Some universities will go bust

[GinForBreakfast]

Reported in the Times today. It must be so worrying for students joining or returning in September/October.

My question is around the regulator, who knows where the issues are. What should they be telling students and when? It seems cruel, especially to young people, to withhold information. It has financial implications as well - people moving, paying deposits etc.

Universities should not be dumping grounds for clearly unwell young people, no matter how middle class they are.

We’ll put @GinForBreakfast

Sadly, this happens and it would be interesting to look at the costs to universities of this.

There has been a move to hold universities responsible in more of an in loco parentis way. If this ever becomes law, I hope we academics are given powers to require our undergrads to:
get to bed at 10pm, get up at 7am
only 2 hours recreational internet use per day
no gaming
Compulsory physical exercise daily
proper diet
One night out a week, limit of 3 alcoholic drinks

and so on. If I’m going to be held responsible for student suicides (which is virtually what a lot of parents want) then I need the power to require students practice healthy lifestyles.

Yes my proposal seems extreme! But that just shows how universities are being expected to pick up stuff that other services - and students’ families - don’t deal with.

Because too many young people are coming to university unprepared for looking after themselves. And often not well enough to be at university. Yet that’s a university problem, not a parent problem ???

You constantly see threads on here though with parents saying things like “ds has severe anxiety, no ability to interact with peers, wont cope with noise or a messy kitchen so will need his hall mates to accommodate this, can’t speak in public and needs others to do x y and z fir him - which university should he go to”. None is the answer. He should focus on addressing these issues first or should go locally so that you his parent can support him.

I say this as a parent of two dc with autism and adhd.

Indeed. Not particularly the point of the thread but if you are so unwell, unable to cope, unhappy or suicidal then why subject yourself to an intense three years of study and professional development??

Aside from the impact on staff, which is significant, other students suffer as well. I have seen awful examples of students' university experiences being ruined because they are either expected to be an emotional support human (way beyond the boundaries of normal friendship) or have become a target of someone clearly mentally ill.

Your post made me laugh @YellowAsteroid. One of the Buckinghamshire, the private one, attempts to get students to sign up to a set of well being behaviours, I don't know how successful it is.

*one of the Buckinghams

I've seen parents on Mumsnet who want clearly unwell offspring to go to university . They think it will help to live independently perhaps.

I agree with all these comments. There is a practical limit to how much we can support and be responsible for the behaviour of others.

Perhaps universities should get students to sign a statement that they are mentally and socially fit for the experience snd it’s demands?

If they can’t sign it and request support and fair access, there should be a different stream for them which is more restrictive for their own good.

I can remember visiting friends at Tuscaloosa for a big football game- roll tide! It was the 1980s, and all though women had been admitted since 1892, there was still a feeling that they needed looking after. At the girls’ dorms, males weren’t allowed beyond the the lobby with a 24/7 receptionist. There was a 10pm curfew (I think it was midnight on the weekend). Each floor had 2 girls sharing a room and a dozen rooms sharing a communal toilet/shower block which was cleaned daily. No one had cooking facilities, everyone had to eat meals on the meal plan in a big communal dining room on the ground floor. There were matrons living on-site like a boarding school. There was a feeling that if you got out of line they might call your parents- the people subsidising the whole affair!

Not saying this is the answer in the UK, lord, we rolled our eyes, and I am sure this regime is no longer the case at the University of Alabama. But it was clean and very pleasant at an affordable price and there was lots of support and togetherness and structure without any one person having to bear the burden of another.

We need to flip the idea of support from meaning that people get what they want, to people getting what they need. I believe that a lot of teenagers going away from home would feel psychologically safer with more structure and a few less choices. Going away from home with new people is still very exciting, even without being thrown into a complete state of anomie.

I think it is interesting that in US legal drinking age is 21, so post college and no student bars, shot culture etc. Here alcohol is synonymous with uni for a lot of 18 year olds.

There has been a move to hold universities responsible in more of an in loco parentis way.

The legal case in Bristol regarding a student who committed suicide recently found universities did not have a duty of care for their students.

@GinForBreakfast That's because they know there’s f all to do in Buckingham! It’s a non student sort of boring town. As a former local I know it well. You have to have a certain type of personality to thrive there! Most of us get out.

Twenty odd years ago a friends son got in an awful mess mentally at university coping with the work. The tutor phoned his parents saying they were concerned and could they perhaps visit him. They did and found he was indeed in a bad way. They packed up all his stuff, brought him home. He then went to the local day college and has a career now which is amazing.

Another lad in his year again got in a mess because of his girlfriend back home. Again his tutor contacted the parents with his concerns suggesting that he do a year in industry and returning to do his final year when his head was in a better place. He did a year in a job went back, aced his finals is now very happy and successful.

This was the year 2000 for both of them. I know that it's done differently now with little or no parental involvement.

Wouldn't it be better and cheaper if the parents were involved though?

@justasking111 that doesn't chime with my experience. I was at uni a few years before that (mid 90s) and I teach at a university now. I'd say that parents are more likely to be involved these days.

Tutors/lecturers are human. Most will want to help if they see a student suffering.

Indeed and thank goodness. But the parents involved drummed up an amazing amount of support and there were several petitions to Parliament, iirc.

Thankfully none of it stuck - so I didn’t need to start agitating for my plan for undergrads !

My post about support was not an entirely serious suggestion! But it is expensive and it’s a really good example of how universities are supposed to operate “as businesses” but without any understanding of how universities are actually completely different.

A business like Go Ape or PGL can just deny service if they think people aren’t well enough / able to do the activities. They don’t provide numerous alternatives and 100s of support staff to enable people to complete the activities.

I think it’s right that universities provide student support. But parents and governments need to realise that this is much much more expensive than “teaching” and fees don’t just cover teaching plus “frivolities” like sports centres.

A business like Go Ape or PGL can just deny service if they think people aren’t well enough / able to do the activities. They don’t provide numerous alternatives and 100s of support staff to enable people to complete the activities.

A business like Go Ape or PGL absolutely must make reasonable adjustments for disability too. If their potential clients were unable to read their materials due to dyslexia then they must read them out to them or have a recording to listen to. If an autistic child got overwhelmed by noise at the PGL camp then PGL must provide a quiet place for them.

https://www.pgl.co.uk/en-gb/about-us/how-we-operate/additional-needs

You might want to read up on disability discrimination:

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/equality/equality-act-2010/your-rights-under-equality-act-2010/disability-discrimination#:~:text=non%2Ddisabled%20person.-,What%20counts%20as%20a%20disability,normal%20day%20to%20day%20activities.

There's a difference between legal drinking age and what happens in most US campuses and college towns.

It's not done with no parental involvement. Both of the scenarios you describe would happen today at my university. Students have an opt-in clause when they join us stating when the university will contact their parents - almost all choose it.

You are way off, certainly for more modern universities, there is hardly any drinking culture. People are paying high fees, they are there to learn, and most work high hours alongside uni.

Hmmmh, teetotalism was not what I observed when visiting DS in halls! Not at any of the many open days.

Didn’t it rather duck the issue?

if it is the Natasha Abrahart case the High Court upheld the County Court’s ruling that Bristol Uni had breached its obligations under the Equality Act 2010. It had breached its duty to make reasonable adjustments; had treated Natasha unfavourably because of something arising in consequence of her disability; and had indirectly discriminated against her.

However the High Court felt it inappropriate to consider the counter appeal contending that the University owed a common duty of care - as having reached the conclusion it had on disability discrimination under the EA it was not necessary to do so. One reason the High Court that it would not be wise to express a view was that “the issue is one of potentially wide application and significance”.

The fundamental point remains that the High Court did not overturn the County Court’s original judgement on wider duty of care. But in determining that it would be inappropriate to consider did not provide any actual legal clarity. And (outside of the EQ) the duty of care or not argument is likely to continue.

in the wider financial context sector spending on disability support in itself is not a root cause of the bigger financial challenges. Sector total expenditure in 22/23 academic year around £48.6 billion, spend on disability support £117million.

But you only "observe" those who are "out there", not the ones quietly studying in their rooms or quietly doing more reserved activities. It's the same with anything, you notice the ones who are loud or disruptive as everyone else blends into the background. The vast majority aren't getting drunk and drugged up every day.

Take our local Uni. They have something like 13,000 students, maybe around 5,000 of whom are first years living on campus (most first years live on campus, second and third years move into private accommodation in town after their first year).

The student union put on a late night bus to "round up" the club goers in the early hours of the morning from the nearby city. One bus! So maximum of 50-60 people. Out of 5,000 living on campus. Yes, some will make their own way home, i.e. by taxi or by an earlier bus, some will stay overnight elsewhere. But I think it shows that the "problem" isn't that bad at all.

I'm sure that people will see large numbers of students on a Saturday night doing pub crawls and going to the night clubs, but it'll be a few hundred, not tens of thousands! Our city simply isn't big enough and doesn't have enough pubs/clubs for thousands of students. As far as I know there are only two proper nightclubs and both are pretty small, holding only 200-300 people! Remember, that's for a university of around 13,000 students!

In my son's first year Uni flat, 8 students in total, only 1 was regarded as a party going drug/drink taking student who was out a lot of evenings. 1 in 8! My son and the other 6 only went out occasionally, some more than others, a couple went clubbing every Saturday night, but other than that, they'd just go out for special events, like a birthday where they'd go for a meal rather than a pub crawl. He stayed on campus in year 2 with a different group of flatmates (randomly allocated), and the same happened - 1 or 2 went out regularly, but most of them would go out occasionally for birthday meals or for days out to the seaside or the zoo etc., maybe once a month.

I think it's classic Piretto's 80-20 - you "see" the 20% who are into the booze/drugs/party culture because they're loud and obvious. You don't see the 80% majority because they're doing "quieter" things like studying, going to uni clubs/societies, playing sports, or just playing computer games or reading in their rooms.

They're too skint to start with. Mine first years would project netflix movies on the kitchen wall, order in a takeaway, have wine and beer. Otherwise they were in their room. Until covid when they went home

Second year was COVID disruptive too. Third year it was heads down to pass in a flat for four.

I have two dcs at Uni stm. Two different Unis.

They both say that quite a bit of the students just do not drink. Proper teetotal.
Some are drinking a bit, some are drinking more.
Both also said it’s considered OK not to drink too. No judgement about it.

One of them is at Leeds. Known for its night life too

I think we are far from the pub crawls dh is talking about for example.