Some universities will go bust thread 2

[GinForBreakfast]

Continuing as thread 1 has filled up.

I think you should look up accommodation costs and what the full loan is before you make that statement. The loan is not meant to only cover accommodation either - it's for living costs, so there does need to be money left over!

Not real social mobility then! Go where you can afford it. Which in most cases is local.

The new tenant act, whatever it is called, is a worry. There was lobbying for a specific year long student tenancy, but this does not seem to have happened. In the past students would have a fixed term tenancy and the landlord could be confident that he could take on tenants for the following year as he could give tenants in the property a S21 notice two months before they were due to leave. Now he will only be able to give notice on quite specific grounds. Most tenants will want to move on but it adds additional risk, which is likely to reduce the private rental stock still further. Thus pushing up prices.

(Perhaps an unintended consequence of legislation designed to improve the security of families who rent?)

I do know accommodation costs and the price of food. Many students manage on the full maintenance loan. It can be better than the position of a student whose parents cannot pay their share. Students can work in the vacations. There are also uni bursaries. DN got £2000 a year extra. Never had to work at all. Plenty of unis have accommodation for under £7000 so that leaves £1000 a term plus to live on. Many mn parents say dc can manage on this.

If you study in London it’s more than the current old age pension. Others get over £10,000 for 40/42 weeks. Many old people would like this amount.

If nobody can agree about which universities or courses that are not needed why not fund at least SOME degrees better? The UK vs OECD average is embarrassing. We know for example that there is lack of teachers. Why doesn't the government fund e.g. Biology degrees and significantly reduce their fees like in other europen countries as biologists can teach and also go into research. Remove any fees on PGCEs. The same with Maths, English, Chemistry, Music etc. Fund properly at least half of those spaces if it would make a difference to any department. The same with doctors and nurses. I don't care if their degrees are expensive. Make them free. People are not diagnosed early, you only get a very general check up first time when you turn 40 FGS (IF at all) and then the NHS has to spend billions as there is no prevention in place which would have been a lot cheaper.

@TizerorFizz do you know how expensive the TFL is in London? In France the annual is multiple times cheaper than the UK equivalent but here everything has to be bloody privatised. A friend's DD was telling me last year about the amount of students in her course who would not bother to travel to the lecture or a seminar if it was only 1 hour because they couldn't afford it. And some of them are local!

We can see how "affordable" those loans are when the interest rates make the outstanding amount skyrocket. Am I the only one who's read BBC stories of students who had to take multiple jobs while they were studying or left their course?

And by the time they graduate their loan has shot up by 10k.

The Private Eye used to run stories on every issue about how connected the Tories were to the different privatised industries and who or their relative got jobs on their board or how many bribes they were getting, friends setting up companies getting billions etc. Now it's the same with Labour! There is money but only for their friends.

Yes I do know the cost of living in London. Students there get more money of course but London unis get more overseas students so for this thread, should be ok. Although no doubt some have their woes. £8600 for living at home is enough for travel to lectures for 40 weeks I would have thought. Many lectures are on line and of course vast numbers of students don’t attend. It’s the norm now to actively choose not to go according to many on MN. Money isn’t the reason for all these decisions. Plus some unis do lots of on line as a standard method of delivery as we all know.

Im not saying it’s easy to manage. I’m saying it’s doable. This is why we still have huge numbers applying for uni. Interest rates make little difference to payments from salaries re the grad tax. The issue is the length of time over which the loan is repaid. Getting a very good job helps here of course. However as many don’t understand the loans there is not sufficient evaluation of value for money. Is this degree worth it for future earnings?

When everyone wants the tax payer to pay more, I’m not sure the taxpayer now sees the value in this. Not all grads are adding value to society and the last time differential fees were expected, it fell flat on its face. The unpalatable truth is that unis are bloated and do it via the money of others (mostly) be they students or tax payers or businesses. Like many businesses who have a model that’s nots working, we have to look at measures to have a uni sector most can afford and runs on money it can generate and not look for handouts. This could be a change to uni attended. Home uni being the default as abroad. This is becoming a model in the North already and is in Scotland. London too I think.

The government also funds students to the tune of £280 billion with loans outstanding. Do we need more money from the state or do we adjust the HE sector?

We could at least fund some degrees as a starting point properly.

There is another thread running now where many posters say they help their children when they can afford it and that their loan only partially covers their needs. Most seem to agree that regardless of loan children need parental top-up.

I had once talked to the local Tory candidate on the doorstep about the 208billion (at the time it was only 120) and she had no idea!

Most seem to agree that regardless of loan children need parental top-up.

There is an expectation that there will be a parental contribution. The whole loan system is built on that but it's really not made explicit. Which is outrageous

@AppleCream I'm really sorry to hear that. If universities can only survive by cannibalising other universities then the whole system is fucked.

Worth mentioning, in case people are being put off applying to some of London's very good Universities, that they offer some of the most generous bursaries in the country. Imperial in particular, though UCL is not bad, and LSE does its best.

Plenty of unis have accommodation for under £7000

Not much under and not that many! And second year accommodation often exceeds this.

MN parents often say this is affordable because they are able to top p above and beyond th loan. A student living entirely on the full loan (or indeed one whose parents don't top u at all) WILL struggle, especially as it is often the more desirably located, away form home unis that charge the most or have the most expensive live out accommodation.

Students also don't always get the accommodation the ask for. A system of applying for many and then being allocated which is what a lot of unis do might actually end up in more expensive accommodation.

Some examples - two RG, one RG +, one ordinary :

Birmingham

Maple Bank is cheapest . Shared bathroom is under 5 k. Aitken, (shred facilities)where my DS was, is 6k. Cheapest en suite is 7.5 k

However, his year 2 and 3 accommodation is well over 7k because of 51 week lets.

Bath

Does have some self catered shared facilities at under 4k. I know that many students have struggled to secure on campus accommodation there and been put in far more expensive halls than they wanted (most are much more pricy than 4k). Second year accommodation is very expensive.

Lincoln

The cheapest is listed as 'from' 4.4 k

DS's old accommodation which was under 5.5k a few years ago is now 'from' 7,682 because they have increased let length to 46 weeks. All their accommodation other than Lincoln Courts has gone up a lot since they expanded.

Second year accommodation at Lincoln is, however, plentiful and good VFM

York:

Cheapest if you ignore Halifax which is an odd place is just under 6k in Vanbrugh. They have price bands and there are only two available places in Band 1. The rest are all north of 7k.

Second year accommodation very expensive from what I hear.

This is the consequence of a market system. It's not really fair to characterise it as "cannibalising". It's up to students to make choices and up to universities to set their entry tariffs. Personally though, the biggest winners in the marketisation of HE has been the marketing departments, which are amongst the biggest and best paid in the organisation. And, arguably, add the least to the quality of education, experience and outcomes.

If you haven't had a child at University during the past few years I don't think you're fully aware of how student costs have gone up for students. Those huge hikes in energy bills, food costs, accommodation and transport have occurred within the past few years. The cheapest university accommodation is scarce and maximum loan is unlikely to cover private living costs in many student cites in 2nd and 3rd years. And the parents of young people who don't get the maximum loan can't keep finding extra100s of pounds each month to top up the loan. It's inevitable that young people (or their parents) will be making decisions about where to go to University based on cost first and academic ranking second.

And while some disabled/or neurodiverse students can’t leave home to go university, some CAN as long as the environment is suitable and their needs can be met. Which means not every university is suitable for them. So again, ‘move away to the best RG uni you can get into it’ is very bad advice for these students.

My DD (autistic, with a physical health condition), has just started. We spent a lot of time considering universities both online and in person. We ruled out many that were too far from home and those whose wellbeing & disability support wasn’t very good, regardless of how highly ranked.

Her first choice throughout had been a RG uni that is popular on MN. But their offer day was a shit show. No signposts or notes on which of the halls were open for viewing so you walked for ages only to discover there was no en-suite accommodation open to be viewed anywhere on the large campus. No representation at all by the disability service at the information hub. Staff didn’t even know where the disability centre was. DD decided there and then that it wasn’t suitable for her. She wasn’t the only one put off apparently. I’m not entirely surprised to see that this uni had some low offers in clearing.

Tying in the points made about money - some accommodation isn’t suitable for disabled students, including where the disability is a hidden one. So many aren’t able to save money via sharing a room or bathrooms. DD’s hospital wrote a letter to her university’s accommodation department supporting that she needed an en-suite for disability reasons. Her uni sees that as a reasonable adjustment and provides a discount, which is very welcome and helpful. But most universities don’t (for hidden disabilities anyway).

*offer HOLDERS day

apologies @Piggywaspushed we've been away with MN for some reason not top of the relaxation agenda. A poor attitude I know. 😃

Anyway to further disappoint Beds Uni was 99th (out of 101) in the most recent English Higher Ed Social Mobilty Index. https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2023/10/19/2023-english-social-mobility-index/

2024 index should be out fairly soon

Was it? Wow.

I think it's maybe a social inclusion table I've seen. They do a decent job with teacher education , especially PE, and actually have a decent English department.

possibly this one? https://www.suttontrust.com/universities-and-social-mobility-data-explorer-rankings/ Inside the top quartile

Maybe!

Meanwhile https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/25/universities-student-fees-inflation-fairest-loans

I’ve not looked at the modelling referenced and linked in the opinion piece

https://londoneconomics.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/London-Economics-Options-for-English-HE-fees-and-funding-03-05-2023.pdf

the modelling referenced, nothing new as dates from last year