Uni fees to rise

[dearydeary]

This was reported yesterday but barely covered by the news.

My students now get an awful lot more contact time than I had, pre-fees, at university. And as for assessment support, tutorials you could just book when you wanted, well-being services, employability .... there's no comparison. We're giving them more than we got, and with increasingly inadequate resources to do it with. And in real terms, we are paid so much less than our own lecturers were.

I am not sure an increase from 450,000 to 750,000 international students can in anyway be considered ‘shunning’. Quite the contrary, universities have become over-reliant on international students such that changes such as the weakening of the Nigerian currency, means they suddenly find themselves struggling to pay for their overspends.

Universities do not just teach students. Indeed that wasn’t really even their original main purpose. They also do research. Two year degrees wouldn’t work because when would the academics do their research? And if they are just lecturers and not researchers, how will they keep up with the cutting edge of their fields? Academic departments don’t just bring in money from tuition fees, research grants are also important/vital. Indeed, not all (successful) academic departments even teach undergrads.

If it's done as a tax then people who leave the country don't pay it. It's structured to be functionally identicalto a tax for anyone who spends their whole working life as PAYE employee in the UK, but is officially a loan as that helps get more out if the people who don't follow that path.

If it were a tax I don't think it should be restricted to only being paid by those who went to university. Those whose annual income exceeds £25k who didn't go to university have nevertheless benefited hugely from the country having some great universities. They benefit from doctors, teachers, engineers, advances in technology, people working on creating a better understanding of social and economic issues and how to resolve them. Everyone should pay it.

Good! Uni need to be collecting fees that are reflective of the running costs. Those who use the unis will have to pay the fees. How will Labour tackle the privilege gap though? Presumably only the wealthy will be able to afford certain unis? Sounds a bit like private school vat to me. Another levelling down (not up) for the UK.

Those who leave the country often don’t repay their loan either:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/jobs/schools-universities/not-coming-back-britain-70000-expat-dodge-student-loans/

I think that will turn out to be the case as many people won’t end up being able to repay their student loan so it will be down to the taxpayer (… so not everyone!).
I do wonder how many students are clear about exactly what they’re taking on when they commit to a degree and full complement of loans. 9% of gross salary above 25K I think?

The very students who subsidise UK students substantially.

Fees rising in line with inflation is sensible - the least any government can do to save one of the UK's best and most productive sectors.

UK universities punch way above their [funding] weight in terms of research & teaching, and the soft power we gain from educating future leaders from all over the world, is immeasurable.

The overseas students I teach are not from mega-wealthy - or even wealthy families. The students & their families make a strategic decision about the value of an education in the UK, and they invest huge family resources in enabling their children to study here.

I think that Uni’s have been mismanaged. My DC is in her final year and has nine hours contact time and will be finished at the end if April having started in October! Value for money? When I went we started in October and finished at the end of June.

Such a sweeping statement. Clearly, you didn't retain what you were taught at university about how to argue from evidence. The singular of data is not anecdote.

And 9 hours contact time: when I write a module and work out the materials, workload, assessment etc. I calculate that for every hour of in person contact time, there will be at least 3 hours of independent study and preparation. So that puts your DD on a 36 hour week - a standard full-time working week.

All of this. 100%

Isn't a big part of the problem that universities have taken huge loans to build more and more student accommodation that they are now struggling to pay for?

I think they got greedy on the international student gravy train and really should be looking to take a lot more responsibility for their issues themselves. Many were accepting students with poor standards of English making it very difficult for the courses to progress as they should - and they all have to pass no matter what because if they don't it will put off prospective International students.

I did an MA and stayed on a corridor in halls with International students whose English wasn't even close to GCSE level. I also worked for a company that taught ESL and had students bringing me their essay titles and expecting me to write their essays.

The universities got greedy and now it's all falling apart IMO.

Oh come now, why would you pay university fees to be able to do 27 hours of self study a week? You can do that without paying anything. It's just nonsense that universities spout to justify doing very little and charging a lot.

No one would send their child to a private school where they got taught 9 hours a week, it's one day and a bit - and those teachers are still having to plan and do assessments.

Oh come now, why would you pay university fees to be able to do 27 hours of self study a week?

Tell me you know nothing about universities without telling me you know nothing about universities.

There's always the choice not to attend university. It's not compulsory.

It's just nonsense that universities spout to justify doing very little and charging a lot.

This statement is complete nonsense!

I wish people would stop sayijng that the loans are written off. They're not, they are paid by the Goverment (i.e. everyone that pays tax)
it's a fucking scandal. the whole thing is a mess and this generation have been shafted (as have all the current and future tax payers)

Yes!

This!

Then there is the likes or Edinburgh blaming government for the drop in international students whilst completely ignoring the fact that they couldn’t even let a whole cohort graduate because their lecturers were not marking exams scripts and theses, ruining those students future plans.

What I notice in the discussion about this is the vast gulf between the media’s approach to young people (students in this case, but other young people also, in different contexts such as the minimum wage) and pensioners.

I care for older relatives living on the state pension who have lost the major part of their winter fuel allowance. This is bad! And the media is fully on board with that.

But young people? The under 30s? Struggling with huge university debt? Struggling to rent a decent home? To buy one? To find secure employment? No, they’re scroungers. Whingers. Need to work harder.

What I have also noticed as the parent of a child with a life threatening medical condition is that the NHS seemingly takes far more notice of the very old than of the young. My 94 year old aunt gets regular GP home visits, district nurse visits & hospital appointments. All automatic- I don’t even have to ask for them. With my 16 year old son, I had to pay for a private consultant to prescribe vital medication- despite a 2 week pathway within the NHS, the relevant clinic did not get round to him for over a year.

This is obviously only a personal experience. But from looking at the media (take for instance the relative lack of publicity about this story) I increasingly think we’re living in a society that values the over 65s far more than the under 30s- and I wonder what the implications are for the survival & flourishing of that society. Maybe there’s a bigger issue rotting away here than just university fees.

I just wonder how long it will be before they add VAT to the fees.

University isn't school. It would be bizarre and inappropriate for us just to all sit in the room together silently reading books and research papers for the sake of 'contact time' - and guess what? The students would not turn up for it. And you cannot 'do that without paying anything' unless you don't want the vastly expensive e-books and databases you get access to as a student and without which your 'self study' would presumably be ... googling stuff?

I agree!

Barely a mention on the news. Where is the NUS?

But young people? The under 30s? Struggling with huge university debt? Struggling to rent a decent home?

But that was how it was in my 30s, 30 years ago. And I was a junior academic, earning less than a secretary or clerical assistant, although with far higher qualifications & expertise.

It's always tough in one's 20s and 30s.

Labour’s talking about hitting international students again for grants anyway so it’ll drive them away again.

Universities are in real struggles at the moment, fees haven't moved with inflation.