University closures disproportionately impacting working class students

[mids2019]

Are we in danger of a situation where a lot of working class students who often have A levels that aren't all at A or A star level will be removed of opportunities for higher education?

We are looking at universities predominantly those that are attended by working class students facing departmental closures. Academic courses that possibly don't have high entrance tariffs are closing or will be closed.

One of the advantages of the newer universities was that entrenched inequality was challenged by allowing working class children to study the same academic courses as their middle class peers e.g. English, philosophy, physics, maths etc. Employers are encouraged to look at degree classification and not institution levelling the playing field and giving a lot students from deprived backgrounds access to professional they may not have had access to otherwise .

We now have degree apprenticeships flouted as the way forward but these simply aren't degrees in the academic sense but vocationally based tailors to employers needs not the students. Degree apprenticeships are mostly work based with blocks of academic learning of restricted length embedded in essentially a work environment. Isn't this pushing working class students down an essentially vocational path similar to the old grammar secondary modern divide but pushed on a few years to post level.

Are we going back to only the middle class being entitled to the advantages both professionally and personally of higher education?

I think pricing should be based on face to face teaching.

DD £9000 a year gets her 12 hours.

Teachers are in all week and then placements - 9000 a year and you study on the job. yes I know they have tutors!

Same with nursing or doctors - they do the job which they’re paying to learn!

So what’s the difference?

Whatever the answer for bright WC kids is, it isn't herding them into the failing ex-polys and new unis.

All the prejudices in your post don't exist.

I remember when a well-known newspaper mocked golf course studies and surfing studies, which are university degrees. They were simply vocational business degrees with a bias to the those industry areas so if you couldn't get work experience in those particular industries you ended up with a business degree.

We shouldn't be encouraging kids with poor or mediocre A levels into academic uni courses. It's setting them up for failing, dropping out, a load of debt for a pretty useless degree from the college of nowhere & their graduate earnings aren't likely to be any higher.

Now, I'd like to see the factors that mean working class kids disproportionately get worse A level results than MC kids addressed. But that's different to saying "oh I know you got three Cs but go and do a history of dance degree from Biggleswade college because we need working class graduates"

@Greytulips You aren't just paying for the teaching you are paying for the facilities and resources e.g. journal subscriptions in the university library your degree needs so you can get a degree in it. You are also now paying for the prestige of the university particularly internationally.

The idea of student fees was that it continued the tradition that courses that cost more to run like engineering and fine art would charge more than english and maths but it has not worked out like that.

I remember a group of us looking at the cost of different degrees within our departments before tuition fees were introduced and finding out vocation/lab based degrees like engineering and art cost more than English and Maths. (A lot of people I know then went on to do postgraduate degrees in STEM area.)

It was clear that universities realised that they need to cross subsidised their more expensive degrees and couldn't just rely on foreign student income so charged all home students the same regardless of the fact that classroom based degrees are cheaper to run.

You aren't just paying for the teaching you are paying for the facilities and resources

What facilities and resources are you using for 3 terms in a classroom miles away from the university?

Absolutely none.

Major employers want skills, not "academic subjects." My observation from scanning internship and grad job opportunities is that the proportion of "any degree" jobs is now much lower relative to the number of students than it used to be. Employers want specific degrees, in addition to investing in apprenticeships to develop the skills they need in-house.

As others have said, class is irrelevant. The biggest thing holding young people back is poor advice from teachers and parents telling them to "do a qualification in a subject you love" rather than "do a qualification in something that you're good at and is also useful to society". This is just as likely to happen in a private school as in a state school, because it is a generational thing - the advice is simply out of date.

https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/courses/search/undergraduate/english-language?pg=10

So English is taught in a huge range of universities but I am guessing many of the students at the University of Bolton for example may be more working class with lower A levels than say Oxford in general. English obviously isn't a Nicky mouse degree but if there are pressures on some of the lower tariff unis to drop English is this fair? Surely graduates of the whole range of universities will have studied similar curricula?

Is there not danger of preventing those with lower A level grades often from. Poorer backgrounds having the same opportunity as others?

Aren't we by allowing universities to fold in way going to a system which limits social mobility?

@shyna

Plenty of non vocational subjects at Oxford but employers love them. Similarly with other top univwrsities. I am not saying the system is uktimately.right but we definitely have a system where non vocational subjects are regarded well be employers.

you may find this of interest @mids2019

https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2023/10/19/2023-english-social-mobility-index/

and this

https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/finances/kfi

You are paying for the lecturer/tutor to prepare the lesson/tutorial and mark any essays/course work. You are also paying to sit exams.

You are paying - whether you decide to travel to use it or not - for the university library including expensive journals and books that are applicable to your subject area plus any computing resources. In addition to that you are to access any neighbouring university you can use. (I've actually done more than one degree and used the nearest university library to me to get access to some resources for my degree.)

To put it bluntly when you have paid for any hobbies or private education, you realise how expensive tuition is.

Plus all the marketing the Universities now do to attract students (incl paying 'ambassadors, providing everyone with 'how can I help?' t-shirts at open days, etc); the costs of using equipment (a microscope at a University can cost way over a £1million ; all the administrators and back room staff; the mental health support; the sports facilities; the Student Unions; consumables for courses; library staff; etc etc.

@mids2019 funnily enough I know someone who in their mid 40s at that point did an English lit degree at that very uni. She loved it, never dreamt she’d go to uni, talked quite movingly about walking through the doors and just lapping up what she learnt. I’ve not seen her in 7 or 8 years. I don’t think she got another job using her degree though I might be wrong (she worked in an office). It did however massively improve her self confidence. I suspect that unis like this one cater for ‘mature’ local students plus alot of post graduate vocational stuff. Their nursing degree is well thought of in particular. I’ve done some post reg nursing courses up to masters level. It’s not all bad and they can have their place.

Universities have always had some of them e.g. sports facilities, student helpers, libraries but until tuition fees were charged people didn't realise how expensive education let alone higher education actually is.

Though the vice chancellor earning loads of money doesn't help their cause.

Sorry, but the curriculum will be entirely different & Oxford MUCH more rigorous!

One thing I'm curious about is how does the closure of some Universities and the focus on apprenticeships impact mature students? My own experience of being a mature degree student was that nearly all of my cohort were older women, largely working class, who had been unable to go on to FE after 18 for a range of reasons usually related to family issues and/or finance. Being successful helped me with promotion and a complete career change. However my degree was unrelated to the field I ended up in and studied because I enjoyed the challenges it presented. Given that we are all expected to work much longer and have 'portfolio' careers we'll presumably need academic support to change jobs and keep up with IT advances. So how is this going to work?

Are we in danger of a situation where a lot of working class students who often have A levels that aren't all at A or A star level will be removed of opportunities for higher education?

Yes, @mids2019 I think that is a potential danger in the current [lack of] funding crisis.

I work at a research-intensive university with a high proportion of students coming from bought-for education schools. There is a clear mapping of educational advantage onto socio-economic advantage. These kids are not brighter than working-class undergrads (sometimes quite the reverse). And they mostly come from the south-east.

I've worked at other research-intensive universities with slightly different profiles, but at the leel of institution I've always taught at, there is a gap. It was less noticeable at a northern university where I loved working, because the students were a little less entitled.

There is a whole lot of work still to do on ambition, but also on cultural, social & educational capital. The previous government didn't care. In fact, they were deliberately developing policies against the interests of working class students. I was involved in consultations for these policies, and got increasingly angry about the overt attack on anything which might give northern, working-class aspirants to university a leg up.

Let's hope that, even if there's no more money for the universities from this new government, there is a change in the discourse, and attitudes towards proper inclusion (not the farce of tick-box EDI we have at the moment).

Indeed.

I think the way things are going courses which attract students from lower socio economic groups are to close. We have to ask the question should all opportunity for those that did not get the middle class high school achieved grade profile be denied the right to study an academic subject. Is the ability to study English or Maths limited to those with an A level profile which would be associated with mainly middle class families? Isn't this a classic example of pulling up the drawbridge.

It really feels to me that the government are using market forces and university finances to do their job for them in promoting an agenda where in general working class kids get working class jobs and middle class kids get professional role ps often using a highly rated university as their rite of passage.

we are saying in effect that Cs and Ds at A level really mean the student should be pushed down a vocational route and they are incapable of the critical thinking to make a success of academic study which some may take as an insult. A lot of not so great passes at A level probably were achieved despite really quite adverse backgrounds or environment yet we may end up with policies that debt these students at least the chance of having the same opportunities as their more wealthier peers.

Ex-polys and new unis are not the ones who are failing. So ignorant.

There is no age limit on apprenticeships. In fact, many employers are using them to retrain their existing staff.

My ds is doing a degee apprentices , it is the same course as the normal course but p/t over 5 years. He will have a degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the end of it.
My dc are 26 and 28 and the most successful of their classmates are those who went down the aoprenticeship route

But nursing has changed so much I really do t see how making it a non graduate profession would be feasible. You talk about how we used to have lower level nurses……well we’ve gone back to that with nurse associates and also hcsw do a lot of stuff which nurses used to do. Decades ago nurses made beds, washed patients and did obs. Now all of that pretty much is being done by hcsw. The nurses are doing more stuff which previously a doctor might have done, care planning, etc. never mind all the specialist roles. 50% of a nursing degree is in placement so still plenty of opportunity to learn the soft skills you mentioned.

the hospital trusts won’t fund the necessary number of degree apprenticeships needed for nursing numbers. Current apprenticeship model is expensive to run and numbers are capped as i believe the trusts have to partially fund the places. They also spend as much time in the classroom as a normal degree as they still have to gain 120 academic credits a year to get a degree. You seem to think they won’t spend as much time at uni?

You are making sweeping statements based on your own prejudices and no evidence whatsoever.

The other issue is Scotland for example have fee free university so English students are up against that - in that poor students on one side of the boarder don’t have to worry about debt whilst the other side do.