"3 prestigious universities about to go bust" - on Radio 5 live this morning..

[devilsadvocate77]

...heard a chap who was contributing as part of Nicky's slot (still on) say that three unis are about to go bust, not to mention the many others who are running at a deficit.

Nicky asked if he would name them but he refused.

Any ideas??

About needing skilled tradesmen - I sense it is still a very gender specific area of life. The significant majority of plumbers, electricians, joiners, roofers etc are male. It feels like there is still a gap equivalent for girls i.e. specialised, non-uni skillset they could gain that offers equivalent earning prospects as trades. And in the absence of this, university may be their better option as opposed to low paid childcare/beauty/social care type roles that seem to be the main common alternatives still today.

The taxpayer won’t have to stump up money for loans for living costs etc as students at colleges usually live at home!

@SmallestMan two posts above this, I forgot to press "quote".

The problems for women in the trades are as follows:

• Everything is designed for men's bodies. I mean everything: tools and gloves are sized for men's hands, safety boots are much harder to get in women's sizes and a men's size 6 is too wide for women, work clothes are hard to get, and fall arrest harnesses and helmets are designed for men with potentially fatal consequences.
• Working on building sites means tolerating graphically-sexual graffiti on any surface yet to be painted and overt sexual comments from colleagues. Your status as an independent contractor means that if you complain, it's likely that you'll get finished instead of the perp.
• Working for domestic customers means working alone in a total stranger's house every day.

Men in the trades have absolutely no interest in improving how female building site workers are treated because it's in their collective interest to exclude women to keep the talent pool small and hence wages high.

University of York have made the required savings through VSS etc. We thought compulsory redundancy would be required but in the end it wasn't. We are not going bust, this year!

@MaidOfAle I absolutely agree with your list of problems that women face when working in construction. The only thing I'd disagree with is the motivation.

I don't think the average brickie looks at a woman in a hard hat and sees her as potential economic competition. I think he looks at her and thinks either "she's going to be useless", "she's going to be a stuck up bitch who complains about our hilarious banter" and/or "I bet I could get in her knickers." I think it's plain misogyny rather than thoughts of threats to the labour pool.

One thing that strikes me about the working poor in America when you see them in documentaries etc is how often women are doing construction jobs there.

The individual motivations of sexist tradies are as you list.

The utter failure of the construction industry as a whole to address sexism effectively is because collectively the men in it benefit from women's exclusion and the price of excluding women from the talent pool does not, at least to their minds, exceed the benefits of including us. Other industries are way ahead of construction on this because they recognise the need to include women in their talent pool.

Glad Uni of York is not going bust as it’s our local Uni and def an option for DS.

student satisfaction which is easy to manipulate

Is it really? 🤔 Wow, wonder why lower performing universities don't do it then. Must be because all their staff and students are stupid. Thanks for your wisdom 😑

Interesting that several staff from York have now been on to claim that they're now safe.

Exactly what I'd be doing if I worked in reputation management at a time when students are making their 5 uni selection.

@Vax UEA counts as prestigious - one of the first and stellar creative writing courses, nano medicine - and increased medical places because Norwich is a teaching hospital; also environmental sciences and business. It has had a redundancy programme but seems to be okayish after some odd financial management.

I agree, but also add to problems at the training colleges, again, very "male" orientated behaviour, with lots of "laddishness", male "banter", sexual innuendo, etc. My niece tried to learn there to be an electrician, but just couldn't cope with being in a minority of women and a very male dominated environment.

In our village, we have a small "grease monkey" garage. Basically handed down through the generations, great grand father, grandfather, father and son all worked there for a short time. The it was just the father and grandfather. The father had two daughters. Both were keen to come into the business and ultimately take over. Both went to college. Both gave up very quickly due to the male dominated behaviour etc. Instead, they just worked at the garage under the father's training and supervision and gave up on the college side of things. Both have now jointly taken it over, father is poorly so has taken a step back. They're both doing exactly the same as before, full garage service.

People keep going on about strength, but there are ways to mitigate it for someone who maybe not as strong. You can get lifts, hoists, trolleys, ramps - even "big strong men" use them! You can get power tools to take the strain of stuck bolts! A typical woman is perfectly capable of lifting a tyre which is probably the heaviest thing a garage mechanic has to lift on a daily basis. Most other motor components are actually pretty small and light. Two women together can lift even the heaviest things they're going to have to deal with. Even "big strong men" need block and tackle lifting gear to remove an engine. Same with the fire service these days, previously thought to be a male dominated profession, but now women have proved to be equally capable - fire engines carry hoists and lifts and other aids to get the heavy equipment on and off the engine etc.

The REAL issue is the male dominance, poor male behaviour, poor male attitudes in "male" trades towards women, etc. Get over that and women can do exactly the same as men.

I think it illustrates the void between what university lecturers "think" that they're providing and what the majority of students actually want.

Lecturers are still thinking in terms of learning for the love of learning whereas students are thinking "I need this piece of paper to get a job".

That's why there's a chasm when it comes to student satisfaction. Most students are "happy" if they can get their magic piece of paper as quickly and easily as possible. But that's not how lecturers see it!

Obviously different for students going onto Masters and especially into doctorates or aiming for a life in academia, but they're the minority.

but that doesn’t mean the students who think that would be right 🤷🏻‍♀️. I’m sure the lecturers would know what the students would like, but they’re going to try and uphold standards. If they let everyone off with a piss easy degree it does nobody any favours in the long run and the students who really want to learn would be annoyed.

It's also exactly what we'd be doing if ill-founded, idle speculation was doing the rounds online. We are safe, we are not going bust. My niece will be making her choices next year and I'm quietly hoping that she will choose York. Zero chance I'd want that for her if we were in trouble.

York, Lancaster and Bristol are THE mumsnet unis. Presumably all of those unis have staff on here.

Most students are "happy" if they can get their magic piece of paper as quickly and easily as possible. But that's not how lecturers see it!

Often with the emphasis on the 'easy' - but decent unis are not so beholden to the NSS that they dumb down course content - hence lower satisfaction scores.

It's really not the badge of 'good' that people think it is - and remember the league tables use NSS scores.

Given students are paying £10k a year to get that piece of paper, an awful lot would be very pissed off if they didn’t get a decent about if contact time for that money.

Agree with this

In terms of organisations going bust; any organisation needs to keep it close to their chest if they are approaching insolvency, and that means keeping it from staff as well. If there is a chance to continue, eg through further investment or a merger or buyout, then the last thing you want to happen is either your customers OR your staff to start leaving.

They're entitled to a reasonable amount of contact time, but what a lot of students and their parents seem to have great difficulty grasping is that the benefit of a university degree is learning to work independently, to organise your time, to round out what you're taught in lectures, seminars and tutorials with your own reading, and so on. I did a Humanities degree several decades ago. In my final year I did four modules and had an hour or two of teaching for each for the first two terms, probably no teaching at all in the final term as we prepared for finals. That was as it should be. The rest of my time was spent reading, writing and latterly revising. Our lecturers were available up to a point if we needed any extra help, but to nothing like the extent they're expected to be nowadays. It was a huge step up from school and it was wonderful.

Warwick still gets a lot of international students due to their focus on Maths and Economics.

Once the £9k fees came in the Chancellor's and Deputy Chancellors all got huge massive pay rises. Maybe they should take a pay cut.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g Is that not the problem with 36% of 18 year olds going to university? It’s inevitable some won’t be good enough to manage the work and do expect it to be like school. For the money, so do parents. It’s a mismatch of talent and a uni education.

On another thread a lecturer is talking about 3 resits and what help should be given to assist students so they don’t fail. Apparently they haven’t attended a guidance session so demand more of them. It just seems that standards are low and the bright engaged student is not recognised as the others get more time and help to pass. You cannot help but think they are not on the right course.

I think high quality HE accessed locally is the model we need to revert to.

I doubt men on construction sites will change. However there are smaller companies that welcome women but, looking at girls in many schools, parents have set them on a girly path before they get to school. They won’t want their nails ruined on a building site!

Excellent post.

British universities also need to start raising money from their graduates (and anyone else who wants to do it) as American universities do and have done for decades. The tax system could be looked at to see if charitable giving could be claimed as a deduction on individual returns as in the US.

Reliance for funding on the changing winds of government policy is the road to disaster. As seen.