Work

That problem with part-time working has reared its ugly head again.

Research by the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) in June found 55% of students are now doing paid work, compared with a total of 45% of them a year previously.

I know that 90% of my students work as I did a straw poll for all of them.

Is it good to have students distracted by work when they are learning? Some might say they need to to pay for daily living, with rent being a big portion of what they must pay for.

However, it does detract from them being able to to spend time reading around the subject/topic they need to do each week.

Tax, Not Debt

I thought this was important to post at the start of the new academic year.

The amount you borrow is mostly irrelevant day to day – it works more like a tax.

This bit is really important to understand, as frankly it turns the way you think about student loans on its head. So take your time.

What you repay each month after university depends solely on what you earn. It’s set at 9% of everything earned above £25,000. To emphasise this point, for a graduate who earns, for the sake of easy numbers, £35,000…

– Owe £20,000 and you repay £900 a year.
– Owe £50,000 and you repay £900 a year.
– In fact, let’s be ridiculous and say tuition fees have been upped to £1m a year, so you owe £3m+, you still ONLY repay £900 a year.

So as you can see, what you owe DOESN’T impact what you repay each month or each year. The only difference it makes is whether you’ll clear the borrowing within the 40 years before it wipes.

It’s predicted that 52% on the new loan system will clear their debt in full within 40 years, and 48% will be paying off their loan for the full 40 years. So unless you’re likely to be a mid to high earner AND/OR don’t take the full loan AND/OR are lucky enough to have access to large amounts of spare cash, just ignore the amount you ‘owe’.

Instead, in practice what happens is you effectively pay an extra 9% tax on your income (not including national insurance) for 40 years. At current rates, it works like this:

Earnings	Uni goers	Non-uni goers
Up to £12,570	No tax	No tax
From £12,571 to £25,000	20%	20%
From £25,001 to £50,270	29%	20%
From £50,271 to £125,140	49%	40%
£125,141+	54%	45%

This doesn’t make it cheap, far from it, but it does mean that all the talk of burdening students with debt may feel misleading. Instead, we’re burdening graduates with something closer to a 9% extra tax – frankly it shouldn’t be called a debt, it really doesn’t work like one (I argue it should be renamed a graduate contribution system).

Another way to look at it though is the more you earn, the more you repay each month. So, financially at least, this is a ‘no win, no fee’ education.

If you want to read more about it to calm nerves before going to university, head to https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2023/09/martin-lewis–five-things-all-new-english-university-starters-sh/

Working Students

The Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) has released a study on student working/jobs. In it they state that 55% of students are now doing paid work, compared with a total of 45% of them 12 months ago.

This seems a little under representative of where working students are to be found.

They have not included the type of institution these students belong to, nor where in the country they are to be found. These things might change the complexion of the study as a straw poll of my students has shown more than 88% of them work, some or all of the time during the semester.

A Working Life

A Lecturers Life | Life and Times of Higher Education…..

I began to wonder last week how many of you experience the problem of half empty classrooms. It is something I have experienced a lot this year.

What prompted me to think about this was an article I read about students prioritising work over university.

Of course, this phenomenon is not something that is new, students are not the best at getting up in the morning as we all know. However, there is now a different way students see their time at university.

In the past, it was an extension of schooling and so was taken more at a walking pace and seen as part social expansion of horizons.

If students were not in class, then they were likely down the Students Union or chilling out with friends. This seems to have changed with the introduction of course fees.

Even though students do not pay back their loans until after university when they are hopefully in well paying employment, their mind-set has changed.

Now students want their university life to be full of ‘experiences’, which obviously cost money.  They also do not want to live a meagre life while studying when others their age, not in university, are spending on said ‘experiences’.

In my day a tin of baked beans on toast or an entire packet of custard creams was my main meal of the day, as I could not afford anything else.

Yes, I did work as well, but only weekends so I could go to classes and complete my degree by giving myself the time needed to really delve into the subjects I was learning. I suppose you could say I was deprived in some way. However, getting an education is a sacrifice of sorts as you cannot take a full time job while doing it. 

Perhaps I did miss out on the ‘experience’ to some extent, but one has to ask if that is all it is cracked up to be.

While some students have made other decisions prior to attending university, such as having a family, which causes expenses to rise considerably, most do not.

Of course, I empathise with current costs, and the so called human rights issues of ‘technological/experience deprivation’, but in times of need one must cut that back to the bone.

I have had many periods of unemployment during my ‘career’ and during times of high inflation. There were times when I had to prioritise eating or paying for gas and electric. In those times, I went without ‘pleasures’ to get through it. And to be clear, that meant selling my things in order to survive.

In a roundabout way, I wonder if some of this is down to a belief that we have a ‘right’ to be able to do whatever we want, when we want to, even if we do not have the money to do so?

I did take a private poll of my students recently and they all said that they wanted to have money to spend and a conflict with university was no conflict at all – getting and spending money was their priority. When pressed, they argued having a mobile phone, streaming subscription and going out with friends was a human right “these days”. They did not agree that they should forego these things during ‘hard times’.

The Rot

Higher education in the United Kingdom has long been considered some of the best in the world. However, recent years have seen a growing number of issues and problems plaguing the UK university system. However, there are some pressing problems facing higher education in the UK.

Funding cuts and rising tuition fees: One of the biggest problems facing UK universities is a lack of funding. The UK government has been cutting funding to higher education for several years now, leading to rising tuition fees for students. This has made higher education increasingly unaffordable for many young people, especially those from low-income families.

Overcrowded and under-resourced universities: As funding cuts have reduced the amount of money available to universities, many have become overcrowded and under-resourced. Students are facing larger class sizes, fewer opportunities for one-on-one time with instructors, and a lack of basic resources such as books and lab equipment. This can lead to a lower quality of education for students.

Mental health concerns: Another major issue facing UK universities is the growing concern about mental health among students. The stress of university life, combined with the high cost of tuition and the pressure to succeed, is leading to a growing number of students experiencing mental health problems. Many universities are struggling to keep up with the demand for mental health services, leading to longer wait times and limited access to care.

Declining international student numbers: International students play a critical role in the UK higher education system, bringing in much-needed revenue and adding to the diversity of the student body. However, recent years have seen a decline in the number of international students choosing to study in the UK, due in part to the rising cost of tuition and the negative perception of the UK in the wake of Brexit.

As such, the UK higher education system is facing a number of serious challenges. From funding cuts and rising tuition fees, to overcrowded and under-resourced universities, to declining international student numbers, these issues are having a real impact on the quality of education and the experiences of students in the UK. It is critical that these problems be addressed in a meaningful way if the UK is to maintain its position as a leader in higher education.

The University is Dead

Given the changes in the UK university industry in the last year, this article seems pertinent to that experience.

https://www.plutobooks.com/blog/dead-teacher-working/

As we start 2023, there are ongoing moves to reduce the academic content of learning and increase the contact hours of staff. This will have two outcomes. (1) students will be treated like pupils at school, being kept in a classroom for more consecutive hours per class – 3 per module at last count – as if that actually increases their knowledge absorption. (2) staff will no longer have time for research or knowledge creation as their workload increases to cover increased classroom hours, plus fewer staff will need to cover more modules.

It would seem that this is to be the future of HE, as a business, not a learning environment.

The future is bleak.

University of Roehampton pushing ahead with mass fire & rehire in arts and the humanities

The University of Roehampton has confirmed it will fire and rehire over 100 staff next month as part of its plan to shut down a number of courses, the majority of which are in the arts and humanities, UCU said today.

Management told UCU the university is going ahead with plans to fire and rehire half its academic workforce, at a meeting on Wednesday (20 July). In May the university had said there could be up to 226 jobs lost but only envisaged around 65 (64-66) staff would be made permanently redundant. It opened up a voluntary redundancy scheme with an enhanced redundancy pay offer, receiving well over the 65 applications needed to meet management’s arbitrary financial targets. Yet the university is still intent on firing a total of 226 staff and forcing those who want to stay to reapply for fewer jobs.

Many of the new roles appear almost identical to the ones being lost. But in meetings with UCU the university said staff need to reapply and that the new jobs will be focused around generating income for the university, course development and employability.

Management has admitted to UCU it is also possible that staff who applied but were not accepted for voluntary redundancy will be sacked without any enhanced pay off. There is also a strong risk the cuts mean there will not be enough staff to teach students come September.

The university is legally required to consult on cuts of this size with UCU, however to get an enhanced pay out staff had to agree to take redundancy before the consultation had closed. UCU said this pressured staff into taking voluntary redundancy. UCU warned Roehampton that it is leaving itself open to legal action as getting staff to agree to leave during the consultancy period in effect means the university was pushing through the cuts during the period is was obliged to consult on them.

The cuts mean subjects including classics, anthropology, creative writing and photography will no longer be taught at Roehampton. The university claims the cuts will allow it to focus more on ‘skills led’ learning with ‘greater levels of engagement with employers’. Roehampton already meets government metrics on employment but there have been a number of interventions nationally from the Westminster government, which says universities should focus on preparing students for the job market and move away from what it describes as ‘low value’ courses. Roehampton markets itself as ‘the best modern university in the country for research, and the highest-ranked modern university in London and the courses being cut are highly regarded. For example, Roehampton says classics ‘is ranked top in London and 5th in the UK’.

Roehampton takes a higher proportion of black and working class students than many other universities – with over 97% coming from state schools, these groups are traditionally underrepresented in higher education. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has ranked it as one of the 25 top universities for social mobility. Students and staff have staged a number of demonstrations over the cuts.

UCU said the cuts will restrict access to the arts and humanities subjects, making the subjects a preserve of those from wealthier backgrounds.

The University of Wolverhampton and the University of Huddersfield have also recently announced major cuts to arts and humanities.

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: ‘Unsatisfied with cutting dozens of jobs and forcing staff to leave, management at Roehampton are now threatening more of their workforce with redundancy. This is devastating for teaching and learning, particularly in the arts and humanities, and may well leave the university without enough staff to teach students when they return in September.

‘The university has embarked upon a sham of a consultation, pretending it is listening to the concerns of staff whilst simultaneously asking them to sign redundancy agreements. It is deplorable behaviour and our union is now considering a legal challenge.’

What else is there to say. Roehampton is the P&O of the education world.

Welcome to your future. If you have not experienced it yet, you soon will be as all the money has been spent of management salaries and vanity projects. Shame.

Work Truism

I do not normally repost these sorts of things, but given the recent events in the HE sector it seems appropriate:
—————————————————————————————————————–

This comes from 2 math teachers with a combined total of 70 yrs. experience.

It has an indisputable mathematical logic.

This is a strictly ….. mathematical viewpoint… and it goes like this:

What Makes 100% ?

What does it mean to give MORE than 100%?

Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%.

How about achieving 103%?

What makes up 100% in life?

Here’s a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions:

If:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Is represented as:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

Then:

H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K

8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%

And

K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E

11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

But ,

A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E

1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

And,

B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T

2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%

AND, look how far ass-kissing will take you.

A-S-S-K-I-S-S-I-N-G

1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118%

So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty, that while Hard work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, it’s the Bullshit and Ass-Kissing that will put you over the top.

Inflation

That old perennial is back – grade inflation – to haunt us. The UK Office for Students (OfS) has released a report on degree classifications.

In ten years first have been awarded to more and more students; about 36% of students were awarded the top grade in 2019-20 and 38% in 2020-21, but in 2010-11, it was just under 16%.

Far be it for me to suggest that this is unwarranted, but having taught for all of that period in HE, I can support their assertion that firsts have been awarded without merit in plenty of cases. When moderating or second marking I have been stunned by the poor work that some of my colleagues will award a first for. I have even seen it in my external examining, where I have felt the need have a private word to avoid embarrassment.

What is not mentioned here is that there is actually more pressure from university administration to beef up those who pass and gain any sort of degree. That is right, there is a policy of ‘no student left behind’, even if that means passing work that would make an A level student cringe.

Naturally, if you have bolstered your bottom end with grades that are not merited, you feel inclined to move everyone else up the scale to maintain the perceived distance between abilities. This will create more firsts overall because the grade boundary for a first is 70. However, just like at the bottom, you are giving higher grades to work that does not merit it, just to keep perspective on the standard deviation.

I for one would be happy to consider 80 the new floor for a first. This is closer to what it should be if you are suggesting a piece of work is practically publishable with minimal extra work. As long as this goes hand-in-hand with agreed criteria, it gives room at the bottom to let even the weakest student gain a degree of some sort. Not that I am suggesting a dumbing down of degrees if we give thirds to students who do not deserve them.

However, if we have the need to give everyone a certificate for taking part – as seems the norm today – then we need to preserve the integrity of the degree as a means to differentiate between abilities. The day will come when even your refuse collector has a ‘degree’ and why would they want to collect your waste if they have a degree?

Privatisation has a lot to answer for if you think about it. The adage ‘he who pays the piper, calls the tune’, rings far truer for HE than it might elsewhere. You ask your students if they would be happy to fail miserably and not get a degree after three years of trying hard, and I can assure you they will point out that they are paying for one, so expect to get one. Do not believe me? Go on, ask them.

Mental Health

I thought I might write a long story about  this topic here, but it seemed more logical to point you towards a new report that reveals a widespread workload and mental health crisis in universities should ‘shame every single vice chancellor in the UK’.

Read it and weep.