Tuition fees

[stoatsrevenge]

So we are to expect a massive increase in university tuition fees, as well as increasing interest ib student loans...

Here is the 6 year plan from the LibDem manifesto:

1
Scrap fees for final year full-time students

2
Begin regulating part-time fees

3
Part time fees become regulated and fee loans become available to part time students

4
Expand free tuition to all full-time students apart from first year undergraduates

5
Expand free tuition to all part-time students apart from first year undergraduates

6
Scrap tuition fees for all first degree students

How are they going to square this one?

As a random comment, anecdotal as well, I have an MA Lecturer at a post 92 establishment who is extremely helpful, is an excellent teacher yet is having quite a lot of research published atm; indeed the funders for the work share a premises with that department (separate entity but it's not a bias- risky field- we're not tlaking pharma or anything).

DH's degree is very different and practice is valued above research but absolutely he lecturers are heavily committed to the field and environment outside university.

I think it's likely that the single biggest difference (other than rep) in post 92 universities isn;'t teaching standard but resources; our library as beyond awful, buildings too small etc.

Resources matter, of course. A lot.

I've worked at an Oxbridge college and also at three other universities, and I can PROMISE that students get FAR more attention at Oxbridge than eg at former pollies.

The raw deal is actually at the aspirant universities like - erm - big port town in the southwest... these are full of people desperate to crank out research. That said, when an undergraduate myself, some of my very best teachers were postgraduates.

Mybe it varies on area? I don;t think any Oxbridge colleges cover my subject, and certainly not DH's actually? So we're as likely to get the good ones as anyone? (I am at MA level though, AFAIK the ones at undergrad on my course, one rather liked at Oxbridge was quite fond of, weren't doing loads and loads of research, although IIRC one was editing some work). Not that my undergrad tutors did much of anything tbh

Maybe DH and I just lucked out this time around?

Thanks, WhoKnew.

SanctiMoanyArse Thu 14-Oct-10 14:07:53
M2L have aI said soemthing to make you think I think it's easy or a good system? Just you sound a bit defensive (eg Mum and dad comment, never assumed, mine wouldnt and couldn' so why would I..)?

You sound really stressed. What would you like to be doing as a career change? A good friend is in the same sit as you- she was a CM, hated it, trained as a TA but ended up somewhere really awful and was amde redundant; now heading back to being a CM agin...

Would uni be an option for you ebfore the changes come in? Just thinking that the income might be enough for you and get you on a different track? (pretty much how I played it)- am assuming you don't have ad egree atm as aI was refused TA training on funding as was a graduate.

=============================================

Sorry if I did sound defensive SanctiMoanyArse (love the name!) yes I am a bit stressed, I did a Teacher Assistant college course which I paid for myself (£320) as DH 'earns too much' from January till July this year, tried applying EVERYWHERE for TA jobs but they were mainly Level 3 with Special Needs experience which I haven't yet got. I am going to ask my Early Years co-ordinator tomorrow if there is any way I could do a course which would lead to me getting Early Years Professional Status. It depends on funding probably and again they are bound to say 'hubby earns too much'.

I don't want to be a childminder all my life,I'm not saying childminding is rubbish but I have NVQ level 3 Early Years care and Education (Nursery Nursing equivalent qualification) I want to better myself and perhaps work at the Early Years Development Centre helping other cms with training etc. I couldn't afford to go to uni or the Open Uinversity (fees are out of our reach) as we are supporting our own daughter at the moment while she does her A levels.

I think all these cuts starting next year are getting to us, DH and I have not been out together for ages, we seem to argue more at these days and I feel scruffy as I cannot afford new clothes or have a haircut at the moment (that's how skint I am).

I don't know if it would help you get on the path to SEN training M2L but it's my MA field and if you want to mail me via the MN syystem I have a lot of ASD powerpoints I have to send out to a few mumsnetters anyway. Quite happy to include you in that.

I know what you eman about the cuts- we have two autistic kids and I am seeing the effects too: a cut to fuel support, someone on SN has heard her nursery is closing down and our SEN school has already survived one cull so we wonder..... it's hard isn;t it?

I also KWYM about wanitng to do more: I am hoping to go and do my SW conversion; I am applying busily for jobs at a much lower pay level (call centre etc) but getting nowhere so figure I may as well follow my dream.

I wish you luck X

(and you should see how I am dressed if it makes you feel better- lost weight so jeans two sizes too big and haircuts? Well, could just about afford it but time.... ha ha ha

I would guarantee you look better than me )

Sieg - I think that geography guy has done loads to raise the profile of Plymouth for example.

Some courses are better suited for non RG unis as well. Marine Biology is best studied somewhere near the coast, hence Plymouth is great at that, whereas diving in the Grand Union canal may not be quite so appealing.

Sanct, yes of course you can only make comparisons where the same subjects are offered. scaryteacher, I think one prob is that people think a raised profile will also raise teaching standards and educational experience, and it ain't so. I worked on the country's most famous creative writing course, for example, with a very famous writer. The students barely ever saw him, but the thing had a sky-high profile.

Oxbridge is different - gets loads more funding. You can't compare that with RG Unis.

I think with the increase in fees one may see more students going local as it were. If we were back in Cornwall then I'd be looking at Exeter or Plymouth for ds as commutable each day. Bristol might be as well, I know someone who did that.

It's Geology, btw, that Iain Stewart does, not Geography ...

It is perhaps also the 'squeezed middle' of universities that really have to worry - as well as the least research intensive. I'm in one of the former: small, research-active but still dependent on teaching for resources (unlike the RG and Oxbridge who could function financially using research funds and endowments if push really came to shove...).

The fallout from next week means my university will probably lose almost all of its teaching grant from the govt. And will therefore have to charge a market rate just to break even. The lifting of the numbers cap means we may be competing for the same students with the more research intensive, better resourced institutions, more than we were before. This may not be a bad thing: we may get more of their leftovers. But the nightmare scenario is that RG unis hoover up everyone with any decent A levels, and the ex-polys hoover up those who want to pay lower fees.

My university is just outside the top ten for student satisfaction in the national student survey. Yet we are at real risk with these new funding arrangements - the notion that money will 'flow' in to universities is ridiculous: we will be running to stand still...

The big difference between this rise in tuition fees and when they were first introduced is that central Governmnent funding for universitys was increased at the same time as tuition fees were charged so universitys benefitted from two increases. Due to the economic circumstances that is not possible and the fee increases are being used to offset central Governmnet funding cuts due to the deficit.

WilfShelf, one problem though is that research funds are getting harder to come by. It used to be that a good proposal (which would typically take about a month full-time to write) would have about a 20% chance of being funded. Now, that has reduced to about 10% and it is expected to reduce further. (It might be quicker and easier to just send all academics out to buy lottery tickets - the chances of winning might be slightly higher given the amount of time it takes to write each grant as PI). So, researh-wise things are also not looking too optimistic at the moment.

It takes a good fortnight or more of solid academic writing to fill out funding forms, on top of actually doing the preliminary research required to work them up into something useable, plus time seeing the finance people and getting them costed, the ethics people and getting them cleared, etc etc. Then 9/10 of them or more go on the slush pile. This is a complete waste of time and the only research that seems to get through now in my subject is the boring stuff sent in by the mates of the reviewers. (At least the ESRC are doing something about this and sorting out the peer review process).

Forget lottery tickets, much more of this and they'll have to set up call girl rings of lecturers.

Sorry about getting it wrong on Iain Stewart. It does however show that non RG unis can have inspirational lecturers.

Has anyone looked at the fees for Eton or Westminster recently? A 3 year degree at increased cost looks a bit of a bargin in comparision.

Perhaps a tax on people who can afford to pay more than the average income on school fees (each year) to pay for university ?

"Perhaps a tax on people who can afford to pay more than the average income on school fees (each year) to pay for university ?"

They could call this "removing the charitable status so that schools that operate as businesses pay tax like businesses, specifically VAT".

But then, Labour had thirteen years to do this, and didn't even begin to try. I suppose that with most Labour cabinet ministers sending their children to private and quasi-private schools they had no incentive to think about it, and around the dinner tables in Islington it would have been poison.

It's a shame that a good left-winger like Dianne Abbot wasn't listened to on private schools. Oh, sorry, hang on a second...

the rich are just skewing the system in their favour again. Previously it was with high A level grades (got from a good public school education)- but now the commoners get good grades. So it's moved on to a payment system which poses no problems for the wealthy.

" So it's moved on to a payment system which poses no problems for the wealthy."

Perhaps. But if Oxford starts admitting people like Tim Rich But Dim in large quantities on the grounds that they can pay more than Tim Bright But Poor, Tim Bright But Incidentally Rich isn't going to be overly pleased. Oxford degrees have their cachet partly because of the name, but also because of the genuine quality of both the teaching and the people who go there. Break that, and within a few years Oxford becomes just another one of those places that rich kids congregate to get perfectly decent but no more than that degrees, like, well, we all know the places on the M5. If Oxford starts turning out people who have no particular edge over other graduates bar the name on the certificate, employers won't be willing to privilege those degrees any more.

"Employers will continue to privilege those degrees because they want "people like us"."

The places that are the largest consumers of good degrees are also immensely international, and will take anyone who can actually do the job well. Have you been on a dealing floor or in a high-performing university department or in the engineering group of a major software company? They're all incredibly diverse, with people from all over the world united by being good at it. The days of monocultures of white upper middle class men are twenty years gone. There are exceptions, like the BBC, but hopefully a few years of their budget being put to the sword will sort that out.

"But if Oxford starts admitting people like Tim Rich But Dim in large quantities on the grounds that they can pay more than Tim Bright But Poor, Tim Bright But Incidentally Rich isn't going to be overly pleased."

In response to that, may I say Prince Edward, History degree from Cambridge with only C's and D's at A'level. He got in on the basis of academic achievement did he?

tokyo - but it's so subtle. Oxbridge places are allocated by interview. You're faced with literally hundreds of applicants who are predicted straight As. Tutors are looking for bright minds, but those that have already been well stretched by private education, home education or (exceptionally but rarely given the stupid national curriculum) state education have an advantage. So the rich/privately educated are more likely to get in - statistics are overwhelming - and are also more likely to apply despite increasing fees. It's a double whammy. Oxbridge is so exceptional that people may feel the fees are worth it but it's a massive social experiment.

More interesting perhaps is what happens at LSE/UCL/Durham/Bristol etc. where they don't interview as a rule. Can you keep aspirations for poorer students high when fees rise?