Richest students to pay for extra places at UK's best universities

[breadandbutterfly]

The bastards.

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/may/09/universities-extra-places-richest-students?commentpage=last#end-of-comments

I don't think Oxbridge will take rich thickies, I think they'll take more of the rich kids who weren't at the very very top level of outstanding, but were in the mass of kids who would do very well but didn't quite get in because of the stiff competition.

It was an obvious progression. There will be pressure on uni staff to take the money and let people in, whatever the official line is. They will need the money.

Every year there are plenty of students who miss out on a place and might be able to find funding from elsewhere.

These are not the rich but thick.

How can this work? Would it be known that you'd entered as a paying student? In which case there would be a stigma attached.

About a decade ago I was supervising an American Masters student at Oxford. He was very bright and thoroughly deserved his place and was not rich but he told me candidly that American students used to play a game called 'spot the Brit' on their course. There were so many overseas students on his Masters course that he said it was hard to believe he was in the UK sometimes.

Going back some 25 years as an undergraduatre myself we had rich American students who came over for a year to do a 'Masters' but who actually just sat in on our undergraduate course. They paid very high fees.

This has been going on for years. There is only so much money for free or partly funded places and Universities have to make up the numbers somehow so why not allow some rich UK students to pay?

It is still possible for UK students to get some funding for undergraduate degrees and PhD funding (where you complete a Masters course first) but it is getting harder every year. I did a paid Masters course back in 1990 and then a PhD funded by UK Govt after that.

All in all, this is a bit of a non story as it is not really a change from what is already happening and has been going on for years. I note the article says that ony 3000 UK/EU student undergrad places were awarded in the current academic year at Oxford but 17,000 overseas students places. Says it all really.

In lesser universities, lets face it, so many undergraduate courses have been dumbed down and pretty much run on a 'bums on seats' basis to get the cash in that most of them would have to shut down if they were prevented from doing it. Whether it be undergraduate or Masters courses it is no different.

Before WWII it was commonplace for wealthy students to buy a place at a top UK university with a few very bright students from poor backgrounds coming in on a variey of scolarships for which competition was fierce. Then full student grants came in in the 1960s so it became much more meritocratic but the true cost and lack of sustainability of that model has now been exposed and we are moving back to a pre WWII model where either only the rich or extreley able student can attend university

I strongly believe we have too many UK univeristies and that the way to continue with a more meritocratic model is to shut down all UK universites except the Russel Group and then fund them properly so that only the very brightest UK students get a fully funded place. We just dont need as many universities or courses or students as we have currently.

The fact is that a UK university education is now so devalued that it is almost 'a con' to encourage poorly informed students into debt. This is now very apparent in America where student debt is out of control and rapidly becoming a national scandal. The UK is only a decade behind that outcome. To avoid it we need fewer but properly funded university places for our top 25% of students.

What about other issues around taking on more students, eg accomodation, overcrowding in lectures, lack of "hands-on" time in practical labs etc.

Surely this could adversely affect all the students

They can't magic up more space, they will reduce the numbers of students who take the normal entrance route. Or cram, cram them all in so that everyone loses out.

It still goes on MoreBeta. I did a Masters 4 years ago. At one point, while trying to get our heads around data modelling, we asked a lecturer to stop using such specifically English examples as there was a cultural gap in our understanding. The lecturer looked up at the full lecture theatre (200 or so) and asked who was British. A single hand was raised.

slug - that story did make me and little too.

There is a huge difference between undergraduate and postgraduate courses - as many have said, it is standard for these (largely unfunded) postgrad courses to go to the few, of whatever nationality, that can afford them. Rich students who wanted to take a postgrad course have always been able to buy advantage to some degree over better qualified candidates who simply couldn't afford the fees.

But we are talking about UNDERGRADUATE courses here - it is nonsense to suggest that Oxbridge undergrads are composed primarily of rich but less bright foreigners. There are some international undergrads, certainly, but as the previous poster with experience of admissions panels has said, they are no less bright, probably brighter. Undergraduate courses have been funded for a reason - to enable us to have a workforce and populace comprised of the best and brightest and not just those with rich parents.

Anyone who thinks you can just magically 'create' thousands of extra places at Oxbridge has not the faintest idea of how the universities work. They are organised on a collegiate system, which are extremely limited in terms of space (few undergrads live in college for all their course). You cannot just create loads of extra huge modern college buildings in central Oxford or Cambridge - there is no room and planning permission would not be granted. Whatever the Tories claim, the reality is that either (a) the dons would refuse to admit the richies or (b) poorer but brighter students would miss out on places so that the one whose parents could afford to pay more got the place.

MoreBeta -

I disagree with your statement that "Then full student grants came in in the 1960s so it became much more meritocratic but the true cost and lack of sustainability of that model has now been exposed" - no, there was no problem funding the numbers of students we had in the 60's. arguably, there is not even a problem now - it is a matter of priorities where we cut the deficit, and you could argue, for example, that bankers could afford to be taxed just a leetle more highly etc etc. But certainly, if student numbers were at similar levels to the 60's, we would have no problems funding them - possibly the solution is to reduce student numbers, rather than dilute student quality as this proposal would do.

breadandbutter - yes I agree. The model was sustainable even up into the 1980s when I was at university. It becamse unsustainable when a target of 50% of children going to university was adopted by New Labour.

We can control the price of education as long as we limit the numbers by setting a high quality standard and funding it properly. New Labour made the mistake of believing you could control price and increase quantity without lowering quality standards. The Coalition are about to make the mistake of reducing quantity by raising the price but still allowing quality to continue to plummet.

I agree wholeheartedly, MoreBeta.

I just can't understand how things are going to work now. The well off will be able to go to university, no problems. And the children of poor families won't pay fees and will receive bursaries.

And just where does that leave those with a brain but the misfortune to have parents with a mid-ranking job?

Future university graduates will either be leaving Durham with a History of Art degree or the University of Justfoundedlastweek with a degree in media studies.

Gifted linguist? Brilliant physicist? Nah - you're no use. Let's charge you top whack to discourage you from any further education.

gramercy - yet another ample of the general trend to crushing the life out of the middle class. It did happen just a little bit when I was at university in the 1980s.

My best friend got the highest overall score ever recorded in his Finals at Oxford and without merited a full scholarship as one of the UK's brightest academic talents. He had a tiny scolarship from college and a hardship grant but was always desperatly hand to mouth wth money as he had the misfortune of having parents with just enough income to exclude him from getting a maintenece grant (though he got his fees paid). He worked as a roofer during the holidays in order to be abe to eat during the term time.

Meanwhile my parents had their own business so had little apparent cash income but a lot of assets and I had a fully funded place and grants. My DW came from a slightly lower income background and got a fully funded place and grants too. Nontheless we all got a place on merit and none of use was excluded or included on the course because of the wealth of our parents.

Says it all really

I think the idea is that the non-subsidised places currently offered to foreign students (however many that is) will also be open to UK students if they're prepared to pay the full (£17k-ish) fees. They'll be competing with the foreign students I presume. I think the proposal is also for these student to be prohibited from applying for a maintenance loan, so they will be entirely self-funded.

Sounds like a very divisive idea to me. Surely there's a reason why the govt contributes to UK-based students (err, because they're the UK govt) and not to overseas students. This sounds to me like the first step on the road to loans and subsidised fees being considered the exception, for those on low-incomes, rather than the norm.

I think you may be right, Bramshott.

Well, here's another U-turn, a quick one at that: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13343824.

I really think this Government are making it up as they go along.

The mask is slipping a little with the nasty party. Although they've back-pedalled, this really shows their nature

Mask slipping! hardly a mask at all, nasty fuckers to the core of their beings.

Still, lets be thankful that the NHS is safe in their hands.

This was actually mooted by a vice chancellor back in Feb 2010 according to this article, so the idea is hardly new and was being floated (unless I am mistaken) under a Labour government.

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7264728/Rich-students-should-pay-international-level-fees-to-guarantee-university-place.html

Interesting, scaryteacher. Still, slightly different import in a situation where overall fees where much lower and the number of places much higher - when everyone could afford to go, there was less objection to the rich paying more to go too.

By the way, to all those who suggested Oxford is currently swamped with sub-standard international students, this article gave the lie to that:

"At Oxford, the number of foreign students has risen from 386 to 582 in the last five years" - out of an undergraduate population of c 12,000. so a tiny number.

Whereas the Tory proposals would have resulted in places being sought many, many times that number, vastly reducing the overall standards.

There's much I agree with here: but I still think the problems start with the ludicrous aspiration to get half of 18-year olds to university - and so it's rather disinigenuous to blame the higher ed fiasco on the Tories. It seems another case of spend now, pay later, during the Labour years: on something which is basically a waste of money as it has devalued its subject.

So they are cutting 10,000 university places so that the rich can buy them.

I understand. No longer will the likes of Kate and Wills, who are very rich but slightly less intelligent, have to go to the less prestigious universities. They'll be able to buy themselves an oxbridge place directly.

I feel sorry for the lecturers. They might be the brightest in the land with years of hard but brilliant work, and long but highly motivated hours pushing the frontiers of knowledge (and decades of state investment to allow them to work there) being sold off to teach "rich parents' idiot spawn" (as the daily mash succinctly puts it.

yes yes, rich parents idiot spawn, yawn yawn