Students read this

r-ingram

While I'm not sleeping (!), a few thoughts on this thread...

I am hopeful that eventually the playing field will level (a bit!) between universities, but it will be an uphill struggle. The Russell Group Uni's have the most money, in part because of historical wealth, but also because they get the biggest slice of government research funding. They get this because they score most in the research assessment exercise that determines funding. They score most because they have more money, headhunt and retain the best researchers....and so on. They attract more commercial research funds based on their (deserved) reputation, and they attract more students (overseas students are very lucrative). Because of the reputation and the competition for places they select the best students, so get the best results, and top the league tables....and on it goes

The "New" Uni's have a much smaller slice of the research funding cake (though since 1992 they have generally been improving the research profile and increasing their slice). Of course as there are far more vocational degrees at these uni's there is more teaching and less research as a result, so its an uphill struggle. They also embrace "Widening Access" policies more enthusiastically, so they take on far more students with non-traditional (academic?) profiles. We should really appraise them in terms of "added value" (I think the Guardian does in their league tables), rather than in absolute terms, and redistribute funding to reward them accordingly.

Obviously the perceived worth of different uni's will play a part in both students and employers choices, but I hope one day that the only criteria will be how good a particular course is.

On degree classifications:

The commonly used threshold for a 1st is 70% (though not universally). Call me a cynic, but wherever the threshold is set, markers and moderators may merely adjust the marks they award to reflect their own (or collective) perception of how difficult a first should be. At my first Uni I was told that no one can get over 80% (this was an unwritten but apparently firmly held rule). It always seemed bizarre to me that some marks were off limits!

Whether a first in one uni equates well with a first elsewhere may be questioned, but that is why a system of external examiners is in place (and rigorous government inspection via the QAA). It strikes me that if only 2% on a course get a first then the distribution is seriously skewed, and there must be a serious defect in teaching or assessment.