 2 years instead of 3, then at least students would save a years' worth of accommodation and living costs so could afford higher tuition fees.

There are a small number of places that do compress degrees into two years - they're not popular with students though, and you don't get research active staff teaching them because usually the summer is when research gets done.

Firstly it now costs about £200k to deliver a 5-year UK medicine course, and that's excluding the opportunity cost of deploying that £200k elsewhere, so a lot more than £200k. Next, even if they end up paying £200k over a lifetime, they are still massively owing the country because the lifetime it took to repay would have increased the initial £200+k on graduation to many times that. I think medicine was a very bad choice if you intended to illustrate graduates overpaying their loans. Every medicine student funded by the SLC is being subsidised by over 300% of their student loan while in med school. If you were to start counting up the subsidy in post-school training when they are junior doctors, well you get the message.

We have a system that allows everyone access to HE, and also allows apparently irrational financial decisions (but perhaps very valid personal decisions) on some courses which may never see any repayment of loans. The alternative would be to pay for it ourselves, which reduces access. Someone has to pay, and if not the beneficiary then it will always be the taxpayer under some (possibly bonkers) scheme or other.

The accelerated (2year degrees) tend to be more popular with mature students. Your typical 18 year old student just doesn't seem that interested.
Plus they create huge staffing issues as it means staff teaching all year round with no time for research.

And meanwhile, chancellors are still creaming off obscene salaries,,

There's always one.

How much do you think a chief exec in charge of a £500m organisation should be paid then?

LipandLashes, PP wrote "£24k a year would still be cheaper than the US." which isn't justifiable comparison. You can pay $~8000 per year for a full time course, CSULB or KSU. Those are typical fees.

I have literally NO IDEA why MNers talk about Harvard. Or Ivy League costs. Who goes to these places and pays those types of tuition fees? Answer = Extremely few people. It's like claiming that everyone drives Ferraris.

Student loans in USA follow you to your grave. So there's that way to make their degrees "cheaper", I suppose.

@maryso well the alternative is what is happening now. Junior doctors emigrating in their droves to places they feel valued. And then no money is paid back.

Do you not think the tax payer should subsidise the education of doctors and nurses (whose current training is v affected due to staff shortages). I'm sure they'd be willing to commit to the NHS for a set number of years in return.
Or maybe we should go back to the days of doctors being from rich families only. My DD will be in £100,000+ debt all her life.

It's shit. There is a game to be played there if you are so inclined.

Frankly, a decent BC is worth far more than he or she is paid. I remember one very well known but lovely VC I was chatting with a to work one day told me he’d had one evening at home that year. And he meant every single day of that year.

And would love to know where that £200,000 comes from. Not sure what DD gets that costs that. Bearing in mind she's now doing lots of actual work on wards as a student.

Saint Andrews Uni (Arts) estimate:

(Medicine, Oxford, Cambridge a lot more - USA double)

international fees £26,350
accommodation £7,623 - £9,853
Hall subscription £80
Personal expenses £3,330 (37 weeks)
computer, books etc £1,200
Travel - based on two trips per year £2,000
general council & graduation fee or completion fee £50

seemingly £16,000 more than local (home-school) students per year. Expensive for all.

Maybe because it is a good example of the potential costs for future HE institutions?! Except we don’t have the grounding for endless scholarships, like Harvard and other IL schools do.

Why would Harvard be a good example of anything? it's extremely unique, and will act to keep itself that way, never an exemplar.

How is Uni funded in Singapore, Netherlands, Brazil or Canada? Anyone know?

Singapore and Brazil free to home students, Netherlands free to all, Canada similar to US so cheaper in-state, but fees are less than US. Aus is loan similar to ours.

Riiight. More unique than Oxbridge then?

Doctors have always been fleet of foot. That's why we have so many overseas doctors in the NHS. Conflating this with the student finance is unhelpful.

We are discussing how to pay for delivery of the course, and it's a fact that someone has to pay. Your figures are wrong because you assume that just because your DD owes £100k all her life, that is what it will cost to train her up. That's not true, the difference between the £200k and what she owes will be paid by the taxpayer under the current scheme. Likewise every other UK funded student.