UKC

Here`s a thought, why are we using the OU. I enjoy tutorials but the ones I attend are very thinly attended, so in the courses I attend no need for face to face, though I do accept other courses may be different. So many many manufacturing jobs have gone abroad, why not lecturers jobs. It does not matter to me if my tutor is in luton, leeds or luknow, so with the cost of OU courses getting so expensive why is there not more competition. In fact why is the OU not offshoreing its tutors and admin to "sweatcampuses" , what is the barrier to this. Could an offshore Uni give a UK degree, if not why not?

In reply to SCrossley:

Google MOOCs

In reply to MG:

Thanks, that looks interesting.

In reply to SCrossley:

Now google MOOC completion rates

In reply to SCrossley:

The OU has really betrayed it's founding principles. The lifelong learning option is crippled by ridiculous tuition fees which mean it's beyond almost everyone. £1300 + a module so something like £16K for a basic degree. Ok it's cheaper than many other uni's but it is hardly accessible for the late starter or the interested older person etc

As fro MOOC drop out rates ... the OU completion rate in 2010 was only 22%...

In reply to SCrossley: i'm going to stick my neck out here and assume you don't think your own job should be offshored? You're grossly overpaid compared to someone with equal skills from Eastern Europe or Se Asia.

In reply to SCrossley:

What you do care about is which institution your degree is accredited by - that's what will attract premiums. Of course many UK universities accredit courses on campuses worldwide where the locals won't be paying anything like our fees - so maybe you could move out of the UK to one of those?

In reply to Removed User:


So the problem would come, from the Uni`s perspective, if and when a degree from a uni in low cost place was trusted and that would give it value.
So are we basically buying a brand with the OU or others such as Keele or Lancaster or Durham, in a very similair way as we are with Berghaus or Coca Cola.
It is an odd marketplace where all the items for sale cost the same price, yet they cost different to produce and ultimately have different values. eg a Chemical engineering and a History degree will cost the same, but I`m guessing the Chem Eng degree will cost more to provide with Lab time and the like and I am led to believe a Chem Eng grad will earn more (higher lifetime earnings uplift), therefore the degree in reality has more value financially.
Do lecturers and professors in different subjects get paid differently, reflecting the value of their subject in the world outside academia?

In reply to Daysleeper:

The OU was stuffed by the introduction of £9k fees. In the past quite a lot of teaching was done by staff from other institutions for little/no pay. This became unsustainable when £9k fees came in - hard to justify charging your own students this amount and then donating your time to a competitor. It's always cost £9k (or more) to train students, at least in the Sciences. The difference is that the money used to be given directly to the Universities, but that was largely stopped.

In reply to SCrossley:

For the benefit of the economy more widely you need to maximise numbers undertaking degrees in maths, science and engineering. Given we have a shortfall of home grown talent in these areas I would suggest charging more for those degrees, or making arts degrees more attractive through lower prices, would be pretty short sighted policy.

In reply to Removed User:

Whilst I agree with everything you say there. It still leaves me wondering how this is going to work in the longer term in the face of globalisation and the easy flow of communication around the world, between places of different wage levels.

All I want is an education, and frankly do not care where it comes from, and it would seem it would be easy to access many courses easily anywhere on the globe, and from what you say (if I understand you) is that that the thing stopping me is that a qualification from abroad may not have the same value or respectability or cachet.

In reply to SCrossley:


Surely that means that the History degree effectively subsidises the chemical engineering degree? The other consideration is that history seems to be one of those subjects where people don't necessarily go on to become historians; instead, as it's considered a good solid humanities degree, they might use it as a way on to a lot of non-vocational graduate traineeships, whose earning potentials can vary massively.

There's also the fact that teaching standards in any given subject aren't standardised across institutions, and I'm not sure how that could be reasonably implemented.

In reply to SCrossley:

MIT has all their courses, tutorials etc. free online. It would not take a genius at MIT to expand this and make it a serious competitor to the OU, apart from the assignments being posted they could, have one central exam event in London once a year, for people to then get a full MIT degree at a fraction of the OU cost.

Edit, I studied with the OU for 8 years in various sciences finishing over 3 years ago. I would love to do more courses simply for the fun and the knowledge, but at their current price, I'd rather just buy a few books and look online.

In reply to SCrossley:


Yes, for example in areas such as medicine, law and some areas of computer science, where the market pay level is high.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

That sounds reasonable but does maybe put other courses on shaky ground with regard to their charges. 9k for a Chem eng could be seen as good value or even a bargain, for a degree in, well lets not slate anything, but something else less good value.
Using the MIT example of Summo`s this would really shake things up. Is there an Amazon or Google of eduaction going to appear or maybe already has appeared that is going to radically alter the higher education environment.

In reply to SCrossley:
The reason why is that OU are specialising in this, hence they are great at distance learning and are geared towards this, it is their USP. Many universities are doing and pushing online learning (what you call 'off-shore') but as resources are scarce , people have to develop those alongside other obligations ( I can tell you from experience). Hence,it is not that quick in establishing a vast choice of degrees, but there are many good offerings about.

In reply to SCrossley:


Certainly, universities get additional money from the government for laboratory courses such as chemistry, which they don't get for subjects such as humanities which are considered cheaper to teach.

Whether such courses are "good value" depends on quite a lot. For example I'm pretty convinced that nowadays undergraduates are subsidising the research done in universities, in that they're paying for a larger fraction of academic staff time than the academics spend teaching.

In reply to SCrossley: > Using the MIT example of Summo`s this would really shake things up.

There is one reason why MIT won't follow my plan, the cost of a Uni education in the USA is vastly more than the UK, they would not want to give out cheap certificates to anyone, in any country, thus devaluing their own on site courses.

The question that is missing an answer is what is the real cost of a degree? Are those courses where you 'merely' study old books, subsidising those which require modern current equipment, labs etc.

In reply to summo:
This could lead back to my starting point. You could do a History degree using old books with some uni in, I don`t know, Nigeria, the problem is how to turn that study into a valid and valuable piece of paper at the end.

In reply to summo:


I think one could produce a university teaching such degrees for about half the current cost. To do that you'd teach all the year round (though students might not necessarily attend all the year round) and you'd employ staff who only teach, rather than expecting them also to be scientific researchers and academic scholars.

Why aren't people moving in this direction? Because doing would be perceived as lower status, and thus the degrees would be considered to be worth less (rightly or wrongly, probably wrongly).

When the fees went to 9k some universities tried lowering their price, but the reaction from 17-yr-olds was along the lines of, well if it's cut-price it can't be any good, so I won't go.

Remember that students are not paying this money up-front, so the incentive for them to go for lower-fee options is not there -- under the current scheme it would only start affecting what they pay back when they're in their 40s, which is way too far in the future to affect the 17-yr-old's decision. So the sensible choice is to go for the high-status option.

But, maybe at some point some large company will see a market opportunity here and try to go with the above model.

In reply to SCrossley:


And the issue about value, respectability or cachet ultimately ends up with your attractiveness to a prospective employer. For example, if you have a good science degree from UCL, you'll be highly desirable. If you have an average science degree from a college no one has ever heard of, you'll suffer by comparison with the UCL graduate.

In reply to SCrossley:


You don't even have to do that. So much is on-line nowadays that you can get all you need over the internet. Anyone with the self discipline to teach themselves can use MOOCs, books, online materials, etc, and essentially do it for near-zero cost. (Though, as you say, getting recognition and accreditation for it is an issue.)

The problem is that most people (especially the younger adults) don't have the self-discipline and study skills to teach themselves. They need the human contact to break it down into little chunks for them, and to push them into doing things, and to guide them through the process. It's that human contact that costs money, and is the reason for paying to go to an actual university. Thus, off-shoreing the teaching to China using skype isn't going to work for that reason.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

University fees are comparable to private school fees (non boarding), and schools are not making a fortune so I suspect they are about right, possibly a little low. Similarly, there are plenty of private universities in the US that are basically teaching only and none, as far as I am aware, have fees as low as you suggest, despite plenty of competition. I suspect you are substantially under estimating costs such as IT, library, and capital costs.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Slightly ironically, after the initial MOOCs predicting the collapse of traditional universities as everything would be free, we now have MOOC study groups in class rooms. Hmm, groups of people studying in specific locations, there must be a name for that!

In reply to SCrossley:

Did you see this article about US university costs: http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-31384217

In reply to MG:

A typical school takes the kids for 190 to 200 days a year. A degree can involve teaching on typically 120 days a year (two 12-week semesters of 5 days each). In a school the kids will be supervised by an adult for perhaps 5 to 6 hours a day. In a university "contact hours" can be only 8 hours per week (e.g. I just Googled that a degree in English at Durham is 8 hours per week). That's 8 hours times 24 weeks = 192 hours a year, compared to about 1000 hours that a schoolchild is supervised for in a year. That's a factor of ~ 5, and staff costs are always the biggest cost.


By the way, the US system suffers badly from the perception (as above) that expense = quality, so that people try to go to the most expensive university they possibly can, because their degree will be perceived as having the highest status, and thus they'll reap the reward in better pay. Thus universities are competing to *raise* fees! They really have little incentive to keep their fees to a minimum, the higher they are the more students will want to go there! So, instead, they spend all the money on their football team.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

You're taking extremes. Engineering contact hours are ~20, lab costs are higher and academics earn more than teachers. Overall the comparison is reasonable.

In reply to MG:


I agree in the case of lab-based subjects (which attract government funding in addition to the 9k fees at the moment, so their current cost is a lot more than 9k). I was really talking about the humanities-style degrees.

In reply to MG:

By the way, the US system suffers badly from the perception (as above) that expense = quality, so that people try to go to the most expensive university they possibly can, because their degree will be perceived as having the highest status, and thus they'll reap the reward in better pay. Thus universities are competing to *raise* fees! They really have little incentive to keep their fees to a minimum, the higher they are the more students will want to go there! So, instead, they spend all the money on their football team.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

I do agree £9k for 8hrs is steep.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

At the top end that's true but even Community College fees are not far off £9k equivalent

In reply to Tall Clare:


Looks interesting, i`ll read in the morning. I listen to a lot of NPR which discusses this subject often.

In reply to Coel Hellier:
Poor Prof knowledge there Coel.

I'm sure what you meant to say was lecturer contracts are pretty standard outside medicine. Subject differences can only relate to different positions and numbers on scales and given equal ops and other checks differences are often pretty small outside the realm of the super star profs.

Most big name universities claim they struggle to teach students at 9k. I think they are right and cross subsidise from other income like Overseas Students, business income, etc., About 40% of University income these days is non-government (and part of the 60% is research). Central University oveheads on teaching income are at least 50%. So your numbers are wrong. Humanities tend to have more than 8 hours class contact on average and compared to STEM larger average class sizes and none of the STEM additional funding premium.

You have the US system backwards as well. Price follows historical prestige much more than the opposite way round. Unlike the UK the US makes excellent efforts to encourage access from disadvantaged groups in its top institutions.


Oh and most important of all, lecturers guide efficient study and enhance self learning skills within the subject. We have had the equivalents of MOOCs for centuries they are called books. There are also plenty of vocational professional qualifications at degree level for those with the ability to go it alone.. If the average student could teach themselves they would have done so and Universities would never have grown to their current sizes. MOOCSs with good tutorial and lab support (similar to the OU model) will succeed but wont be cheap. If the outsourcing reported by the OP in the OU is second class it simply won't work.

In reply to Tall Clare:
I remember a UK survey from about a decade back that showed top institution male history graduates had arguably the best long term added value for career income. There were some odd examples like blue chip computing firms targeting them as bright but untainted by poor coding practice. For women the best subject was engineering (presumably because the relatively fewer hardy souls who made it through the degree and and were not put off engineering, were moving into an predominantly male profession looking to improve female participation so they had much better promotion prospects on average). These students will have been studying 20-40 years ago though.

I actually think, the 9k fee is poor value for money for all but those from rich or very poor families. The sad thing is the money saved by these terrible off-putting debt levels (especially for those just above subsidies or those looking at part-time degrees) is trivial for the tax paying public. Most estimates are that the increase from 3k to 9K fee makes almost no savings for the taxpayer (and possibly might even be a loss). If we extrapolate back any fee is probably a costly and stupid idea. The extra money 'lost' in the fees goes on beaurocracy, handling costs, profit and debt right-off for the least successful students. The finance industry is of course gaining from this and the write-off cost is no longer on the goverment deficit up-front (like the PFI scams). The cost per student which was previously a much smaller size and part of the general tax system is now carried mostly by the middle class students moving into reasonable jobs, usually in professions. If they are trying to be a teacher or a social worker, or someone else never likely to hit high pay levels, one wonders why they should bother other than utter dedication to that vocation.

In reply to Offwidth:
There's more than one way a university degree has value, and it's worth thinking about those separately. I can think of at least three quite distinct kinds of value - (1) there are the actual skills you actually learn, and the increase in earning power they lead to, (2) there's the value as a consumption good - the degree to which the experience of being at university is enjoyable in itself, and (3) the value as a positional good - i.e. the value you get from the reputation of the institution and the scarcity of people who have credentials from it. It's easy to concentrate on (1), but lots of the economics of higher education is driven by 2 and 3. So in mid-ranking US universities inflation in fees is being driven as much by the pressure they feel to build luxurious accommodation blocks and sporting facilities as from any academic costs. It's the need to preserve reputation that leads high ranking universities to control their numbers carefully - given the demand to get in they could easily expand student numbers, but they choose not to. And since reputation is largely driven by perceived research quality, that's what makes elite universities want to spend lots of money on research and employ very highly paid star researchers. Even if the students rarely see these stars because they're swanning round the world doing media and selling their books, you can argue that they benefit from them because they're boosting the reputation of the university, and in that way raising the value in the employment market-place of their degree. Sometimes the actual skills students learn are valuable - obviously in vocational degrees like engineering and medicine. But often it's the other stuff that matters much more. I'm sure you could put together a MOOC following the Oxford PPE course and plenty of people could learn just as much from it as they do from the live course, but somehow I don't think its products would dominate politics and journalism in the UK in the way that the students that went to Oxford do.

In reply to summo:




its not... you can get a US degree for a similar price to UK fees.

In reply to Richard J:
I'm fully with you on the idea of the benefits of a degree education involving way more than employability but sadly in our economy such wider social benefits are often seen as an unwanted luxury.

The middle to top end of the US fee system these days is really more akin to buying designer labels than real quality of product: we too may be heading that way in a decade or so but I still feel most of us currently do a good value job in our academic careers, despite ominous pressures and significantly increased work loads (University efficiency increases in my 30+ years career are incredibly high... SSR in many places have effectively doubled alongside the difficulties of teaching a greater proportion of students of average intellect as participation approaches 50% of the population). Value that is for the cost not for the fee funding mechanism: academics and students through their respective unions fought fees and the reality turned out worse than their supposedly pessimistic predictions. Oxford PPE is rare in the UK being part of a political conveyer belt of privilege (that in my view needs some heavy 'spanners in the works' at the level of political party candidate selection as the graduates are simply are not that special).

If I was young again I would get a job that would sponsor me through a degree or go to another country to study. I would not pay £9k a year even for what was one of the best STEM courses in the world when I did it as the added value would have been too big a risk compared to the much cheaper almost as good alternative routes.

In reply to SCrossley:

This article might interest you:

https://thethoughtstash.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/the-end-of-the-open-univer...

In the new wonderful world of the 9k fee the biggest decline (and its huge) is in part-time mature student enrolments.

In reply to Roadrunner2:

Perhaps, but if you're looking at a major US private research university tuition will be in the range $45-50,000. A good state university might be $10k or so cheaper, but that's still quite a lot more than the UK's £9k. Though probably a fairer comparison would be with the UK fee for overseas students, which will typically be in the range £15k-20k: since that is a genuine open market, and the students who do those courses are choosing between UK, USA and Australia, among another places, you could argue that's the value a market puts on them. The elite London institutions - LSE and Imperial - can charge a lot more. That's why they're running at about 1/3 or more overseas students at the moment; they'd probably be quite happy not to have to bother with UK students with a capped £9k fee at all.

In reply to Richard J:
No, much less.. The bigger ones will be pushing 50k but if you are from that state about less than $20 is pretty typical.

The costs you see often include all fees, board, food, personal costs, then tuition fees.

Here is a break down of a local Uni to me which is standard quality, one of the better around.

http://www.rowan.edu/provost/internationalstudents/current/tuition.html

This is Rutgers
http://admissions.rutgers.edu/costs/tuitionandfees.aspx

In reply to Roadrunner2:

Sure, there's a range. I was thinking as an example of good private research university Cornell, which is about $47k, and a good state Uni UCSB, which is $37k for out-of-state (that's the right comparison if you're a UK citizen wondering whether to do a degree in the UK or USA). Rutgers is a good school too, and the costs seem similar, again looking at the out-of-state costs. You'd have a hard time convincing me I should go to New Jersey over Southern California, if I was a climbing Brit student, though.

In reply to Richard J:

I know, but for in state tuition a US education need not be too bad. I've just married into what will be $250k of debt though, and that's with plenty of scholarships..

Penn State, at their main campus is around 45-50, but you can go to another campus for 2 years for a third of that, then transfer to U park and you still get a Penn State degree.

In reply to Roadrunner2:
Yes, the way you can transfer credits in US state uni systems is a great strength that the UK's never been able to manage. (Mentioning Penn State makes me remember fondly Bellefonte Quarry, State College PA, a fine piece of limestone comparing favourably to my local Staden Moor Quarry, only with more dumped white goods).

In reply to Richard J:

Well that as well, but Penn State is 20+ campus's? something like that anyway, so you could go to a commuter cmapus for 2 years, much lower fees, no board or lodgings, then transfer for the last 2 and get the college experience. I coach at one of their smaller campus's and that's what our students typically do.

But I also teach at another Uni which has a community college attached so we get those who transfer through from associates degrees. It's possible in the UK but its a much more complicated and less advertised and clear path.

In reply to Roadrunner2:
Foundation degrees in UK HE colleges are very well advertised and must lead to a top-up degree route (either validated/franchised at the college or at a linked University partner).

In reply to Offwidth:

I suppose I never looked at that path, but here the modular approach to education means people can tag credits on.

I do think the US education is superior in general, especially at the tertiary level. I'd say those leaving the US with a doctorate are at the level of our PHD's + 1 post doc year/contract.

They just have a more varied, comprehensive science background. We're more efficient, we get a PhD in 3 years but we are forced into some quite mediocre science IMO. When I look at my PhD and my colleagues we'd have a few chapters of good science, and the rest was rapid 'filling'... safe solid science as we didnt have enough time or flexibility to explore further.

But I also think the US is more fluid during their initial degree, I think we get set on a path too early and whilst we can jump and change it's made to be too much of an issue. Its almost always possible once you go and see faculty but I don't think we have the flexibility of the US where students will enter with little idea and slowly pick up where they want to go, even if it means adding another year of study (with debts).

In reply to Roadrunner2:

I beg to differ. In STEM research outputs by almost any measure the UK system has proven itself the best in the world size for size. The US system did so badly nationally it led to a requirement of mass immigration of foreign trained specialists or overseas top scholars poached after being trained in the US. Fast tracking PhD completion is actually pretty beneficial for research stars and usually works well enough for most others. The best US institutions match anyone for outputs in the world and performance in other subjects is doing better for the nation outside STEM but the costs of study in them are unaffordable for all but the poorest, beneficiaries of affirmtive action or scholarships or the very rich. The system does better suit the more entreprenurial nature of the country but takes more like 2 years longer on avearge to get to the best UK standards at PHD and then it wastes many of the benefits. In particular the debt load of degree study is horrific and alongside healthcare costs is sucking life out of the middle class engine that drives growth in a modern economy. The US is also full of shitty online merchants with terrible records effectively conning huge numbers of the less well off. We have learnt from this and are now heading in your direction fast.... it does make the top mangement and best profs very wealthy afterall and reduces the government defecit.

In reply to Offwidth:

Fair enough.. I'm just saying as someone who has worked transatlantic for 5 years, US PhD's ar superior.

Come on how can I with a 3 year degree, 3 year PhD be at the same level as a 4 year degree plus 5 year PhD.... basic experience as much as anything.. plus a much more comprehensive taught component to the PhD.

I disagree re the debt load, especially for those getting a PhD who will be paid similar amounts to the UK.

In reply to Roadrunner2:

Well here are some details on the concerns:

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21567373-american-universities-...

Answering your question, firstly entry standards were lower in the US more akin to the Scottish system in STEM than the old English A levels ability. Also you study for lots of time doing these other subjects that cut time and focus on building subject expertise. PhD training has proved to be good for industry and large group research fodder but less good for innovation and it also cuts time from the deep study which was more common in the UK.

Times are changing: UK entry standards in STEM A levels are much worse (see for instance the Coventy Uni benchmarking research) than the generation that led to the great performance figures on UK research outputs. Output standards for degrees have almost certainly declined in the same time. Fees are recently heading up fast. US style shitty private providers are now growing strongly in the UK market. The British MSc student is approaching endangered species levels. PhDs are being forced through to an extent to meet external pressures on completion. Crude target driven league tables is distracting from genuine teaching and research quality.

In reply to Offwidth:

I accept they are lower on entry... I just think the lab rotations we have in science, plus the taught component bring out afar higher standard of final PhD graduate.

I'm not denying there are sharks out there, like there is in the UK now, I just think a good US PhD now exceeds that of the UK.

However I do have mixed views on the US system. I'm an Adjunct at the moment due to visa issues. This is pretty common in the US but it means we have 1:15-1:30 prof:student ratio's.. compared with 1:50 if not 1:100's in some UK universities. The downside is people like me actually earn minimum wage but I do think we teach to a higher standard than we would in the UK. I can personally watch and keep an eye on every student in my class. Last semester everyone got good grades, noone fell through the cracks, which i think can happen when we have much higher student:staff ratio's.

I do think our PhD produce effective workers, but just feel our PhD science is lacking somewhat and traditionally that is when the best science is done.. within the first few years of your career.

In reply to Roadrunner2:
We will have to agree to disagree I guess on PhDs I see them as equivalent overall in STEM for home grown students but different.

You can't compare prof ratios like that. Most standard full time lecturers in the UK would be a prof in the US, certainly all career grade lecturers. Student Staff Ratios do look artificially better than they should in the UK (I dont know how they do the calculation in the US) as they should be counted on proportions of contracts dedicated to teaching, not staff head counts, but they are nothing like as high as 50.

Contracts are somewhat in crisis currently in the UK. Recently the treatment of the equivalents to adjuncts in the UK have gone from bad to worse with management of the rights of fixed-term contract career starter staff becoming more outrageous (its risky to deal with legal breaches as where HR don't care you need to burn bridges and go to tribunal, which is very stressful and takes a year) and the replacement of most part-time contracts with Zero Hour Contracts is arguably the most scandalous application of that nasty beast in the UK (any evidence shows only a small minority of academic staff appreciate the 'flexibility' and none appreciate having no sick pay, no pro-rata holiday pay, no accumulated rights and no pre-fixed hours so they are effectively on call at short notice and can lose hours at short notice so can't predict income and cant challenge unfairness in the team they work in) Staff on permanent contracts have had their contracts eroded and workloads increased, beaurocracy has flourished which is frustrating when you want to get on with the real job, academic freedom has been curtailed, pensions are being diluted. I have had a wonderful rewarding career but can no longer recommend it for a PhD grad in the Uk compared to treatment elsewhere in industry or in academia outside the UK (eg in Eurooe where many courses are now taught in English)

In reply to Offwidth:



Sorry I dint mean that I meant student/staff... that's be becoming a yank using the term prof too widely..