Universities' Plan To Double Student Fees Could Leave Millions In Debt Into Their 50s

[a j]

Speaking as a former arts student (economics) I agree.

Waste of time.

+1. I wonder what kind of society we are becoming. We choose courses where stating your opinion and considering the endeavours of others are the major activities of study, rather then courses where doing things and producing something other than verbiage matter. Have we selected passivity - criticing chavs for gossiping about reality tv whilst middle class youth gossips about history and literature?

[a j]

for example, if your a lorry driver and have a degree in theoretical physics is society any better off? are you any better off? society is definitely not better off because that degree in no way improves your productivity as a lorry driver, you personally may be a little better off by that is not helping society as a whole.

I'm not sure you've picked a good example. Many logistics companies move their driver into planning/ routing activities when they get fed up of life on the road. A mathematical training is very useful for this, and indeed for pricing and optimisation.

there are very few jobs where a degree makes you more productive or gives you the experience/skills to make processes or companies more productive.

them)

Agreed for most courses, but the more I see of different businesses the more I recognise the (often unsung) contribution of maths/ science graduates in developing processes and databases outside of the main IT functions, and a general ability to understand concepts the day to day management can't figure out.

[roadtoruin]

After moving from a Russel group Uni to another Russel group Uni I can assure you MANY profs do travel first class.

It is in their contracts.

If you were a prof, you'd know that.

Whether it's external funding or not is irrelevant.

Not the norm in my experience. Top academic (prof) opinion leaders in medicine attending conferences are often lucky to get business class. I suspect a few celebs might do, and a few others who chance to get it on occasion then brag about it in the bar.

Big Pharma pay the most in the bioscience sphere and first class show-off waste of money is not on our radar. Middle management travel economy in many big companies nowadays unless there is a persuasive business reason to upgrade. I suspect most Universities are the same.

[stormymonday_2011]

If I were running the whole system I would start by barring everyone from admission to an arts degree who cannot demonstrate near-native fluency in at least one foreign language (excluding the native tongues of immigrants and second-generation immigrants) and pass a rigourous oral exam in the subject or discipline they're applying to study. I would also cap the classification limits on a percentage basis - e.g. only the top 10% of each cohort can get a first, and the bottom 10% automatically get an unclassified degree. That way, someone's degree classification (in conjunction with where they'd got the degree from) really would be a meaningful statement as to what their educational attainment is relative to their peers.

I seem to remember that the ability to read articles and books in at least one foreign language, and an O level in Latin or Greek were once a minimum requirement for all those aspiring to to study the Arts at University.

How times change.

Edited March 17, 2009 by up2nogood

[renterbob]

Not the norm in my experience. Top academic (prof) opinion leaders in medicine attending conferences are often lucky to get business class. I suspect a few celebs might do, and a few others who chance to get it on occasion then brag about it in the bar.

Big Pharma pay the most in the bioscience sphere and first class show-off waste of money is not on our radar. Middle management travel economy in many big companies nowadays unless there is a persuasive business reason to upgrade. I suspect most Universities are the same.

Big Pharma pay the lab, and the 'opinion leader' (as you put it) can spend the dosh how he/she wishes. Pharma only want the relevant results, and they're very tight on the work done (and they know they pay tiny amounts to Uni labs for work which would cost them a fortune otherwise). Where the rest of the money goes can be audited any which way but loose.

It's an interesting time of year right now for us...we have 35k to spend before the end of the month. We will spend it of course, or we lose it.

I can tell you tales of new PIs using 4k to buy a new laptop from a grant with no IT budget, and letting their staff use 5 year old, useless machines (which they NEED for their work), of a prof taking his wife to conference and explaining he doesn't have funds for his PhD student (from whose grant the money came from to pay for the profs wife).

Two things:

1. Are you saying it's not in your/their contract to travel first class?

2. Not all do, agreed.

[izzy]

So, fast forward a few years. University fees are 10k a year. What kind of people will apply? How will this influence the type of degrees people actually want (and are prepared to pay for)? What will happen to the old Polys? Will there be contraction or expansion in the UK higher Ed sector? How will this affect already qualified professionals?

[renterbob]

So, fast forward a few years. University fees are 10k a year. What kind of people will apply? How will this influence the type of degrees people actually want (and are prepared to pay for)? What will happen to the old Polys? Will there be contraction or expansion in the UK higher Ed sector? How will this affect already qualified professionals?

Foreign students will pay.

Look on ANY UK Biomed based masters course and note the proportion of British students.

If it's over 20% call me Gordon Brown.

It'll just get worse.

The modern Cs and VCs have one priority - MONEY, baby, MONEY.

[Thucydides]

30 teaching weeks per year, means a total of 10 hours of time. Divide the tuition fees by that and I'm paying somewhere around £300/hour.. tutor earns about £15/hour, the rest is spent on the huge support network, the finance department has much nicer desks, computers and furnishing than the tutors offices do. Facilities there are outdated,

I agree with this. Academics often have smaller offices and desks than the support staff, and also smaller wages in many cases. Someone once quipped that the only problem with university life was all the bloody students, but now I fear the joke has come full-circle with support staff saying the only problem with university is all the bloody academics and students. I have worked has an academic and for a period of this time I was expected to do so without an office, because I was thrown out of it to make way for support staff.

If you want to know more about why support staff give themselves all these extras read Animal Farm by George Orwell.

Edited March 17, 2009 by Thucydides

[izzy]

I agree with this. Academics often have smaller offices and desks than the support staff, and also smaller wages in many cases. Someone once quipped that the only problem with university life was all the bloody students, but now I fear the joke has come full-circle with support staff saying the only problem with university is all the bloody academics and students. I have worked has an academic and for a period of this time I was expected to do so without an office, because I was thrown out of it to make way for support staff.

If you want to know more about why support staff give themselves all these extras read Animal Farm by George Orwell.

When tuition fees are 10k a year, how many people will follow a career in academia? Just think, a degree, masters and Phd, how much is it going to cost? Do lecturers earn enough to justify such a substantial investment? If not, where will the universities find the teaching staff of tomorrow? I feel another round of overseas recruitment in years to come. That will be great: foreign staffed universities teaching fee-paying foreign students. Really, why bother having the building on UK soil at all? Surely it's much cheaper and more sunny in Mumbai?

[Thucydides]

When tuition fees are 10k a year, how many people will follow a career in academia? Just think, a degree, masters and Phd, how much is it going to cost? Do lecturers earn enough to justify such a substantial investment? If not, where will the universities find the teaching staff of tomorrow? I feel another round of overseas recruitment in years to come. That will be great: foreign staffed universities teaching fee-paying foreign students. Really, why bother having the building on UK soil at all? Surely it's much cheaper and more sunny in Mumbai?

The whole system has been seriously degraded to the point where its very existence can be questioned, as you have just done. Many enter academia because they think it will bring social kudos and lots of free time, but only when they have entered the magic circle do they reaslise how hard they have to work, how little spare time they will have and how there is little respect for the role in today's society. There is also a lot of quite overt nepotism and also one must be aware of plagiarism at all times. Who will go into academia in the future? I have no idea, but I think the landscape could change back to one resembling the 1950s where most academics are there because they have rich fathers and they teach students who are mostly there because they have rich fathers. Under this level a new level of "schooliversities" will be invented to keep the less bright off the unemployment register and make them think they are being ejookatid. Who knows? All this social engineering has made a real mess.

[cells]

When tuition fees are 10k a year, how many people will follow a career in academia? Just think, a degree, masters and Phd, how much is it going to cost? Do lecturers earn enough to justify such a substantial investment? If not, where will the universities find the teaching staff of tomorrow? I feel another round of overseas recruitment in years to come. That will be great: foreign staffed universities teaching fee-paying foreign students. Really, why bother having the building on UK soil at all? Surely it's much cheaper and more sunny in Mumbai?

Edit:

you assume in a free market universities would have to and would be able to charge £10k and have a viable business.

This may be the cast while the student loans company is present but ask for fees upfront and we are in free market mode.

A university then has to “recruit” students to study with them. They have facilities to teach 10k students but only 1k have applied as the fee is high. The university either goes bankrupt and closes or they decrease the fee to say £2k pa and continue on (which would involve becoming a lot leaner as a business!)

there is no reason why a university should cost much more to run per head than say a secondary school.

They would also have to compete with the very cheap DIY degrees from the likes of the Open University and the University Of London External system.

Edit:

supply and demand.

if £10k a year puts off say 70% of university applicants then wages for the remaining will increase until a balance is met.

plus some degrees would be hit a lot harder than others, medicine would still attract the same number of students while say geography or photography might not. Same applies for universities.

sadly none of this is true while the student loans company is giving 17 year olds the option of taking on £30-40k debt. these kids have no concept of £30k but are expected to make the decision.

SLC needs to be abolished and all fees paid upfront!

Edited March 17, 2009 by cells

[Thucydides]

SLC needs to be abolished and all fees paid upfront!

So exactly what I just said - rich academics teaching rich students. The value of degrees goes up because only the rich can do them, and we are back to 1875 with all the rich kids making networks at unis and all the poor kids uneducated and out of the nep-work.

[The Ayatollah Buggeri]

Many enter academia because they think it will bring social kudos and lots of free time, but only when they have entered the magic circle do they reaslise how hard they have to work, how little spare time they will have and how there is little respect for the role in today's society.

Most (that I know, at any rate) do primarily because they like the research, think that the teaching will get them the kudos and haven't a clue about the admin burden (from which, as a PhD student and TA, they're largely shielded) until it hits them in their first post-PhD job. The look of horror on their innocent little faces when I break it to them that they can't even make minor changes to the syllabus of a module without preparing a 13-page proposal form which then has to go through School Learning and Teaching Committee, a Faculty sub-group and then the Faculty LTC (meaning in effect that most such changes have to have at least a year's lead time) is something one gets used to eventually.

Edited March 18, 2009 by The Ayatollah Bugheri

[aa3]

My opinion is the liberal arts were always for people with rich fathers. Those students could study say Roman-Greek history because it was interesting. Actually I know two girls in their 20's who have masters in Roman-Greek history, niether from rich parents and their job prospects didn't look good. After all this enrichment historically the rich then went into law. Even if they didn't go into law, they didn't care, they were rich.

Non-rich people if they were lucky enough to get to higher education took things like civil engineering or chemistry or medicine. Things that clearly increased their value in the job market. Aka technical programs based that could be applied in the real world.

Now we have an insane 50% of people going to university. The majority into fluff programs, that teach no valuable skills. Actually a declining number are in things like engineering.. something like 6% of all university students are in all the engineering disciplines combined.

The thing is only about 15% of human beings are able to get a university degree in a technical area. Engineering is just too hard for most people. So the universities had to invent a bunch of new programs so they could expand their market. So we get things like phd in economics who the vast majority completely missed the economic blowup.

As a taxpayer I am more than eager to pay for say a persons education as a doctor or a chemical engineer. I'm not so eager to pay for yet another women's studies major.

Edited March 18, 2009 by aa3

[The Ayatollah Buggeri]

As a taxpayer I am more than eager to pay for say a persons education as a doctor or a chemical engineer. I'm not so eager to pay for yet another women's studies major.

Believe it or not, the women's studies majors subsidise the doctors and chemical engineers. The former pay £3.5k a year for tuition that costs about £1-1.5k to deliver. The latter pay the same £3.5k for a course which, in extreme cases, costs up to £50k a year to deliver.

[Mixle]

Yes, but how much learning does it actually take, minus the hoop jumping?

So true.

[aa3]

Believe it or not, the women's studies majors subsidise the doctors and chemical engineers. The former pay £3.5k a year for tuition that costs about £1-1.5k to deliver. The latter pay the same £3.5k for a course which, in extreme cases, costs up to £50k a year to deliver.

You've got a point there. I forgot it costs practically nothing to teach these liberal arts programs. In comparison many of the technical fields you need whole laboratories which cost into the tens of millions of pounds and a much smaller teacher-student ratio from what I've seen.

[19 year mortgage 8itch]

Tuition fees are, for the most part, a tax on stupidity

(Speaking as one of the stupid and, incidentally, I pay off my loans this week. Only 18 months early )

[Thucydides]

Most (that I know, at any rate) do primarily because they like the research, think that the teaching will get them the kudos and haven't a clue about the admin burden (from which, as a PhD student and TA, they're largely shielded) until it hits them in their first post-PhD job. The look of horror on their innocent little faces when I break it to them that they can't even make minor changes to the syllabus of a module without preparing a 13-page proposal form which then has to go through School Learning and Teaching Committee, a Faculty sub-group and then the Faculty LTC (meaning in effect that most such changes have to have at least a year's lead time) is something one gets used to eventually.

Sure, and the love of research is derived from the desire to get published for the kudos it brings. Or used to bring. So uch stuff is published now compared to years ago, because of demand on academics to publish to meet research quotas and also there are many more academics today, of course. My own view is that if one is going to spend a year writing something it would be better if more than 1000 people worldwide actually read it. Academia is not what is used to be, but how could be? Our culture has changed too much for academics to have been left untouched in the dusty and sherry-soaked inner sancta of the post war years. Today it's about getting students through the door in as large a number as possible, often irrespective of quality. Corners are cut and quality is often sacrificed on the altar of equality. Where will it all end I wonder?

[roadtoruin]

Big Pharma pay the lab, and the 'opinion leader' (as you put it) can spend the dosh how he/she wishes. Pharma only want the relevant results, and they're very tight on the work done (and they know they pay tiny amounts to Uni labs for work which would cost them a fortune otherwise). Where the rest of the money goes can be audited any which way but loose.

It's an interesting time of year right now for us...we have 35k to spend before the end of the month. We will spend it of course, or we lose it.

I can tell you tales of new PIs using 4k to buy a new laptop from a grant with no IT budget, and letting their staff use 5 year old, useless machines (which they NEED for their work), of a prof taking his wife to conference and explaining he doesn't have funds for his PhD student (from whose grant the money came from to pay for the profs wife).

Two things:

1. Are you saying it's not in your/their contract to travel first class?

2. Not all do, agreed.

I don't know what's in their contract; if it is to travel first class I would be amazed at such laxity. The top people in our company (big pharma) have to justify business class, and if we're paying for a top person in their field to attend a conference they pay 'normal' expenses. That's not to say if we pay their University or hospital 'compensation' for participating in a clinical trial that they cannot use some of that lucre how they like.

The really good people don't usually seem to be such knobheads as to demand travel first class but I guess those big egos still exist. The amazing thing is behaviour like the wife-instead-of-PhD student would be a disciplinary offence in a company such as mine where - whatever you think of it - corporate ethics training is mandatory, and the 'no gifts or lavish hospitality' is taken seriously because of the laws on inducement and conflict of interest we work under. The academics you describe seem about 10 years behind, they need a wake-up call...

[Thucydides]

Most academics live a life that is almost totally divorced from reality. Crucial in explaining their attitude is that they rarely have to answer to anyone and have had it this way since they were PhD students. Everyone around them is their junior in some way (students, support staff, conference organisers, refectory workers, cleaners, research assistants. Even quite senior support staff are below them in the pecking order) and this is the primary factor in explaining their behaviour. Also, you have to deal with a dreadful and shameless left wing bias the whole time. There was a kind of fascism to do with being seen carrying the Guardian out of the campus papershop.

As for funding - there was always plenty of money for certain people in the departments I worked in, but others never seemed to be able to get hold of any. I watched one PhD student getting paid twice as much money for research work than a colleague (another PhD) student, for no reason at all. When I enquired on behalf of this student I was told it was a matter of "different budgets", which while believable is also pretty disgraceful. Man, could I tell you some Tales of Outrageous Funding.

[OnionTerror]

My opinion is the liberal arts were always for people with rich fathers. Those students could study say Roman-Greek history because it was interesting. Actually I know two girls in their 20's who have masters in Roman-Greek history, niether from rich parents and their job prospects didn't look good. After all this enrichment historically the rich then went into law. Even if they didn't go into law, they didn't care, they were rich.

Non-rich people if they were lucky enough to get to higher education took things like civil engineering or chemistry or medicine. Things that clearly increased their value in the job market. Aka technical programs based that could be applied in the real world.

Now we have an insane 50% of people going to university. The majority into fluff programs, that teach no valuable skills. Actually a declining number are in things like engineering.. something like 6% of all university students are in all the engineering disciplines combined.

The thing is only about 15% of human beings are able to get a university degree in a technical area. Engineering is just too hard for most people. So the universities had to invent a bunch of new programs so they could expand their market. So we get things like phd in economics who the vast majority completely missed the economic blowup.

As a taxpayer I am more than eager to pay for say a persons education as a doctor or a chemical engineer. I'm not so eager to pay for yet another women's studies major.

About a month ago, I went to the pub with a friend who is studying for a MA in History, at a "red-brick" university... I may have have mistakenly said that History was a hobby subject.. However, looking back, I think I was right in making that assumption. I can understand it can be interesting and its merits..learning where we come from, building up research techniques, learning from past mistakes & making sure that they dont happen again (Economics apart), etc, etc... At the moment, I'd almost, (honestly) prefer to spend a year, full time, examining the HPC site & forum, than do a History MA.

He told me about a Professor at his university made a mistake in a speech to his peers, regarding a well documented historical event, where he accidently got the place name wrong...apparently it set his career back 10 years..

I haven't heard back from him since...I may have narked him off.

Edited March 18, 2009 by zagreb78

[laurejon]

I think Bob the builder has a better grasp of history than these t1ts. How many people have studied History in the UK at Uni over the past decade, it must run into tens of thousands and guess what.

Today Historians are re-inventing the wheel!!!!

[Thucydides]

He told me about a Professor at his university made a mistake in a speech to his peers, regarding a well documented historical event, where he accidently got the place name wrong...apparently it set his career back 10 years..

I haven't heard back from him since...I may have narked him off.

While I am sure this is an exaggeration, I can believe the essence of it because I have been to plenty of academic conferences. Standing in front of hundreds of colleagues and making an undergrad howler like that would make many question his abilities. It's a closed up little world remember, where the same people meet at conferences several times a year and all know each other's work. Outsiders must prove themselves.

[OnionTerror]

While I am sure this is an exaggeration, I can believe the essence of it because I have been to plenty of academic conferences. Standing in front of hundreds of colleagues and making an undergrad howler like that would make many question his abilities. It's a closed up little world remember, where the same people meet at conferences several times a year and all know each other's work. Outsiders must prove themselves.

It probably was slightly exaggerated, but this professor is a well known name in his field..he's had plenty of books published (his name escapes me), but no doubt he took such a vigorous drubbing, is because of this, and his peers were eager to pounce on any slip up he made, so that he looked foolish. Usually, such things like this happen is normally down to jealousy.

I'd rather not bother going to such events, if everything I said was going to be scrutanised to the nth degree.

Edited March 18, 2009 by zagreb78