MSE News: 'Lower tuition fees can cost students more'

Former_MSE_Guy

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"Plans to reduce tuition fees at 24 universities could end up costing students more in the long run ..."

Read the full story:
'Lower tuition fees can cost students more'

melancholly

this will no doubt be controversial..... good article though! it's also worth pointing out that some unis are reducing fees by as little as £50, so as ever it's worth getting the specifics.

GeneHunt_2

If anyone is at all interested in the final fees, there is a list of them on the guardian web site.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/dec/02/tuition-fees?newsfeed=true

Voyager2002

An interesting article.

An additional point: for decades, university funding has been inadequate to enable them to provide the educational facilities that students could reasonably expect. High tuition fees would presumably mean that a good deal more money than before would go into teaching provision, and so result in a better student experience. This means that lower tuition fees would not necessarily be good news for students.

tyllwyd

There is a bit of spin in the title of the article - surely lower tuition fees on their own won't cost students more. It's the reduction in bursaries which will cost students more. So why not make the title 'Reduction in bursaries will hit lower income students'?

melancholly

Voyager2002 wrote: »

An interesting article.

An additional point: for decades, university funding has been inadequate to enable them to provide the educational facilities that students could reasonably expect. High tuition fees would presumably mean that a good deal more money than before would go into teaching provision, and so result in a better student experience. This means that lower tuition fees would not necessarily be good news for students.

if the higher fees had meant that uni income per student was better than when more money came from central government, i'd agree fully. but even at £9K, with the drop in teaching budgets, unis will still have less money than in previous years. how on earth institutions in expensive cities will manage to offer a similar standard on £6K fees is beyond me.... i'm sure lots of services will suffer, but i guess in reality a lot of services are underused and won't be missed by many students......

2sides2everystory

tyllwyd wrote: »

There is a bit of spin in the title of the article - surely lower tuition fees on their own won't cost students more. It's the reduction in bursaries which will cost students more. So why not make the title 'Reduction in bursaries will hit lower income students'?

You are telling me

Why not make the title '[STRIKE]Quidco[/STRIKE] UniNewcos reduce cashback after shady accountants get together and move goalposts as a more direct shortcut to manipulate revenue goals'? It's closer to the truth.

melancholly

2sides2everystory wrote: »

You are telling me

Why not make the title '[STRIKE]Quidco[/STRIKE] UniNewcos reduce cashback after shady accountants get together and move goalposts as a more direct shortcut to manipulate revenue goals'? It's closer to the truth.

you can spin it anyway you want - 'unis make necessary changes to fees in order to fit into system only announced by government after the initial levels were announced. late changes important to ensure that they don't go bankrupt'

the truth will be somewhere in the middle!

2sides2everystory

melancholly wrote:

...late changes important to ensure that they don't go bankrupt

Really ?? :eek:

Are you now telling us (as a university insider) that the real story is that a couple of dozen English 'universities' are barely viable?

Our kids are being invited to rely on these fly-by-night outfits delivering excellence for periods of up to five years. Never mind popularity ratings, perhaps we should concentrate on a table of university credit ratings :mad:

Taiko

Quite a fair few of them are. I know of at least a dozen.

The_One_Who

2sides2everystory wrote: »

Really ?? :eek:

Are you now telling us (as a university insider) that the real story is that a couple of dozen English 'universities' are barely viable?

Our kids are being invited to rely on these fly-by-night outfits delivering excellence for periods of up to five years. Never mind popularity ratings, perhaps we should concentrate on a table of university credit ratings :mad:

It's no secret that a lot of universities have been running on a deficit for quite a few years now. There have also been a few articles recently about how these new changes are going to effect the financial sustainability of some universities.