

Britain's Bankrupt Universities Are Hunting For Cheaper Models (economist.com) 43
British universities face mounting financial pressures with four in ten institutions running deficits, according to the Office for Students regulator. Half have closed courses to save money, while Durham and Newcastle each shed 200 staff members. Lancaster's cost-saving plan could eliminate one in five academic positions. The crisis, writes Economist, stems from frozen tuition fees for English students, which will rise by only a few percent in August for the first time in eight years.
Cheaper models? (Score:3)
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Page three.
Is that where we find the naked campus “administrators” tenured by the dozen? ‘Cause I have an idea as to why costs are so pointlessly high..
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In California, the number of administrative staff at state-funded colleges has tripled since 1980.
Some of the increase, but not all, is due to unfunded federal mandates.
Economist's analysis is a bit trite (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a friend who worked for Jo Johnson (ex higher ed minister under the Tories) and who was an exuberant backer of tuition fees and student loans. I pointed out to him that the administrative costs and profits of the loans model, plus the timeshifting effects of costs being incurred by unis immediately but revenues taking years to generate, inevitably meant that the system would come under immense financial strain, all for the nominal moral principle of introducing a user-pays element that was clearly done to satisfy nasty old cunts who never went to uni themselves and resented paying into a general taxation pot for anyone else to go. He insisted that the model was sound, and made clear that he thought the Scandi model of just funding three years of tertiary education via general taxation the same way the previous 13 years of education is funded was totally ridiculous.
Well, I was right, and he was wrong, despite his giant brain. This has been a cluster of massive proportions, and proves that once you break certain types of thing, it's an enormous pain to fix them. And New Labour and the Tories absolutely broke higher ed, and I won't forgive them for that. My son's at Durham, and in common with almost every other British uni, he had virtually no teaching at all in his third term. It's a fucking joke.
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What the fuck are you talking about? Who says I fell or voted for any of this? I certainly didn't, so how about you take your twattery and shove it up your arse, you delusional prick. I don't own higher education policy, and I literally have related a story to you in which I tried to persuade someone who was actually in a position to influence policy to change his mind, which is pretty fucking active for a member of joe public, and a damn sight more than you've ever done, I'll warrant
Re: Economist's analysis is a bit trite (Score:1)
I rarely post. But Shelley, you are right on the money. Moving to pay for education has killed our once elite universities. Unless of course you have a spare silver spoon and go to oxbridge. You summed up the situation well and the AC above can do one.
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Virtually no teaching = a single lecture and a couple of seminars in the third term, plus a single exam.
Re: Economist's analysis is a bit trite (Score:2)
More admin staff vs instructors = financial crisis (Score:4, Informative)
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Once administration is put in control the first thing they always do is expand the administration department.
Ontario, Canada, has the same issue (Score:4, Insightful)
If that's not the path you want to take, maybe get rid of the pointless "extras", for instance why did my university have multiple decorative atriums? Why did the school have expensive art work, and art installations? Perhaps cutting back on the frill, would help, I never used any of the "atriums", as a "hangout", which is how they were sold to the students, and every year there seemed to be some new gimmick.
Should we talk about the grotesque waste in software licenses? Every computer had Windows, and Office, why? Now, if those were free, fine, but were they? I don't know what bulk pricing at that scale might be, but I doubt it was on par with Fedora and LibreOffice. I understand that some specialized software, like AutoCAD, needs Windows, but the vast majority can go free. Even specialized software like MATLAB, just use Octave, and down the stack you go. I took Engineering, the list of software they wanted me to use that was closed source junk, a kilometre long, the number of titles I replaced with Open Source, almost all of them, I think, from memory, there were only two programs I couldn't swap.
Should we talk about Student Services? I know some services are required, but Native Service, Black Service, Gay Service, Lesbian Service, Pride Service, Better not be White Service, X Service, could we not reduce those into one or two, and group them under Accessibility? I worked in the Accessibility office one summer, I got dismissed, why? I completed summer worth of work in 2-day. 12-weeks of work, in 2-days, ya, they weren't busy.
Maybe, we could stop supplementing the yearly budget using immigration? In Ontario, Canada, they cut the number of international students, and now schools are going broke. What did you think was going to happen? Part of the model relied on robbing internation students, to fund all the frill and nonsense, that wasn't core education? Lets go with a combination of all of these, and more, and focus on education, and maybe then, we don't need mass layoffs.
Staff (Score:2)
The large university near me has a 10-1 staff to faculty ratio. Not administrators, or academic staff. Janitors, groundskeepers, support, librarians, maintenance workers, aides to the higher-ups, etc.. This seems a bit excessive.
Fun story. I have friends who work for a smaller, though still quite big, local university. When a new president came on board, his wife was dismayed that he only had one personal aide and a secretary, and she didn't get one (at the larger university, the president has something li
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After ~5 weeks, I got pissed off, and walked to the office of the assistant dean, the second or third person in charge. I didn't schedule an appointment, I didn't email anyone, I just walk
Re:Ontario, Canada, has the same issue (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of your post is repeating false propaganda. While classes like "The Music of Taylor Swift" etc do exist, they are the equivalent of the inter mural sports program - they cost very little money, have small classes, and are add-ons that attract attention and students rather than loss leaders. What you call the 'side programs' do wonders to educate the students again at low cost. They do not cost the university money.
The STEM classes are the expensive ones that many people join and then quit the program. Everyone and their uncle wants to be one of the 'smart, valuable students', but most don't have what it takes. All those people trying to make the cut but failing cost the university far more money for far less return.
The atriums etc that you dislike, they are usually gifted by the wealthy. People give 50 million and demand an atrium to have their name.
Similarly, the licensed software is often gifted by the corps. They want people to learn how to use their license stuff, not the free-ware which is just as/almost as good.
There is no "better not be white service", and your inclusion of that indicates that you are prejudiced. You and the snide comments you make are why we need those services. Yes, these things are expensive. The easiest way to deal with that cost is to just kick anyone out that thinks like you. Stop coddling racist and prejudiced shmucks rather than paying for therapy for everyone else.
The real costs problems tend to be 1) administrative, 2) failed students, 3) healthcare is growing.
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Healthcare was a shit show at the school. The school required you to have insurance, and if you didn't have private insurance, you had to buy the school's insurance.
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I'd add that higher education is where corporations outsourced their training programs to, which is why people don't get out of uni with an education, but with a training.
I saw this on myself: from the 1st year it was always "in preparation for your future job" . No, fuck you, I want to learn stuff, and gain critical thinking, not become a trained monkey for corpos.
I am a monkey now though.
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Maybe post secondary institutes wouldn't be broke, if they focused on education
Actually, focusing on sports is more profitable.
The classes are a money sink. Why have them at all?
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money (Score:2)
UK here. When I went to uni in 2005, it was £1300 a year (I did four years), when I did my masters in 2009 it was £3000. My younger brother started his degree in 2010 and it was £9000 a year. Did he get 7x as good an education as me. I DOUBT IT.
You can always tell whatever the UK equivalent of a boomer is when they talk about 'the grant', where they lived in a crazy fantasy world that existed up to 1998 where the state supported its students. "Oh don't you have the grant" "but you've got t
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The old fuck over the young. It's an old tale. And the young are so fucking stupid, they don't vote.
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Vote for who?
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Better candidates in primaries.
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U.S. defaultism...
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The lesser evil.
It sucks, but it's better than the alternative.
Not voting only leads to the shittier candidate winning by default and the slightly better candidate ignoring you since you're not a voter. The loser's faction will move to the middle since that's where the people who actually vote seem to be. The winner's faction will push further toward their side, since they can afford to. Democracy takes a long time, but look what the conservatives have accomplished by sticking together and voting, year afte
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Unfortunately it does not look like "the loser's faction will move to the middle". Witness what Democrats are getting the biggest buzz. It is obvious that extremism on one side makes the other side say "hey we can be just as extreme in the opposite direction!". This is despite the fact that the stupidest person working for either party knows that if they just put out a MODERATE candidate that they would wipe the floor with the opponent.
I voted against Trump. But I am seriously afraid what we are going to ge
Re: money (Score:2)
No, in general, they don't.. The old tend to try and look out for the young, and help where they can.. That's been my experience anyway..
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Not when it comes to politics.
They'll help out when needed, but voting for the interests of the young, potentially against theirs, that ain't happening, and we have the entire world to prove that.
To prove my point: has there been a US GenX president?
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https://rugbyoldbloke.wordpres... [wordpress.com]
Never ever forgive.
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And I'd be proud to contribute... Wrong country though.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise (Score:2)
Wow, who could have predicted that trebling fees back in 2012 [wikipedia.org] would cause a problem?
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??
I think you're missing something. That caused a problem for the students. What caused a problem for the universities was that the newly trebled fees were meant to cover the entire course. Then the fees stayed the same through Brexit and Trussnomics, leaving the universities with very little money.
We need far less undergraduates (Score:3)
Being a graduate is now of little real world use, but has become a positional good which employers use to reduce the number of applicants to a reasonable amount. So more and more kids are taking Masters, for the same reason. This is a self destructive arms race that merely advantages those employed in the tertiary education sector. Stop it now - with a 25% cut in the number of undergraduate loans available, with the cuts focused towards those subjects that have graduates earning less 20 years down the line.
FTFY (Score:2)
We need far fewer undergraduates.
raise prices (Score:2)
They can go to the US student loan system (Score:2)
They can go to the US student loan system
No real surprises. (Score:2)
The courses used to be fully funded by a grant here in the UK. All you needed was to have the academic credentials to get in, and that was the tough part. About 15% of people went on to higher education (in the early 80s); the theory was that over your working life, you'd more than repay to the government in taxes what was spent on your training for your reasonably "high flying" job. Which was fairly true.
The wonderful thing about that was that selection was entirely on how academically competent you we