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In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

theguardian.com

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Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#161

Post by iguy »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #137
collyw wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universities used to be elitist in that only the smartest got in.

I believe historically universities were elitist in that only the richest were meant to ever attend them, not the smartest...

Well, a bit of both. For centuries they've been some mixture of upper-class finishing school, and a place for the very brightest of the next generation to concentrated. Using the rich kids to fund the scholars (and using some of the scholar's prestige to attract the rich) was on average quite a productive symbiosis.

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#163

Post by smt88 »

c12 wrote: post #140
sergiosgc wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes no sense. It seems to me it is an elitist view that when you provide a service to the unwashed masses, it must be of lower quality. I believe it is false. Curricula don't have to be easier if you have a large student body, and graduation requirements don't have to be lower. Taking in more students does not inhibit service quality, up to the capacity of the school, which can be easily scaled by hiring more…

At the university I studied at it was well known that their policy was opening up campuses in Africa and China so to entice international students to the campus in England. This was for the sole reason of increasing cash flow and I know several of the Chinese students that I did my Masters with were paying more than ten times what I was for the same course which both myself and our lecturers were ashamed of. It may n…

This is rampant in the US as well. Many of the students cheated to get in, sometimes with the umiversity's knowledge, and weren't fluent enough in English to participate in class.

There are lots of companies writing essays and otherwise facilitating the admissions cheating, and several major universities were caught a few years ago (I believe Duke was one).

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#164

Post by patricius »

senorjazz wrote: post #152
patricius wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if we can redefine free to mean "I will let someone else pay for it" or "I will pay for it at some later date", then sure...

Why are you being facetious? You know very well what they mean and what is meant by "free education". If someone says to you "I am giving this to you for free" do you then then argue "it is not free, someone had to pay for it" :-\

Because when someone writes "the state pays your tuition", it hides the fact that people pay your tuition. Or, depending on your view, you yourself will pay for your tuition through taxes. A lot of people forget, when making a statement like that, what is called free is not in fact free.

And when you give something away, we presume that it is not something you have stolen. But the money spent at the point of consumption (i.e., when studying) is forcibly taken from people.

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#165

Post by Dayshine »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #72
Shivetya wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a bit confused by the last statement. It can take a lot of man power to support the academics at any university. Now this is not to say that there isn't a lot of staff padding going on. From supporting the physical site of the university which can be across multiple campuses to managing the life and well being of the students. Then top it off with administrative people and their support staffs the numbers can ad…

Not parent but, your statement doesn't explain why the ratio of academics to administrators should have fallen, do academics now need more administrators than they did. Are the newly employed non-academics really serving the research aims, or are they meeting the schooling requirements?

I'm a web developer leading a team of four working on a research project that has no full-time academics and 3/4 part time academics. They will have several projects such as this.

There are another 6 full time members of administrative staff running this project. So our ratio is close to 4:1 I suspect. Research can require a lot of manpower...

Our funding does not come from tuition, but research grants and similar.

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#166

Post by iguy »

pjc50 wrote: post #74
eptcyka wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the high paying customers won't be put off by whatever immigration policy the current government will put in place. It's mostly EU students who will look elsewhere.

It's not a question of being "put off" if you're denied entry or deported (wrongly or otherwise) by the Home Office.

It's also a bit of an open question how many universities were effectively selling visas. Clearly anyone with a place at Oxford could find another way to immigrate if they wished. But one wonders how many fee-paying applicants to bottom-tier places were really paying for their basket-weaving lectures.

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#167

Post by padthai »

icc97 wrote: post #93

This compounds some major long-term problems for education in the UK. 1. Their school systems are the most elitist/unequal in Europe [0] (from this TED talk [1]). There are many things I love about the UK but I can never go back as the school I send my child to now for free would cost £4000-6000 per year of post-tax income in the UK. 2. Because of underpaying teachers (In comparison to Belgium the mid-level art teach…

I always wondered if non-EU students are going to keep coming in the long term too. Only Chinese for example, there are 60k undergrads coming every year. That should be about $1.2B/yr for three years only in tuition fees.

It is not that much money at the end of the day but it has to be important because universities are building campus overseas to capture all those students.

And at some point Indian, Chinese, etc. universities will become more attractive and that money flow will stop too.

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#168

Post by jdietrich »

sergiosgc wrote: post #77
gaius wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of universities seems to have shifted from providing academic research and learning to simply being another stage of school There’s no “seems” about it, 50% of school leavers going to university was an explicit policy goal. There’s no way to reconcile an institution of higher learning with one that has to accept anyone that applies

That makes no sense. It seems to me it is an elitist view that when you provide a service to the unwashed masses, it must be of lower quality. I believe it is false. Curricula don't have to be easier if you have a large student body, and graduation requirements don't have to be lower. Taking in more students does not inhibit service quality, up to the capacity of the school, which can be easily scaled by hiring more…

>It seems to me it is an elitist view that when you provide a service to the unwashed masses, it must be of lower quality.

That's exactly what happened, and it pre-dates the Labour government's goal of 50% participation.

The Further and Higher Education Act 1992 allowed polytechnics and colleges of further education to become universities. Many of these institutions had little or no research output and had previously been dedicated to vocational instruction.

There was an immediate and lasting change in how universities operated. Many of these post-1992 universities had extremely lax entrance criteria, in some cases tantamount to an open-door policy. There was a proliferation of degree courses that were obviously vocational and obviously far less demanding than a traditional degree - Sports Science, Hospitality Management, Fashion and Textiles etc.

There was another drop in standards with the introduction of tuition fees. Before 1998, university teaching was funded primarily through government grants, with students paying nothing. The Labour government introduced fees of £1,000 per year, which were increased to £3,000 in 2004 and to £9,000 by the Conservative government in 2010.

These higher fees were ostensibly a maximum, with the intention that universities could compete on price. The structure of the student loan system meant that there was little practical difference for students if they were paying lower fees, so all universities charged the £9,000 maximum. This fundamentally changed the character of British universities, shifting them away from the European social model and towards the American market model.

Less selective universities started to aggressively advertise to lower-performing school leavers, because there was no cap on student numbers and their income was directly tied to putting bums on seats. Universities had a strong incentive to promote humanities subjects over science subjects, because the former are much cheaper to teach. International students have become a hot commodity, because they pay higher fees than domestic students; many universities now offer fast-track schemes for international students, with lower entry requirements than for domestic students.

This move towards a market-led university system has driven a huge increase in pay for senior management and a huge increase in the use of casual and part-time lecturers. As in the US, we're now seeing managers earning salaries in the high six figures, while peripatetic lecturers are struggling to earn a living wage. There was a huge wave of strikes at the start of this year over cuts to university staff pensions, followed by collective legal action from students demanding compensation for missed lectures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_universities_(United_Kingd...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_tuition_fees_in_th...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/08/06/universitie...

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#169

Post by iguy »

wastedhours wrote: post #114
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not parent but, your statement doesn't explain why the ratio of academics to administrators should have fallen, do academics now need more administrators than they did. Are the newly employed non-academics really serving the research aims, or are they meeting the schooling requirements?

Part of it is that, yes, the non-academic staff help with the mountain of non-academic work lecturers would otherwise have. I used to work in a support role at a university, and although many of the roles will inevitably be automated away, you'd be amazed at how much administration a student on a course requires (from room bookings for lectures, enrolment information, pastoral support, cleaning, cooking, supporting w…

While the things you say certainly need doing, somehow they were all done in the past with vastly smaller non-academic staff. Say 50 years ago. What's changed?

Obviously IT is one thing, but this doesn't seem huge. Or maybe, it's not obvious why it need be a lot bigger than everyone having gmail.

"assisting with research proposals" is certainly new. But is it big?

How much falls under "pastoral support"?

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#170

Post by plesn »

patricius wrote: post #45
remedan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? I live in the west (continental Europe) and you can attend a good university for free here. The state pays your tuition.

I know this is a trite comment, but no, you still pay through taxes. The state has no money. I too live in a country with tax-financed universities.

free doesn't imply that the service/product has no costs, only that your transaction has no costs. Google is also free but it has costs (mostly paid by ads which are then included in products costs).
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