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Is the University bubble about to burst?


BearyBear

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Wight Flight

Thought I would have a quick look at the University web site to see what they were planning.

https://www.port.ac.uk

The thing that worries me is will my lad fit in. From the home page, they do seem to have some white females, but every single male is BAME.

Do they take white males? Their choice of pictures suggests not.

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Frank Hovis
5 minutes ago, Wight Flight said:

Is that any worse than spending a year playing on your computer in your bedroom though?

It is a difficult decision. My lad isn't allowed a gap year so it is out of our hands.

It's worse IMO because of how important is the first year of university and online basically means you're missing it.

Life is long and you don't want to spend it irked at how deliberately and knowingly crap was your first year at uni.

Academically it will be pretty disastrous IMO as first years are straight out of school where they were closely managed in how they were doing their work.

Go from this to an environment where you have money in your pocket and nobody even knows if you watched any lectures this week (as opposed to signing in and going back to bed) and you are asking for trouble with mass failure of first year exams and then what happens?

Throw them all out and have no second year or have everyone embark upon their second year without having properly fine their first year?

The more you look at it the more it looks like a slow motion train wreck.

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Frank Hovis
3 minutes ago, Wight Flight said:

Thought I would have a quick look at the University web site to see what they were planning.

https://www.port.ac.uk

The thing that worries me is will my lad fit in. From the home page, they do seem to have some white females, but every single male is BAME.

Do they take white males? Their choice of pictures suggests not.

They want to attract foreign students because they pay more so they make the white blokes hide during the photoshoots.

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Wight Flight
8 minutes ago, Frank Hovis said:

Go from this to an environment where you have money in your pocket and nobody even knows if you watched any lectures this week (as opposed to signing in and going back to bed) and you are asking for trouble with mass failure of first year exams and then what happens?

Is this really how it happens?

My only experience so far is of the U.S. system where you are hauled in front of your tutor if you miss even one lesson, tutorial or (very frequent) test.

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The Idiocrat
25 minutes ago, Frank Hovis said:

The more you look at it the more it looks like a slow motion train wreck.

Agreed. Half the reason to go to uni is to leave home, fend for yourself, party and build lifelong friendships. I suspect this online lectures for next year thing is to keep foreign students signing up to "the same education as UK students", not for the benefit of UK students.

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19 minutes ago, The Idiocrat said:

Agreed. Half the reason to go to uni is to leave home, fend for yourself, party and build lifelong friendships. I suspect this online lectures for next year thing is to keep foreign students signing up to "the same education as UK students", not for the benefit of UK students.

To play devil's advocate, I'd wager that these folks going to virtual lectures this year will achieve record grades at least.... 

Paying 60k to have a few shags and get pissed every night doesn't seem like a good deal to me now, I must be getting old.

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58 minutes ago, MrXxxx said:

Here's my thoughts:

1. Overseas student numbers will drop massively as parents are now very protective of their offspring, and so are the ones who really make the decision.

2. UK student numbers will drop slightly as some will take a year off to see what happens/let the Covid19 `dust settle`.

3. Unis have been told by government they can increase their intake by 5% and keep same fees, so given 1 & 2 above there will be a `bun fight` for students and a drop in entrance grade requirements...ask yourself, if you normally would only get into a mid-tier university with your grades and then Oxbridge offers you a place paying the same fees what would you do?

4.Although actions on/from the Auger Review are temporarily on hold, the `writing is on the wall` and they will be actioned.

5. As business leaders, most VC`s and their SMT`s apart from their expertise in Eduspeak, have very little `real world` business acumen/experience, having just worked their way up the internal management ladder within Tertiary education. As a result when `things are good` their poor decisions can still equate to success (like property investment in a growing market), however their infrastructure investments have to be funded over a longer financial cycle, and they are about to find out that student numbers/income doesn't continually grow exponentially, the premise that their decisions have been based upon.

Here is a projection of the potential impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on student recruitment in UK universities...glad I am not a VC, although when the SHTF I am sure the impact of their poor decisions will be felt more by those they manage.

https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/10759/Universities-2.5bn-black-hole-will-cost-economy-6bn-and-60000-jobs-warns-report

UK overseas students fall into two main groups. or did.

1) Chinese.

2) Scummers scamming chicken shop work/benefits whilst pretending to be a student.

 

 

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25 minutes ago, The Idiocrat said:

Agreed. Half the reason to go to uni is to leave home, fend for yourself, party and build lifelong friendships. I suspect this online lectures for next year thing is to keep foreign students signing up to "the same education as UK students", not for the benefit of UK students.

Well .... my argument against HE has always been that - How much a would a kids earning improve if they left their home town and had to look for work elsewhere.

I think a large part of Grads earning+  used to that going to HE prevented an 18yo just taking up a low paying job at 18 and being stuck.

The old 'Going to HE improves your earning' needs to be tested against 18yo who also left their home area.

My guess is that that would show HE effect of earnings would be even lower.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Frank Hovis said:

Yes, this is the point missed by all these "digital leaders" and their followers or "digital numpties".

Online offerings are inferior. End of.

I watch at my local cinema (walking distance) several times a year live broadcasts of ballet from Covent Garden or plays from the West End.  They are good but nowhere near as good as actually being there and are priced accordingly; pretty much your 10% as in £8 Vs £80 (plus!) for a real ticket.

Deliver me a degree that costs £30k over three years online and I will value that at £3k because of it being vastly inferior.

The sheer brass neck of a Uni pumping it out online and still charging £30k is jaw dropping.

The only thing a degree is worth is:-

The name and reputation of the University in the industry you want to be in.

The degree certificate at the end of the day.

Whether it's delivered online or offline after that is impossible but it's worth saying that an open university degree is no cheaper than a physical university one.

As for heading to university - what else are people going to do, there is zero work around and travel isn't an option.

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2 minutes ago, eek said:

an open university degree is no cheaper than a physical university one.

Not a great example. The OU used to be hugely cheaper, until the government forced it to raise its prices after tuition fees came in, because so many students signed up there instead. I have an OU degree and I rate the course - as it was at the time - highly, but it didn't compare in terms of experience to my other, bricks-and-mortar degree, which is why it 'cost' so much less.

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Just now, Alex said:

Not a great example. The OU used to be hugely cheaper, until the government forced it to raise its prices after tuition fees came in, because so many students signed up there instead. I have an OU degree and I rate the course - as it was at the time - highly, but it didn't compare in terms of experience to my other, bricks-and-mortar degree, which is why it 'cost' so much less.

But that is the point - if you compare the prices in the way a university would - they see a justification for keeping the price the same. Now we all know that the idea it should cost the same is utterly mad but that's not how a university would see it.

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Frank Hovis
10 minutes ago, eek said:

The only thing a degree is worth is:-

The name and reputation of the University in the industry you want to be in.

The degree certificate at the end of the day.

Whether it's delivered online or offline after that is impossible but it's worth saying that an open university degree is no cheaper than a physical university one.

As for heading to university - what else are people going to do, there is zero work around and travel isn't an option.

It's three formative years of your life that you will remember for ever.

Some people even want to study their subject for its own sake - I did.

That bit of paper alone certainly used to be worth something but for the vast majority it isn't now; if the system wasn't propped up by the government now demanding a degree to train as a nurse or police officer then it would become crystal clear that writing essays for three years bestows no career advantage whatsoever.

 

To reverse your argument and start from the now-accepted position that the piece of paper itself is, for 90% of people, utterly useless in career terms then for what are you paying?

Surely it's the student experience; a big part of which is being part of academia for three years.  You are not going to feel part of academia by watching some online lectures on your laptop.

You are going to feel cheated.

 

I take the point about what else are you going to do.  When I was 18 - mid 80s - a lot of the drive to get into university amongst my year group was that job options which were pretty non-existent in the midst of a recession might be better in three years.  And they were - the late 80s were boom time - so that was the correct decision then.

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Frank Hovis
1 hour ago, Wight Flight said:

Is this really how it happens?

My only experience so far is of the U.S. system where you are hauled in front of your tutor if you miss even one lesson, tutorial or (very frequent) test.

There was no register at lectures and if you were in a big subject nobody would ever know.

In my subject the numbers were so low, usually single figures, that skipping anything was not an option unless you were genuinely ill or had a very good reason as everyone knew everyone else very well.

You also felt a personal obligation to the lecturer, or person who ran a practical course when there were only five or six on it, partly because you knew them fairly well.  It was very different to somebody lecturing a hundred people and not knowing any of them.

With an online lecture as long as you have signed into it how would it be known that you have then muted it and wandered off?

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The Idiocrat
1 hour ago, spygirl said:

Well .... my argument against HE has always been that - How much a would a kids earning improve if they left their home town and had to look for work elsewhere.

I think a large part of Grads earning+  used to that going to HE prevented an 18yo just taking up a low paying job at 18 and being stuck.

The old 'Going to HE improves your earning' needs to be tested against 18yo who also left their home area.

My guess is that that would show HE effect of earnings would be even lower.

I don't want to repeat what is above, but to me it's a mixture of the student/leaving home experience  and as a gateway to a better career (not necessarily with your first job after graduation).

Speaking personally, my daughter is 20 and ending the 1st year at mid-tier uni and has been transformed by her experience there. Sadly she's not there this term of course. She wasn't really into going to uni so took a year after A's to decide. She'd already worked in retail Saturday jobs and then went full time with a well known shoe shop and pharmacy over that year. She could see they were dead-end jobs and there were people in their 40s and 50s who were still doing low paid work and were terrified of redundancy even before Covid. By going to uni she has had to fend for herself, she's made some amazing friendships already (which can't be made online and why my son will hold back from going if it's online only) and is learning to learn, which she really didn't pick up from school and to me is the key to a successful career and pleasurable life. There are a lot of faults of course, but she's become a responsible(ish!) young lady, with real drive and with a wide and varied social group due to her uni experience, and if she'd stayed at home she'd be more childish and dependent on me (I'm a single dad).

FWIW, I've been saving child benefit for my kids since they were born so they have a "uni fund" which will cover most of their fees - but I'm making sure they've got some skin in the game by not covering it all.

One thing I tried to get across to my kids is "invest in yourself" to get good future returns, as well as other investments like a house, shares, savings. I think uni can still do that, but not for everyone and not for all courses of course.

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1 hour ago, eek said:

The only thing a degree is worth is:-

The name and reputation of the University in the industry you want to be in.

The degree certificate at the end of the day.

Whether it's delivered online or offline after that is impossible but it's worth saying that an open university degree is no cheaper than a physical university one.

As for heading to university - what else are people going to do, there is zero work around and travel isn't an option.

Not quite.

If you choose your degree wisely then youve got a reasonable start in a vocation that interests you.

However.

That start/boost only lasts a couple of years. After that you are fucked, in a worse position than if youd not gone.

 

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6 minutes ago, spygirl said:

Not quite.

If you choose your degree wisely then youve got a reasonable start in a vocation that interests you.

However.

That start/boost only lasts a couple of years. After that you are fucked, in a worse position than if youd not gone.

 

I thought I had covered that bit in the name and reputation of the university in the industry you want to be in.

From my position I still see firms that look at CVs of people who went to uni 20 years ago and say the degree isn't good enough.

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3 hours ago, Frank Hovis said:

The point of a gap year is to avoid 2020/21 for which Cambridge has announced, and it is presumably just the first to announce, that all lectures will be online.

I'm guessing that Cambridge have done some risk assessment and figured out that it's safter in terms of their operations to go forward into the next academic year presuming that there's a lockdown rather than going back and forth between two completely differnt ways of working over that time period if there's another covid lockdown. Which I understand.

But I also understand why many students will think 'fuck that' and take a year out. Though I imagine even getting a minimum wage job over the next year will be very difficult, so it's basically a year on benefits.

With Cambridge having made this decision I'll be very interested to see if the other universities follow with similar. After all what can the other universities do to mitigate risk that somewhere like Cambridge can't?

And will Cambridge making this decision put the fear up some parents and young folk regarding sending their kids to a university during this pandemic? Will some refuse to go because of the (real or perceived) health risks?

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3 minutes ago, eek said:

I thought I had covered that bit in the name and reputation of the university in the industry you want to be in.

From my position I still see firms that look at CVs of people who went to uni 20 years ago and say the degree isn't good enough.

Not quite.

You missed out the time limited. Everyone does.

You only have a very narrow window to make use of degree.

 

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4 minutes ago, spygirl said:

Not quite.

You missed out the time limited. Everyone does.

You only have a very narrow window to make use of degree.

 

True - the adage I always say is that you are only as good as your last job. Although it's hard to drum into the heads of people that as a contractor that I pick the contracts based on what it will allow me to do afterwards not the most money now.

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Frank Hovis
47 minutes ago, JoeDavola said:

I'm guessing that Cambridge have done some risk assessment and figured out that it's safter in terms of their operations to go forward into the next academic year presuming that there's a lockdown rather than going back and forth between two completely differnt ways of working over that time period if there's another covid lockdown. Which I understand.

But I also understand why many students will think 'fuck that' and take a year out. Though I imagine even getting a minimum wage job over the next year will be very difficult, so it's basically a year on benefits.

With Cambridge having made this decision I'll be very interested to see if the other universities follow with similar. After all what can the other universities do to mitigate risk that somewhere like Cambridge can't?

And will Cambridge making this decision put the fear up some parents and young folk regarding sending their kids to a university during this pandemic? Will some refuse to go because of the (real or perceived) health risks?

I expect all the top universities (Oxford, Durham, Bristol etc.) to follow suit upon the basis that even if there are much fewer applications in total they will be favouring the top ones.

Despite Cambridge's online offering being so poor relative to proper teaching they will still fill all of their places, albeit with a lower quality of undergraduate than they would have done in prior years.

Similalry Oxford, Durham, Bristol etc.

20% fewer students applying to start in 2020/21 is not going to mean that all universities suffer a 20% fall in numbers.  It is going to mean that the rubbish like London Met don't get anybody.

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4 minutes ago, Frank Hovis said:

I expect all the top universities (Oxford, Durham, Bristol etc.) to follow suit upon the basis that even if there are much fewer applications in total they will be favouring the top ones.

Despite Cambridge's online offering being so poor relative to proper teaching they will still fill all of their places, albeit with a lower quality of undergraduate than they would have done in prior years.

Similalry Oxford, Durham, Bristol etc.

20% fewer students applying to start in 2020/21 is not going to mean that all universities suffer a 20% fall in numbers.  It is going to mean that the rubbish like London Met don't get anybody.

Well this is what I was wondering - will the Russel Group be OK at lest for another couple years but might an overall severe drop in numbers at a national/international level lead to a total collapse of some ..... less prestigious institutions as the demand for them is a small fraction of what it was.

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Frank Hovis
16 minutes ago, JoeDavola said:

Well this is what I was wondering - will the Russel Group be OK at lest for another couple years but might an overall severe drop in numbers at a national/international level lead to a total collapse of some ..... less prestigious institutions as the demand for them is a small fraction of what it was.

I think Russell group will be alright long term; they may need to trim courses a bit but the value of their degree stands significantly above "the rest" and that's what people seem to be buying these days.

The mediocre Unis that have grown like topsy are going to crash.

Which would be the end of a strange progression.  An older colleague had a degree from somewhere like Ipswich Univeristy and when I said I didn't realise Ipswich had a university he said it was Ipswich tech (or whatever) when he took the degree but it was now a Uni which sounded more impressive.

Give it another couple of years and that University won't even exist.

(It wasn't Ipswich but I forget where it was, somewhere in East Anglia).

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Dave Bloke
On 19/05/2020 at 13:06, BearyBear said:

What if the Covid crisis persists which is getting more and more likely? If they permanently switch to e-learning, nobody will pay the same money for a completely different experience! Existing students may also rebel and drop courses and/or demand lower fees.

I think traditional Universities are boiled all over the world. They were outdated anyways.

The missus is in the French H.E. sector. Standard French universities don't cost much to students, about a grand / year max in registration fees etc at degree level. Everything else picked up by the tax payer. She's been told that everything will go online and very little will come back to save costs in the future. Her university (she a law professor) has a core staff of 25% permanent lecturers who have civil service status. Everyone else is on contract and it looks like a lot of those people will not get renewed.

The best teachers will do the online courses which will be used by all students. Other staff will do tutorials, marking, exam prep and all the other gubbins but they figure they can cut stuff numbers by a lot.

What to do with the university buildings and halls of residence? Student educashon has been a huge BTL investment boondoggle for private investors over the last 20 years, those people could be royally fucked if kids are going to study from their bedroom at mom and pop's house.

I guess they'll house migrants in the halls.

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Bedrag Justesen
13 hours ago, One percent said:

Just been talking to a colleague. Her daughter is about to head off to university. Surely she will take a gap year said i. Oh, no, they are going to be taught online. This is from someone who teaches in academia. O.o

On Mumsnet and MSE alone, many posts about sons and daughters looking forward to enjoying campus life and student accommodation.

I don't understand the concept of moving fifty+ miles from home to share a house with three people you don't know, socialising around a deserted campus, paying thousands for the course, thousands more for the accomodation, to do an online degree ?

 

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Dave Bloke
4 hours ago, Wight Flight said:

Thought I would have a quick look at the University web site to see what they were planning.

https://www.port.ac.uk

The thing that worries me is will my lad fit in. From the home page, they do seem to have some white females, but every single male is BAME.

Do they take white males? Their choice of pictures suggests not.

Maybe you should take it up with their diversity dept? Still they are welcome to the stripey shirted landwhale in this picture

uop_virtualportsmouth1200.ashx

4 hours ago, Frank Hovis said:

Go from this to an environment where you have money in your pocket and nobody even knows if you watched any lectures this week (as opposed to signing in and going back to bed) and you are asking for trouble with mass failure of first year exams and then what happens?

Sounds a bit like Uni back in the early 80s when I went, tbh.

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