Ways the university landscape has changed since "our day"

[ACJane]

I see a fair few posts on here making judgments about today's kids' university choices based on the higher education landscape of our own generation.

Rankings and general prestige have changed, workloads and expectations seem to have changed. Parental involvement is far higher - presumably due to middle and higher income parents having to contribute but also some extending of childhood.

What are the main things you think are different?
Personally I've been surprised by the changes to the top 10/15 Uk universities - a couple that were seen as lower "prestige" have rocketed (which is great but surprised me).

People complaining about their dc's Oxbridge workload is noticeable too - most of my friends who went seemed to have plenty of time for hobbies and drinking. Much less so now reading threads on here?

I wonder if the gap between Oxbridge and other leading universities is narrowing too due to the former being far more competitive to get into.

What changes have you noticed?

Sadly, this is all true.

I had no clue about university rankings, hadn't heard of the Russell Group.

The Russell Group (or Kimpton Fitzroy London Group , as it would h have named itself were it to have been getting itself together today, unless it chose a different hotel in which to hold its meetings) was set up in 1994..I graduated in 1985 from one of its London future founder institutions and had no idea of its existence before DS1 had applied to university 30 years later and firmed Birmingham and a friend made the comment, 'Ooh, Russell Group'.

As for the idea that in 'our day', the number / percentage of young people who achieved places - and of course, that included us - truly represented the totality deserving / capable of benefiting from higher education, that is just a little arrogant, is it not? I wouldn't disagree that some people who are accepted onto degree courses nowadays wouldn't be better off doing something else. And would argue that instead of setting a target percentage to go to university, à la Mr A Blair, the concept should be that those who would benefit, should not be prevented from doing so. But really only 10 / 15% being the 'natural maximum' that would?

I went to a shite uni, bottom of the pond. But the education was free. I think it should be free again. Uni accommodation was so unwanted, the price dropped each term. I was paying £5 a week in the 3rd term and that included meals! (1991). I remember my Nan pulling a face at the bathrooms, 8 loos in a row and two baths toe-to-toe with a wall that stopped short of the ceiling so you could chat over the top. There were 3 in my shared bedroom but one dropped out thankfully.
In my 2nd year I lived in a uni building with a crack so large down the wall you could fit your fingers in the gap and see the cars passing by too. I just stuffed it with newspaper.. I looked a few years ago to see it's been demolished. It was one of those post-war prefab buildings.

On the plus side, when my science tutor started grooming me on email the uni thankfully stepped up and took the situation seriously & sent him promptly off to Singapore.

£5 a week?!!!!

I thought back in the day, pre Russell Group, prestige was about "redbrick" universities. The phrase often being used to cover universities that weren't technically "redbrick". Without much emphasis on league tables the wisdom effectively being the older the university the better.

I think the work is far more sophisticated than it used to be. And the workload seems far heavier.

The level and precision of citation DS is required to give in an undergraduate essay is equivalent to PhD in my day. And so many long essays. Final year and this term he's had a 5k essay, a 4 k essay two 3 k essays and two 1k book reviews as well as presentations and prep for a 10k dissertation. This is just for a BA! That's as much work or more than an MA in my day. This is at an RG uni.

His brother at Oxbridge doing joint honours has 2 x 15k dissertations to do, alongside essays and write ups for lab practicals.

Back in my day, essays were handwritten not typed. Not everyone had a computer . I suspect the normalisation of wordprocessing and the associated ability to easily redraft had changed standards. As had easy access to online resources rather than ordering copies from the university library.

It was because it was a 'triple' shared room - even though the 3rd person dropped out.

IN my view the pecking order and which are hard to get into hasn't really changed. My siblings went to oxbridge which was top (I didn't try). I tried Durham and Bristol who rejected me and went to Manchester. 1979.
Roll on to my 5 children and 3 went to Bristol (and 3 of those rejected Durham offers) so not too different from which were good in my day and they have cousins at Oxbridge now. Plus ca change from before RG existed when I applied and now.

Basically the harder it is to get into the better it is.

Basically the harder it is to get into the better it is.

Is it?
Is the teaching any better?

Or is it that the calibre of students is higher and they are expected to study independently with less spoon feedig required?

The biggest changes IMO in addition to those listed are:

• seriously few on the job training opportunities now, eg paramedic etc. So many jobs now inaccessible without forking out £50k (tuition plus accom plus living 3-4 yrs) for uni, links to huge rise in numbers

• obvious - but internet and tech. It’s just changed the way people are, the way they connect & communicate, the way information is disseminated and gathered, the way people socialise - just everything.

Good point about the on-the-job training. I did a industrial placement in the R&D division of a multinational company in the 1980s, many of the senior scientists and managers were local people who had joined at 18 and done a part time degree while they worked via day-release or evening classes. It was an established career route which no longer exists in my discipline (just looked and that degree qualification stopped being offered in the 1990s).

^We had 3 hours of lectures a week (recommended but not compulsory) and a 1 hour tutorial you had to write an essay for. The topic for the essay and tutorial usually bore no relation to any of the lectures you went to that week - you might have had that lecture 6 weeks ago or you might not have had it yet. We were basically teaching ourselves then coming to tutorials to discuss what we'd learnt, which was really excellent preparation for work and probably life in general.*

exactly the same at Cambridge late 80s. The subject we had an essay in each week was totally out of synch with lecture schedules. You went off/studies/write an essay and discussed. I don’t remember the discussions being particularly - if at all - rigorous despite the oft-quoted stuff on here about Oxbridge’s brilliant small-group teaching and how only the greatest minds could hack such scrutiny, my memory is anyone and their dog could bullshit their way through (your essay had to be good though)

I think the main change is how quiet Unis are these days, despite the huge increases in number of students. I go to our local Uni quite often and even at lunchtime it's pretty quiet, certainly not the hoards of students milling around that there were in the past. Even the library is pretty empty, even during the day. I think a lot of that is the internet. Students seem to just attend campus for obligatory lectures and then scurry back to their flats. Pre Internet, they'd stay on campus most of the "working" day in study rooms, library etc., as that was where the resources were located.

When DD was coming up to her finals last year she spent a lot of time in the library, and so did loads of other students.