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Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

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Re: Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

#111

Post by throwaway32120 »

sago wrote: post #84
Traster wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of a New Statesmen article about UK universities[1], which point out university attendance has gone up 500% since 1990 and First class honours went from being awarded to 7% to being awarded to 29% of students. Either universities figured out a way of being 4x as effective teaching 5x as many students (with measurements for average intake attainment basically flat) - which would be a miracle. Or the ma…

Universities should not be responsible for both education and assessment. All of this disappears in a moment if those two are separate. But universities would resist that kicking and screaming to high heaven. Because it would not only undermine their 'great institution' claims, but educational routes that aren't universities would trump them (in terms of cost for attainment) in very short order.

Very much this. Removing the monopoly universities have on the (fairly questionable) credentials used for employment would go along way toward solving many of these issues. Most of the discussion about the problem with universities seem to dance around the core problem.

Re: Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

#112

Post by CalRobert »

wickerman wrote: post #31
neumann wrote: post #13

I work at a University in Australia and have been on both sides of academic and professional. This unravelling was on the horizon for everybody, maybe not so soon, but definitely in the viewport. In an effort to drive up income streams there has been a slow erosion of Australian education (more at some universities than others) to cater for the international (Chinese and Indian predominantly) market. There are all so…

In Dublin, where the housing crisis is supported by an overabundance of "student accommodation" and airbnb rentals, the housing crisis disappeared overnight because of this virus. A friend of mine said she found a small apartment for two in Dublin 5 for 800 euro a month. Unbelievable.

I study the Irish housing market, and if you're curious, I did a little analysis of this at https://www.reddit.com/r/Dublin/comments/ftjhuk/comparison_o... and https://www.gaffologist.com/flats.png

Honestly I think airbnb and student housing are scapegoats to an extent, where the bigger problem is a council that tends to oppose new housing they don't control (aka stuff that isn't council flats, which most people don't qualify for), and the political imperative to keep housing expensive means keeping it scarce. Height restrictions in the absolute middle of the city are bizarre, and it's kind of shocking that we still have low-ish density suburban semi-d's next to Grafton Street.

https://goo.gl/maps/MzB5DfXpqCZp9V5V6

Edit: If I may risk a small plug - I was displeased with the UI of Irish housing sites and made www.gaffologist.com to address this.

Re: Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

#113

Post by znpy »

amiga_500 wrote: post #103
red_admiral wrote: post #96

Good article, but I want to clarify a point since it could leave the impression that it's universities themselves driving this growth race. In the UK at least, we used to have a model where universities were funded by the government (through tax, of course) but the government also set hard limits on how many students you could enrol, with penalties for going over. The current model which Tony Blair in effect started…

How did we used to do this in the 1970s where the state paid for it all? We now live in a world where you don't need a secretary, because you can type up documents yourself, you can instantly send written communication via email. You can publish agendas, and other campus wide information instantly on a website. You can automate. You can distribute notes to your students for free instead of endless photocopies. Why gi…

> We now live in a world where you don't need a secretary, because you can type up documents yourself

Probably because some other kind of unnecessary positions have been created

Re: Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

#114

Post by thawaway1837 »

non-entity wrote: post #94
aschatten wrote: post #30

Not just foreign. In the US even many university prefed out of state students, but will never admit to it.

My opinion on university education has flip flopped overtime with me leading toward it being a massive scam at the moment, but this time for reasons like what you mention. Case in point: I found the perfect program for me: online CS bachelors, from a respected state school, very affordable. However, I cant even be considered a resident of the state I live and work in for several years and would be forced to pay out o…

So you will be paying what foreign students always do, without access to cheap loans, or scholarships, the majority of which are restricted to citizens. And they don’t even have a guarantee that they will be allowed to work afterwards even if there is a company who wants to give them a job.

Re: Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

#115

Post by red_admiral »

foldr wrote: post #81
fastball wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't require any more time, it's happening already. UK universities charge non-Europeans more than double the tuition they charge Europeans. The foreign nationals are subsidizing the education of Brits, not the other way around.

OP is talking about schools, not universities.

Where independent schools are leading the way, universities are following.

There was an ongoing political debate on some of the news sites before everything got taken over by coronavirus: independent schools have charity status (which includes exemption from business rates tax that goes back to the local area) because historically they were indeed typical examples of charities. For example:

> "Eton College was founded by King Henry VI as a charity school to provide free education to 70 poor boys who would then go on to King's College, Cambridge, founded by the same King in 1441." (Wikipedia)

The debate was whether a school that mainly serves and lives off rich foreigners should still enjoy the benefits of charity status - public opinion seemed to be moving in the direction of "tax it like any other business".

And people were, very cautiously, starting to ask the same of universities. Meanwhile in faculty meetings, I've heard this from many different places, it's an unspoken rule that you don't refer to home students as "second class students" or anything like that but management is finding increasingly creative ways to paraphrase that. Things like "pivot to high-margin students".

Re: Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

#117

Post by legolas2412 »

beojan wrote: post #34
smt88 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same attitude as you, but many of the wealthy, Chinese-raised students at my local (prestigious, private) university can't speak basic English. The school then has to choose to either fail the student or ignore their cheating. With a $250k incentive to choose the former, that's what they choose.

> The school then has to choose to either fail the student or ignore their cheating. With a $250k incentive to choose the former, that's what they choose. Isn't the former exactly what they should be choosing?

I guess they meant "latter"

Re: Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

#118

Post by amiga_500 »

killjoywashere wrote: post #105
amiga_500 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did we used to do this in the 1970s where the state paid for it all? We now live in a world where you don't need a secretary, because you can type up documents yourself, you can instantly send written communication via email. You can publish agendas, and other campus wide information instantly on a website. You can automate. You can distribute notes to your students for free instead of endless photocopies. Why gi…

> we can't seem to do anything any more? I disagree. We do some amazing shit. Elon Musk runs circles around ULA. My own research, as a far smaller example, has scaled up nicely despite the fact that in the old model it should be virtually impossible to do any research in the career track I'm in. Tech doesn't help people who are bored (boring?). But it is like hydrazine for people who need to get serious shit done on…

But the core functions of society are no longer working.

Universities provided education that pushed society forward for centuries. In just 30 years of applying growth obsessed capitalism, that has stopped working.

Tech isn't my complaint. Tech helps, yet despite this huge boost, we are going backwards.

Re: Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

#119

Post by KoftaBob »

amiga_500 wrote: post #103
red_admiral wrote: post #96

Good article, but I want to clarify a point since it could leave the impression that it's universities themselves driving this growth race. In the UK at least, we used to have a model where universities were funded by the government (through tax, of course) but the government also set hard limits on how many students you could enrol, with penalties for going over. The current model which Tony Blair in effect started…

How did we used to do this in the 1970s where the state paid for it all? We now live in a world where you don't need a secretary, because you can type up documents yourself, you can instantly send written communication via email. You can publish agendas, and other campus wide information instantly on a website. You can automate. You can distribute notes to your students for free instead of endless photocopies. Why gi…

Because the thing that tech hasn’t solved yet is misaligned incentives. No amount of advanced technology will counteract an organization or industry thats incentivized to be inefficient.

Especially in the case of universities which are largely “non profit”, as are the majority of hospitals. Without shareholders to push for increased efficiency and price competition, the leadership has little reason to care about that.

It should be no surprise that as a result, college education and healthcare are two of the biggest expenses Americans deal with. Misaligned incentives.

Re: Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

#120

Post by red_admiral »

amiga_500 wrote: post #103
red_admiral wrote: post #96

Good article, but I want to clarify a point since it could leave the impression that it's universities themselves driving this growth race. In the UK at least, we used to have a model where universities were funded by the government (through tax, of course) but the government also set hard limits on how many students you could enrol, with penalties for going over. The current model which Tony Blair in effect started…

How did we used to do this in the 1970s where the state paid for it all? We now live in a world where you don't need a secretary, because you can type up documents yourself, you can instantly send written communication via email. You can publish agendas, and other campus wide information instantly on a website. You can automate. You can distribute notes to your students for free instead of endless photocopies. Why gi…

Ironically at universities in the UK we seem to have more "professional services" staff than ever.

Part of what they do is really valuable: customer services helpdesk/helpline for students for example, every question they answer is one that doesn't end up taking academics' time.

But then there's also all the "quality control" where you really wonder how we ever managed to run a degree without every decision going through at least three different committees. And you need someone to sit on these committees, because academics will avoid them whenever they can :)

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