Students' fees raised to pay uni vice chancellors' salaries

[Mellowfruitfulness]

Excellent documentary by Laurie Penny, here:www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/episode-guide/series-87/episode-1

As I understand it, these are some of the allegations she makes.
Students and tax payers are having to pay for hugely inflated salaries of greedy vice chancellors (£250,000 pa + cars, chauffeurs, houses, etc).
Vice chancellors lobbied the government to make them raise students' tuition fees.

Overseas students are being seen as cash cows, and some standards in UK unis are falling as a result of English language entrance requirements not being properly satisfied (although in my opinion some of the most brilliant students are from overseas, and they raise standards - so not convinced by that argument. Also, as mentioned by someone on the programme, the opportunity to meet overseas students is an extremely important part of going to uni).
One of the main points she makes is that universities are being seen as businesses and are selling degrees and lowering standards in order to rise in the league tables.
Some unis have opened campuses abroad, paid for by UK tax payers.

Now that I have written all this down, it doesn't seem that surprising, really. It's just that I have taught in universities for over 20 years, and I have never given any thought to the layers of management above me. Like most of my colleagues, I do my job because I love it. We're all rattling with qualifications, work a forty-hour week (at least) and get 35 days' paid holiday a year. Most of us earn under £30,000, but I certainly don't feel underpaid. We're not in it for the money.

And these greedy vice chancellors are quite prepared to restrict access for poor students to higher ed so that they (the chancellors) can continue to sponge off the state. The students should be marching against the VCs, as well as the government. Makes me very .

yes, that's the long and the short of it. The VCs - certainly from Russell Group universities - are ecstatic over the £9000 fees - their institutions will rake it in. The others can go to hell. Conditions for us lecturers will get crappier (as students act more and more as consumers) - and the VCs paypackets will bulge even more. Great stuff. They are talking about teaching through the summer and weekends at my place - just to squeeze more labour from us!

What they seem to be doing in our institution is merging colleges, which is causing a lot of job losses. I'm in the UCU but I didn't strike over pensions, because I didn't feel we were getting a particularly raw deal. I wish the unions would call us out over this, though. What we should do is stage a sit-in in one of the VCs' grace and favour mansions. It's truly shocking how they milk the system. They don't have any shame.

We already teach through the summer, but are allowed to take 15 days' holiday during that time. The only way we can do any research or write a book is by asking for unpaid leave (but at least we can do that. In many other jobs you wouldn't get unpaid leave). This means that we can't raise our research profile, so our department can't get more money from the uni. It does seem that the uni isn't interested in research except by the very privileged few who already have a track record. They just want bums on seats and jobbing teachers to keep them happy.