Some universities will go bust thread 2

[GinForBreakfast]

Continuing as thread 1 has filled up.

@GinForBreakfast I think taxing business even more after NI hike is not going to work. Or be acceptable. Many employers take training grads very seriously because they are the future of the business. Taxing on top of the apprentice levy means something will give. They cannot bear the costs of students who will never be employed by them.

@ElaineMBenes Students used to have a great experience when there weren’t so many of them and they weren’t so needy. It’s not easy to refine the student experience but it needs a reset. I rarely heard anyone complain 40 plus years ago. It was a life changing experience to go because it opened up a world of possibilities. Now, not so much. We need a middle way so our best 25% have the best university experience and it’s not diluted by others whose needs are far too great.

Yeah let's go back to a HE system that's over-represented by the wealthy middle class and we don't offer support to students with any additional needs.

Sounds great 👍🏻

@ElaineMBenes More hysterical posting! Why assume the hated better off will grab the university places in this day and age? Do you think of everything along wealth lines? You do know some better off DC don’t get great A level grades don’t you? It is better to have a HE system that’s nuanced. That has a variety of offerings. Then there’s a great chance to earn money and study. This is hugely beneficial to many young people and their families. They can work and save and have a goal in mind. They mature and need less support. They know how to study and whet they want out of it. It was a better model to have polys and fewer full time students doing degrees.

All those acres of student housing that could have been family homes we need so much ……..

Because I've worked in widening participation and on fair access policies for over 20 years.
If you start to cap university places then it will directly impact those from lower socioeconomic groups and those considered 'non traditional' students.
If you think it won't then you're kidding yourself.

Similar at my uni in the 90s. You went to see your tutor if you needed to in office hours, for academic purposes. They didn't really know who you were. There were no tutorials. We just got on with it. We did attend seminars.weekly.at my uni, with about 24 students, read what we were told, submitted assignments, revised for exams, enjoyed our uni life!

@fortyfifty how would you have felt if you'd have paid £9k per year on tuition fees?
Would you have found it acceptable to have little support and a academic staff who didn't even know your name?

The government has made students into consumers and as a result they expect excellent 'customer service'.

You can't compare your free higher education to one which is costing students tens of thousands of pounds.

We didn't have any 1-2-1s apart from some in the final year around the dissertation.

It was an amazing experience for me and people who are driven and academic thrive. I never missed having 1-2-1s. Don't think I had 1-2-1s at school either!

I actually am flabbergasted that there are 1-2-1s apart from at Oxbridge (which is famous for their collegiate and tutorial systems).

For what it's worth, I'm a first-generation uni goer, with working class parents. Also born in another country and English is my second language. Didn't stop me from achieving highly at uni.

Of course my education was free so now as consumers, students/parents expect more. Doesn't mean I think it's necessarily better that way. Quite the opposite. Too much handholding is a sign not the right students are attending uni.

One to ones weren't handholding. They were rigorous academic tutorials which really exposed anyone who was trying to blag or doss.

I note that one to ones at Oxbridge are assumed to be challenging - but anywhere else it's 'handholding'.

I chose the uni I attended because it had tutorials and seminars. I don't know if it still does. It would be a shame if not because it really was part of the whole experience and helped us to forge relationships with each other and to share our knowledge and insights in a challenging academic setting. I'd imagine it's only funding pressures have put paid to that model and not a rejection of the teaching method.

Good point. I'm trying to get my head around what is the ideal. On the one hand there are statements that a UK education is unique due to the amount of independent study required. Historically, aside from Oxbridge, universities have been hands off and left students to sink or swim. But now that students are paying fees more is expected, in yet I continually see comments from lecturers which imply they resent the amount of hand holding they have to do for students.

Its difficult to know what is the norm, currently. Are students expecting too much, or are they entitled to expect more because they are paying? What is the optimum balance?

Also, I mentioned my experience from the 90s, because someone said there had always been 1-1s. That was not my experience.

I think you believe your experience from the 90s , in STEM, to be representative of all experiences is the issue. I cited my differing experience from the same time frame.

The other issue is that you believe sink or swim is a good model. And that you believe very small groups are handholding. If that were the case, why would Oxbridge do it?

There's a huge difference between "handholding" and small group teaching. Small group teaching should be challenging. Students do the preparation - in my field a lot of reading - and then they should come to the seminar or tutorial ready to talk, discuss, argue, explore ideas. And learn from each other, through discussion and honing their ideas through engagement with others' ideas and arguments.

It's how we build knowledge and develop ideas in real life - in the workplace, - even here on MN!

If that's to me, you're wrong, you're inferring. I didn't study STEM. I didn't say I think sink or swim was the best model. I said that was the model in the psst. I don't regard 1:1s as hand holding. Not always necessary, perhaps. DD1 has small group tutorials instead. Even for her final year project, several of them met the supervisor at once.

@ElaineMBenes
I had a great student experience in the 90s. I was happy with my large lectures and seminars and being allowed to manage my own learning.
The point is that universities must cut back and one way is to have larger lectures and seminars. Students should be able to cope with this if they are suited to a university education. Spending per head at university must reduce and it should be in line with other countries (I am referring to comparative spending not how much the government spends).
As I said students/parents have s right to decide how their money is spent. Ideology should not have an impact on how much they pay.

Sorry, yes, the STEM was another poster. My point stands. It's not a model that is new and didn't exist in some halcyon days.

What do you mean by ideology?

Small tutorials are managing your own learning! They are far less didactic than lectures. I'm not sure what you imagine happens in tutorials.

@Piggywaspushed
I meant I was happy with my large lectures and seminars and managing my own learning without any small group tutorials.
I am making a point about economising. Small tutorials cost more money than large lectures and seminars. Universities must cut back and one way is to cut small group tutorials.
By ideology, I am referring to comments on here about small group tutorials widening access, helping students not to drop out of university etc. Parents/students as consumers do not want to pay more to widen other people's access to university. Parents/students want to pay for the service they receive. Just like any other goods or service.

Education is not a consumer good/service. It's far more important than that. Far more important.

@Runemum That is exactly the point. Too many students need too many additional services because they should not be at university at the time they go. It’s a luxury to go to university, not a right. I think schools are better at identifying who should be going to university but home situations and changes in circumstances cannot be changed by schools or universities. Maybe it’s time for universities to ditch wider participation experiments and accept the students who can complete the course need a better offering?

Maybe it’s time for universities to ditch wider participation experiments and accept the students who can complete the course need a better offering

The widening participation students are not the problem, in my experience. The epidemic of mental health problems and dispensations, as well as of students who don't think they need to attend class as they are at university for other reasons, is noticeably located in a more privileged demographic which has been spoonfed to the required grades by schools, have sharp-elbowed parents, and come with glowing references from their teachers who have a vested interest in their students getting into good universities. The amount of staff resource that goes into dealing with these students has exploded ten to twentyfold in the last decade. I work in a top 10 university, so doubt some things will be different elsewhere, but that is my experience. Though DH worked in a post-92 and it was the same there. The WP students are much more likely to make the most of their opportunities and not take education for granted.

My seminars at Manchester in the late 80s (humanities subjects) were small - 5-8 and a tutor - and each week was lead by one of the students who had to prepare and present the tutorial on a defined topic and then manage the discussion. They were really excellent, and were certainly self-directed learning as well as teaching us such valuable skills for the workplace- how to present, challenge differing opinions or factual inaccuracies courteously and appropriately, how to be challenged and take or respond to criticism appropriately, etc. I don’t know whether that would happen now given so many students seem to be able to opt out of active participation. My DS doing a politics degree in the UK (RG) said he was very often the only person in his seminars of 15 people who said anything at all. Conversely in the US where he did a year abroad in a very small liberal arts college, there was a % of final grade attributable to participation and so everyone did participate in interesting and at times robust discussions, which he loved.

Genuinely horrified by some of the stuff I am reading. Horrified but not surprised, I guess.

@GCAcademic I think the answer is then for universities to say come back when you are fit to study. I don’t recognise what you say about privately educated dc because those students have not multiplied by 20 fold in the uk. Data also says the least privileged are more likely to drop out so I’m not sure your experience is borne out everywhere. The unis with the highest drop out rates are near the bottom of the league tables so not where the privileged go.

Parental hovering has come with being parents of customers. Just reading MN tells you parents are over invested!

It’s also an issue with over expansion of the sector. Too many requiring support. Employers can refer employees to Occupational Health and maybe universities need to do the same and start saying students are not good enough. However you have let them in! Schools are only doing what they are expected to do.

Maybe it’s time for universities to ditch wider participation experiments and accept the students who can complete the course need a better offering?

I don't think you understand what widening participation is.
It's never been about dumbing down. It's about ensuring fair access to higher education regardless of background. It acknowledges inequalities in society and how that translates to educational attainment and aspiration.