Students

A question about : Students

The Office of Fair Trading's looking at the service English universities (and other higher education providers) have been offering to students since the fee changes in 2012.

The changes should have given more choice, but did they?

The OFT wants to hear from students about the following:
Did the higher fees raise your expectations and have they been met?
Were you able to find enough info about courses and universities to help you make your choices?
Would you know where to complain if you needed to?
Read and reply to the OFT's call for info or let us know how you've found your time studying below.

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Best answers:

• I'll be very interested in the outcomes of this thread...full disclosure, I'm currently working at a university looking at these sort of questions among our students and in the wider university sector, particularly in relation to the current (quite crude, actually) survey instruments that are used to guage student satisfaction and engagement.
• In many ways I can see where the money goes. I'm at Leeds and you're pretty much guaranteed a computer on campus if you need one, there's always help if you need it (via tutors, union etc), many (though by no means all) of the lecturers are really great teachers, they are enthusiastic and willing to help, the libraries are vast and have everything you could ever need for your studies.
  On the other hand...
  There was a strike a while back about pay which makes me wonder exactly how much of my Ј9000 goes to the lecturers. Sometimes the place could do with a clean (particularly carpet chairs in corridor), toilets need unblocking (been blocked for weeks).
  I would like a breakdown of exactly how my fees are spent (possibly in the form of a pie chart).
• This is going to be a long one sorry.
  I'm the last year of students who got to attend university on the Ј3000 tuition. In my opinion, my particular year (those who would have graduated in 2011) were almost pressured into going to university that year, because it was the last year of 'cheap' fees, so those who maybe didn't have the UCAS points to get into the level of uni they wanted, or the exact course they wanted, were encouraged to just 'settle' and go. This has lead to a higher drop out rate, at least within the people I know.
  But in terms of whether I'm getting value for money? No. So I can't imagine how people who pay Ј9000 (and more...inflation and so on) feel. I have to attend just three lectures a week (will be up to 4 in 2nd semester), which is 9 hours of contact time MAXIMUM. Usually its more like 7 and a half, and thats not even counting the times that lectures are cancelled or there are student presentations so there is no actual teaching, or film screenings where again, there is no actual teaching. My course only runs from the first week of October to the last week of March. Definitely not value for money.
  I do have to say that I find the resources within the university exceptional, so in terms of that the money is value for money, but one on one support (tutors answering email queries, being in their offices when they're supposed to) is completely and utterly lacking - I've waited 23 days for an email response before.
  So no, I don't feel like I have good value for money, and I don't think I'm expecting too much, but that said the degree will be worth it in the end...few more months to go.
• I can't help but wonder if any MSE'er has got any clear idea of why OFT were tasked to do this ? In other words, what is the motive behind it ?
  The questions avoid the question of undergraduate finance entirely*. Surely that is uppermost in all undergraduates minds before they can possibly be asked about value for money ?
  That makes me doubt the motive which I think is one of preparing and releasing something very manila purely to maintain existing political spin on certain plates by OFT's paymasters i.e some kind of non-spectator "keepy-uppy" by the government of the day in their usual shallow style. They will of course then use such scores as they choose as notable when it suits their future pronouncements on higher education.
  Please pardon my cynicism.
  * The word finance does not appear in the documentation save for a single mention in a smallprint footnote:"4. The higher education sector in England has recently undergone a series of substantive policy reforms most notably through changes to the financing of undergraduate courses, ..."
• Very few students use this board. OFT would be better of going to The Student Room website.
• sarahlouisexo your post was really interesting. i work as a part time lecturer and i can give you all some insight.
  First, many of the lecturers are, like me, part time and we don't get paid for taking tutorials, office hours or emails. so we are frequently not available cos we are busy doing other jobs! Sometimes i do give tutorials or answer emails in my own time anyway but in the end often i just can't.
  We part timers also don't get offices or computers we have to supply our own.
  On to class time. I am a lecturer and I know my subject very well. Aside for years of study I also produce work on the subject. It also annoys me that I have to use class time for "experiential learning" that is, getting YOU to do presentation or just watching a film. This is because the powers that be decided that students don't want to listen to lectures but to have more multisensory learning. However for academic subjects its pretty limited what one can do, given that the concepts are complex and the whole point of being at uni is that you DON'T already know anything about the subject.
  I am aware that you are being ripped off cos I am not giving you what I can give. But it's not my choice.
• Suppose it depends entirely on where you go. I'm paying 9k for a STEM subject at a top 10 russell group uni, and yeah, 9k seems like a lot, but have you seen the price of lab stuff? Our labs are pretty much state-of-the-art, and whatever you need, you can pretty much get.
  Lecturers are some of the best, I'm talking published in Science or Nature etc, you're learning from some of the best. Hell, I've even got a summer placement with one of my lecturers next year, they're all pretty much willing to do whatever. Never had to wait more than about a day for a reply from one, and thats including the weekend.
  Yeah, I would've prefered to pay 3k, but at 9k I'm still doing okay, I get about 25 contact hours a week, more if I do more labs. I can understand if you're doing a subject with 4 or 5 contact hours that you might be a little less happy about it all, gotta pick your subjects and universities wisely though!
  (asking TSR would be a much better idea though...)
• Learning at university doesn't have to be about contact hours and being taught, it should be about students taking responsibility for their own learning and universities providing the facilities for this to take place. Much better to complain about shortages of books and other resources than low contact hours.
• One of my major problems with the fee is that it is the same for all courses. I study Mathematics, and we work with pen and paper. We don't have access to Ј10,000,000 lab equipment, and the costs for our courses are much less to the university than for chemistry (say).
  Considering only lectures, we collectively are paying about Ј10,000 per hour of lectures. Of course, that puts aside the costs of computers, facilities, etc, but I really don't understand where my year group's Ј2.25 million per year actually goes.
• The amount of money in Universities hasn't changed - what has changed is where it comes from. Now most is from tuition fees, whereas in the past, much more came from HEFCE. And if Universities have the same amount of money as they had previously, how can they significantly improve services?
• I'm studying Uni of Brighton. It was not my first choice to go here - far, far from, in fact. I was going to go to Kings, but due to (in complete honesty) my sheer and utter laziness, I did very, very badly in my A-Levels. Most of the other people I know at uni also got in through clearing. I think that because of this, I'm rather biased against the uni already. But I find the resources rather lacking - there's never a free computer, the library isn't wonderfully stocked, etc. I have very few contact hours, and two of my lecturers live abroad and commute into work, so they're never available. My lectures get cancelled quite often as well. Not ideal. I don't think it's worth Ј9,000 at all.
• Where do the tuition fees go?
  Wages for the senior management team/bigwigs. VCs, pro-VCs, Deans etc all get paid a lot. VCs get paid loads.
  Wages for lecturers and support staff.
  Heating, gas, water, electricity bills. These must be huge as most of the university buildings I have used are not exactly energy efficient.
  Money on building projects. I use the library at my local redbrick university. There is always some type of building work taking place. I assume that the aim is to provide a better "student experience" now the fees are so high.
  Money on equipment, maintaining buildings, security staff (increased since the recent protests).
  I would love to know how much money universities spend on PR/advertising companies/advertising. For example, I have spotted adverts for Brum University on trains and on the Underground. This must have increased since the Ј9000 fees were introduced?