Is the UK university system broken ?

“If I had to pick one useless degree that doesn’t benefit society at all, PPE at Oxbridge would be the winner!

It is a very good degree subject where you start off studying a broad range of subjects which shape the human condition and then have the opportunity to specialize in later years – because a fair few politicians study it, it gets tarred by association but as a subject it is excellent – three of my friends did it and it set them in good stead for highly successful careers.

because a fair few politicians study it, it gets tarred by association but as a subject it is excellent

Apologies if my sarcasm wasn’t obvious.

Having working as a lecturer in the UK for over 12 years the main issues I saw were:

1. Since tuition fees went up, almost anyone will get accepted into University.

2. More and more teenagers are work shy.

3. A lot of people don’t understand the difference between being educated, and being intelligent. You can have both, but also can have either one and not the other. And that doesnt stop you being successful.

4. Lots of parents said thwy didnt want their kid going to University and didnt respect the kids decisions and abilities.

The sector in its current guise is ****ed.

Utilities combined with a 40% real-terms decrease in the value of tuition fees since the last change means many will fail over the next five years.

The hostility to foreign students is also killing the sector.

There is no knight in shining armour on the horizon – Labour have pretty much kicked HE to the bottom of the pile when it comes to sectors to rescue.

It’s a shocking indictment of a supposed developed nation, TBH.

I work for a Russell Group university. Our ‘Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme’ was announced today. As with all these things there will be some ‘correct’ people in it, many will hold out, some of the most marketable will probably **** off overseas.

Still, many campuses are quite large, so a lot of boxy houses could be built on them instead – or distribution centres for all the would-be graduates to work in.

The hostility to foreign students is also killing the sector.

Weird idea of hostility – most recent data says there are 670,000 foreign students in UK universities, up 37% in 3 years! Sounds like quite the opposite – the sector has become overexposed to foreign students so that currency fluctuations and changes in immigration law destabilise them.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7976/

In short, yes. A former colleague memorably described the UK university system as “a real-estate business with an educational side hustle” – which I thought fairly appropriate.

Weird idea of hostility – most recent data says there are 670,000 foreign students in UK universities, up 37% in 3 years! Sounds like quite the opposite – the sector has become overexposed to foreign students so that currency fluctuations and changes in immigration law destabilise them.

Foreign students (UG) bring about 3x the income of UK. That’s one thing. Any increase in anti-immigration rhetoric endangers that.

PG – many have dependents. If we don’t allow dependents, they go to other countries.

Simple.

Having working as a lecturer in the UK for over 12 years the main issues I saw were:

1. Since tuition fees went up, almost anyone will get accepted into University.

a lecturer should probably be able to be a bit more precise with their language; or perhaps has led a very blinkered life where he believes everyone passes A-levels.  “Almost anyone” is a bit of an exaggeration – about 1:7 pupils leave school without any GCSEs or with only very poor (4+) grades.  1:4 people sitting a-levels don’t get C or above.  Now I will accept that the entry criteria have been relaxed (interestingly in Scotland for Scottish students many see the opposite – entry requirements are officially say ABBB (at higher) but demand outstrips supply and so it’s likely that AAABC is what you actually need; many AAAAB or better students also get angry they don’t get first choice uni and say it’s because they live in wrong postcode but that’s another story).  In reality only just over 50% go to uni and college combined; obviously some will have marks but preferred not to go, but a lot of the college students would have gone to uni if they had the grades so about half not almost anyone achieve the entry criteria!

2. More and more teenagers are work shy.

is that not just a consequence of 1?  And what do you actually mean by “work shy”? More and more of them are working an actual job…

3. A lot of people don’t understand the difference between being educated, and being intelligent. You can have both, but also can have either one and not the other. And that doesnt stop you being successful.

you can also be educated and intelligent and it doesn’t guarantee success (at least on the measures modern society seems to depend on).

4. Lots of parents said thwy didnt want their kid going to University and didnt respect the kids decisions and abilities.

lots is a very lazy metric!  Im surprised that someone in a university even spoke to lots of parents – certainly my parents never spoke to anyone at mine, and I’ve never spoken to anyone at my son’s.  I’m even more surprised that parents who were at best apathetic about their children’s education/development were the ones who bothered to get in touch to tell you they don’t agree with their child!  My wife’s parents weren’t particularly supportive of her going to uni.  She was the first person in her family (and cousins, aunts, uncles etc) who had gone to uni.  Her parents were pretty surprised she didn’t want to leave school at 16 and get a job as soon as she was allowed to.  She started off living at home and travelling in – but they were apoplectic when she moved out – it was viewed as a massive insult.  I don’t know that parental attitude is a useful indicator for anything!

As soon as we started to make students pay massive fees the system had to “dumb down”.

People were never going to pay for a degree they couldn’t pass.

many AAAAB or better students also get angry they don’t get first choice uni

Hmm, IIRC the highest requirement I was offered was CCD and the lowest DD. I wasn’t aware of anyone of my generation who did more than four A-levels or got 3 straight As (excluding general studies). Grade inflation can’t have made the task of selection any easier for universities. That and the fact that xAs dont’t have the same value if earned in a private exam factory as an inner-city comprehensive (or whatever they call them now).

Foreign students (UG) bring about 3x the income of UK. That’s one thing. Any increase in anti-immigration rhetoric endangers that.

PG – many have dependents. If we don’t allow dependents, they go to other countries.

Simple.

Obviously as a profit-maximising unit, an individual university is happy to get more marginal revenue for itself and disregard the externalities. Even foreign students are still subsidised by the state through funding other than tuition fees, and by the tax breaks afforded to the sector. Obviously your own point about dependents shows how the education sector is being used and abused as a migration tool – which is totally failing in this country and where the costs are not borne by rhe universities that get the upfront revenue.

It’s hard to claim there is “hostility” against foreign students from the UK government when a third of places in top unis go to foreign students, there is a tier of absolute dogshit HE institutions that really only exist to collect fees and give cover to foreign students’ visa status, and where practically every foreign student gets a 2 year visa to live and work in the UK after graduation. Many of these low end unis are just selling immigration to the UK with extra steps. That’s why the sector grew foreign headcount by more than a third in 3 years!

It’s hard to claim there is “hostility” against foreign students from the UK government when a third of places in top unis go to foreign students,

It can be both.  The people balancing the books / doing admissions are not necessarily the ones being hostile!

there is a tier of absolute dogshit HE institutions that really only exist to collect fees and give cover to foreign students’ visa status,

I think you had too many words!

Hmm, IIRC the highest requirement I was offered was CCD and the lowest DD. I wasn’t aware of anyone of my generation who did more than four A-levels or got 3 straight As (excluding general studies). Grade inflation can’t have made the task of selection any easier for universities.

Emmm…. here’s what I actually said:

(interestingly in Scotland for Scottish students many see the opposite – entry requirements are officially say ABBB (at higher) but demand outstrips supply and so it’s likely that AAABC is what you actually need;

As you will know Scotland has a different system.  The point was that whilst official minimum requirements have dropped, actually getting in was higher.  (By the way I don’t actually buy into what most people mean by grade inflation – you can give people a 30 year old A level paper and they will broadly get similar marks; and you can give someone in their 40’s a modern A level paper in a subject they’ve not studied since (with time to revise) and they will broadly do worse — we’ve learned how to teach better).

That and the fact that xAs dont’t have the same value if earned in a private exam factory as an inner-city comprehensive (or whatever they call them now).

Yes that’s what I was getting at with this:

many AAAAB or better students also get angry they don’t get first choice uni and say it’s because they live in wrong postcode but that’s another story)

Lots of pupils (well to be honest, more parents) are upset that their “very good grades” at Higher (or Advanced Higher) are not perceived by the system as positively as they think they should be.  Its quite difficult to comprehend that your child may not in fact one of the best in the country because of their innate abilities, your excellent genetics or just pure hard graft but because they were lucky.  Lucky that their parents were well educated too.  Lucky that the live in a nice area.  Lucky that they went to a good school.  Lucky that their parents could afford a house to get them into that school, or fees for a better school, or a private tutor.  Lucky that because most people in that school were quite good, the teachers were able to spend more time on them.  The Scottish funding system seems to offer an incentive to Unis to offer places to pupils where weren’t that lucky but did well despite their challenges.  I find it difficult to argue against that – would you rather have the student who got 5A’s with all the support in the world, or the pupil who got AAABC despite the fact they were in care because their parent was incapable of looking after themselves.

The people balancing the books / doing admissions are not necessarily the ones being hostile!

Yeah – which is why I said “It’s hard to claim there is “hostility” against foreign students from the UK government…”

Obviously university admissions offices are totally enraptured by foreign students regardless of what effect this has on the long term risk profile of the uni or wider society.

you can give people a 30 year old A level paper and they will broadly get similar marks; and you can give someone in their 40’s a modern A level paper in a subject they’ve not studied since (with time to revise) and they will broadly do worse — we’ve learned how to teach better).

In one of my specialities, English language teaching, that is absolutely not the case:

https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/young-people-s-english-language-skills-decreasing/7427897.html

Nor is it in maths:

https://www.multiplicationhustle.com/practical-math-skills/

Madame Edukator is still an active teacher who is nearing retirement, both her and her colleagues have observed and accelerating decline in standards/

They’re good at typing with their thumbs though.

Our establishment is very dependent on foreign students, they’re required to make up the shortfall due to increased costs but no increase in fee’s for home students.

Recent changes to immigration law, particularly about people not being able to bring family and dependents over whilst they study has seen a decline in numbers.

Currency and market fluctutations, especially in Nigeria, has seen numbers fall.

All of this was on the radar 2 years ago, but we hadn’t diversified our income streams sufficiently. That and we’ve taken out huge loans for large building projects against a back-drop of falling income has meant we now need to lose about 20% of our staff. We are strarting with a Voluntary Severance Scheme, which means most of the 60+ staff will take and take early retirement. If that doesn’t hit the numbers we will have a re-strucutre, and potential compulsory redundancy.

The organisation needs a proper re-strucutre, there’s too much fat in the system, and too many people off sick with a bad shave or broken kettle for far too long.

As a slight aside- Uni’s are in financial trouble? Drive into any large city in the UK and have a look at the number of construction cranes and sites. The vast majority are building student accommodation, funded by the universities, as they’ve realised there is gold in them there hills. Kids don’t want to stay in those crappy old student houses anymore and are often opting for the bright and shiny accommodation blocks springing up.

. The point was that whilst official minimum requirements have dropped, actually getting in was higher.  (By the way I don’t actually buy into what most people mean by grade inflation – you can give people a 30 year old A level paper and they will broadly get similar marks; and you can give someone in their 40’s a modern A level paper in a subject they’ve not studied since (with time to revise) and they will broadly do worse — we’ve learned how to teach better).

My Mum went to Cambridge with ACE

I went with AAA (the highest possible grades at the time, and were a fairly useless metric, hence the need for entrance exams), many of my peers who had gone to private schools had AAAA.

These days its likely A*A*AA.

Are people cleverer/dumber? Impossible to tell from that.

Are the exams easier/harder? Impossible to tell from that, but you can look and compare the papers and syllabus.

Is this grade inflation? yes.

My thought – now that 16-18 education is for everyone (not necessarily A levels, vocational courses and apprenticeships available), rather than only the academically able; the lowest grade (is it still an E?) needs to be attainable for the people who don’t want to be there, have little grasp of the subject, put in no effort, or all three.

There is a fair amount of panic out there. Many Institutions are making unconditional offers (they shouldn’t be doing) or really lowering the points just to get the students in. One of the other big issues is retention – record numbers are dropping out after Year 1 or 2 of UG degrees – we’ve certainly seen the effect on people’s education from the mess during covid – lots more support, more mental health issues.

I worked in a college, not university so was fully involved with the application process. Yes, many universities specify entry requirements but they dont usually adhere to them. In recent years there has been a huge increase in unconditional offers instead of conditional (to meet the entry requirements).

Also in recent years I cant recal a signle student not get their first choice. Some without an interview. When before fees went up the students would often not get theit first choice even though they had better grades.

In one of my specialities, English language teaching, that is absolutely not the case:

https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/young-people-s-english-language-skills-decreasing/7427897.html

Eh, the UK is not in that study (presumably as its about English as a second language), but I don’t see how anything there is evidence of grade inflation in the UK…

Nor is it in maths:

https://www.multiplicationhustle.com/practical-math-skills/

Madame Edukator is still an active teacher who is nearing retirement, both her and her colleagues have observed and accelerating decline in standards/

I’m always a bit cynical when any “oldy” is saying “its not like it used to be” as there are the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia.  I’ll certainly agree though that if you want mental arithmetic skills, or potentially even logical common sense maths skills then todays generation may be worse at them – but they are never what an A-level maths tested.  That’s not grade inflation – grade inflation would be making the test easier / marking scheme more generous or the repeated application of distribution curves that nudge whats OK every time.  I don’t see any real sign of that.  I do see signs of better teaching – where understanding rather than wrote learning are favoured, and probably a lot more thought on how to maximise teaching (and student answers) to get the best mark.

They’re good at typing with their thumbs though.

And probably far better with a calculator than their grandparents, and also much more likely to be able to use excel to do lots of repetitive maths or plot a graph.  None of them can even work a quill though.

People were never going to pay for a degree they couldn’t pass.

Plenty pay for a gym membership they never use. Unis provide the tools (the gym equipment, if you like) to help you master a subject, but if you don’t put in the effort then don’t expect useful results.

I chose those links because they are general and international, Poly, and about ability.

If I’d wanted to have a go about grade inflation which most observers take for a given I’d have typed “first and 2:1 grade inflation” into Googles and got reuslts such as this:

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2019/08/the-great-university-con-how-the-british-degree-lost-its-value

The teaching isn’t any better, it’s objectively worse, less contact time and less lab time. My Niece had 6 hours a week in history in York. In the 80s even in European studies students got 15-20h

It’s a worldwide phenomenon more passes and much higher grades. I’ve spent time in schools for the last 59 years and not a fat lot has changed. I can look at the stuff Madame Edukator is marking and it’s pretty much the same as was being produced 50 years ago, except the handwriting and spelling is worse.