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Tuition fees

Term 3: not a waste of money

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Neha Shaji criticises the idea that term three is a waste of money and argues that we shouldn’t treat our lecturers like machines.

If I had a pound for every time someone told me what a ‘waste of money’ Term 3 is, I’d be earning just as much as the average student considers themselves to be losing out during the summer term.

To start, let me just state that I have some serious concerns about the usage of a term like ‘waste of money’. Universities, regardless of how some of them may see it, are not a business. You aren’t a ‘consumer’. You don’t end up as a ‘product’. You are here to learn; not have your windows polished, your top screwed on, and your degree certificate the plastic seal on your box. This isn’t a free market; had it been one, you’d pick your institution based on how many days of Term 3 there were in comparison to the price, and we’d all be dramatically sliding into the clutches of consumerist culture.

I cannot believe I am saying this in the year of our lord 2019: academics are not machines. It really does say something for late-stage capitalism that you can look at a person, sometimes only a few years older than you, and whisper in a monotone – “but why don’t you work more sir, work more, for the same pay.” It also is worth mentioning that the majority of students aren’t aware what Term 3 costs; it is up to the university to split your £9,250 up, it’s not like Year 6 fractions where a third goes into each term. So, if you were still concerned about a ‘waste of money’, you should probably take it up at Northcott House.

Now, once you get over the terribly consumerist language of your question, your sudden longing for learning and the desire to attend lectures magically springs forth.

And about that £9,250. The academics, as seems the common assumptions amongst those who often use the phrase rhyming with ‘paste of honey’, are not the University. Your academics are employed by the university for the work they currently take on. To ask them to take on more work would only inevitably mean you pay more fees, and to ask them to take on more work for the same pay is abhorrent. If the £9,250 of tens of thousands of students were all going directly to the academics, well, my future would be fine and dandy then. Other universities have teaching in Term 3? Other universities pay academics for teaching in Term 3.

Now, once you get over the terribly consumerist language of your question, your sudden longing for learning and the desire to attend lectures magically springs forth. In Term 3, academics have to mark exam papers, moderate them, mark Easter essay deadlines, mark dissertations, and secondarily mark dissertations. This happens with strict deadlines, as the term is only about six weeks long – if you have four exams, the likelihood is that you would not attend classes the days preceding your exams, especially if it was not assessed.

If one wanted teaching in Term 3, it would not be an assessed course and would not have an effect on your degree mark as lecturers are already overloaded with marking. Hence, another Term 3 assessment whilst you’re sitting existing exams will not benefit neither students nor teachers. Modules are usually twelve weeks long; there are only six weeks in Term 3 without allowances for assessment time or marking turnover time. There is a tendency to clamour for the abstract concept of ‘teaching’ without considering the logistics of setting up and running entire modules in such a short time period. Pipe down, for the love of God, just do your revision.

Thank Corbyn for the Youth’s Political Resurrection, not Tuition Fee Promises.

Thursday 8th June 2017. Was this the day that the youth made their voices heard within the political world? Was this the first time for many years that young people changed the landscape of British politics? Was this the time that the ‘disillusioned millennials’ finally stepped up and had their say?

These were all questions thrown up by media outlets throughout the country following the dramatic general election earlier this year. Prime Minister Theresa May, along with her “strong and stable” government, threw away a parliamentary majority in an election that followed suit from a year of crazy political surprises. The leader that stole so many votes from the Conservatives? Jeremy Corbyn.

However, whilst it is perfectly acceptable to argue that Corbyn and Labour got so many votes due to both excellent campaigning on their own side and an awful Tory campaign, it is impossible to argue with the results. Despite all of these questions, all of the media hype, all of the madness… Labour did not win the election, either.

But this article is not about debating the results of an election. Nor is it focussed on slating a particular party. This piece is looking to examine Jeremy Corbyn’s popularity amongst – you guessed it – younger voters.

It is undeniable that Corbyn managed to push many previously politically inactive young people straight into a voting booth. Do not be mistaken by this previous inactivity, though. As an article published in Exeposé earlier this year highlighted: “These views [of seeing no point in voting] reflect not ignorance or idiocy, but a learned discontent with the current political system”. That is to say, politicians and politics as a whole have either neglected the needs of younger voters or have down-right lied to them. This, understandably, results in the youth of today becoming ever increasingly disillusioned with politics. That was, until Mr. Corbyn stepped in.

It is undeniable that Corbyn managed to push many previously politically inactive young people straight into a voting boot

This is exactly where all the problems begin. To cut to the chase – the popularity that Corbyn gained amongst these discontented young voters throughout the 2017 campaign is being put solely down to the pledge of wiping tuition fees. Despite the countless amounts of other policies and promises made by the Labour party, this is the one idea that keeps being referred to as the key to his success. It is particularly an issue being raised regarding university towns and cities, just like ours.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Image/Wikipedia.org

Before I go on, I want to emphasise now that I am in no way suggesting, implying or insinuating that this policy had no part to play in his rise amongst young people, particularly students. It would be ignorant to suggest that is the case. But, in the same way, the ignorance of the people who honestly believe that students have no other motive to vote for Corbyn and Labour than the potential of the removal of tuition fees is astounding.

I am a prime example. I voted for Labour in the election and I do not believe that tuition fees should be removed. Undoubtedly there needs to be a reform of some kind – which I have various ideas on, but that’s for another article – but ousting all fees is, in my opinion, not the way forward. Yet, I still voted for Labour and Corbyn. The motivation behind this lies in many areas of their manifesto. An increase in tax for the top 5% of earners and raising corporation tax, to me, seems like a fairer society would result. Their proposed plans for the education sector were the most sensible and likely to be the most effective.

An increase in tax for the top 5% of earners and raising corporation tax,  seems like a fairer society would result

The ideas behind increasing affordable housing and helping first time buyers to get onto the property ladder is something that, as a young person, is particularly appealing. Even if, as it has been said, Corbyn was unable to deliver on some of these pledges, I would feel much happier having a government with this mindset of helping people than the alternatives that are on offer. Exeter as a whole provides another example, being held by Labour for many years without the promise of wiping fees.

Image: Garry Knight/Flickr.com

I tell you this not to convince you to vote for Labour, or to like Jeremy Corbyn or to even agree that these policies are the best for the country. The great thing about a democracy like ours is that we can have disagreements and debates on these topics, and I have no intention of changing your political views through an article. These points are made for the sole purpose of exemplifying that there are more reasons why young people would vote Labour than simply issues around tuition fees. Its not an act of selfishness, but a political ideology that believes in an alternative to the struggles we have faced as a country.

Corbyn spoke to young people and young voters in a way that no politician has for years. He offered a vision of hope that in the bleak future that we face through Brexit, with no capability of buying our own home and facing a privatised NHS amongst many, many other things doesn’t have to become a reality. For the first time since I can remember, a politician has put forward an idea of change. A genuine and legitimate idea of change. Those who shout about Corbyn only receiving student votes due to tuition fee promises, are not only insulting young people like me, who are not so politically inept or inactive as many people suspected, but they are also just plain wrong.

TEF and Tuition Fees Debate

The University will be hosting a debate between Amatey Doku, NUS Vice President, and Exeter Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Steve Smith. The two will debate the new Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) and tuition fees.

A new government developed scheme, the TEF was published earlier this year and aims to provide information to help prospective students choose where to study by grading the excellence of teaching.

The University of Exeter achieved a Gold Award along with the likes of the University of Cambridge, the University of Bath and the University of Oxford. However, many leading universities were disappointed with the results with the University of Durham and UCL achieving Silver status and LSE receiving a Bronze award. Out of the 21 Russell Group universities only eight achieved gold. The controversial nature of these results has caused much discussion over the utility of the scheme.

The introduction of TEF has also caused concern as the government indicated that those universities with a TEF award will be able to increase their tuition fees in line with inflation.

Whilst a date has not yet been released the subjects of discussion promise an interesting and relevant event for Exeter students.

Labour Manifesto Pledges to Scrap Tuition Fees

Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn has announced plans to scrap further education tuition fees and to bring back maintenance grants for university students, ahead of the general election. The Independent later revealed footage of Mr. Corbyn’s right-hand man, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, explaining his desire to scrap university tuition fees ‘once and for all’ and to ‘introduce a National Education Service free at the point of need throughout life’ at a Save the NHS event on 29th April.

At the Nottinghamshire event, Mr. McDonnell spoke to the receptive Save the NHS crowd about his movement’s belief that ‘education is a gift from one generation to another’ and that ‘it is not a commodity to be bought and sold’. Jeremy Corbyn built upon his Shadow Chancellor’s remarks at an education conference in Leeds with an official announcement of Labour’s National Education Service pledge. This has led to widespread speculation that Labour will add Corbyn’s 2015 party leadership election promise to ‘get rid of tuition fees’ to its general election manifesto, after Corbyn replied that he has ‘some stuff in his pocket’, when asked about university tuition fees, adding that he wasn’t allowed to elaborate and that the public will ‘have to wait for the manifesto’. Adding to the mounting speculation, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner this morning told listeners of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to ‘watch this space’ when probed on university tuition fees.

many consider it time to rethink tuition fees, especially with fees set to rise again to £9,250 for next academic year

The New Statesman’s political editor George Eaton stated that the cost of scrapping university tuition fees is ‘estimated at £7bn a year’, a figure Labour’s critics believe is unfeasible. Eaton also discussed the risk that the policy ‘will deprive the party of resources for other policies’, all the while cementing the idea that Labour is a party of excessive and reckless spending in the minds of the electorate. Corbyn’s supporters have however pointed out that the current system, adopted under the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government in 2012 may not even be saving the Treasury money, compared to the system it replaced. In fact, with the Resource and Accounting Budget —that is the write-off figure for repayments on student loans — rapidly approaching the critical 48.6% figure whereby the government will lose money compared to the £3,000 system, many consider it time to rethink tuition fees, especially with fees set to rise again to £9,250 for next academic year.
Jeremy Corbyn previously pledged during the 2015 Labour leadership election to fund the removal of tuition fees ‘with increases to higher corporation tax and a 7% rise in national insurance for those earning more than £50,000 a year’. Full details with regards to costing, funding and the exact terms of specific policies are to be made available with the party’s general election manifesto.

Students call on Vice Chancellor to help refugees

Students are pressuring Vice Chancellor Sir Steve Smith to support the national ‘Equal Access’ campaign at the University – which would allow students seeking asylum to benefit from fee waivers, grants and pastoral support.

Part of a campaign already launched in Bristol, Manchester, London, Leeds, Canterbury and Salford, Exeter’s Student Action for Refugees (STAR) society launched ‘Exeter Equal Access’ in September.

The group claims the University’s funding system denies students their fundamental right to an education, as those seeking refuge in the UK cannot access government fee or maintenance loans – instead relying on state support of £5 a day plus accommodation.

They want the Vice Chancellor to agree to full fee waivers for student refugees, as well as maintenance grants calculated according to a Living Cost Calculator, and pastoral care and support for those seeking asylum.

Back in September 2014 the University announced a partial fee waiver for student refugees – allowing these students to pay the ‘Home’ fee rate of £9000 rather than higher ‘International’ fees. However, the waiver came under fire when Exeposé discovered only five students had accessed these reduced costs in five months.

“Bright students who have fled atrocious circumstances deserve the basic human right of education,” Bhagya Silva, PPE student and leader of Exeter’s campaign told Exeposé, “but barriers such as the fact that asylum seekers are ineligible for Student Finance prevent them from rebuilding their lives.”

Exeter Equal Access plan to meet with University officials on 27 October to discuss the proposals. The group has also released an open letter to the Vice Chancellor.

“We are an exceptional university,” they write. “We are ambitious, we are successful and we are driven to make a positive impact on society.” Stressing that ‘home’ fees are still “beyond the means of the vast majority of asylum seekers,” they argue: “We could do so much more, and so much better.”

“The University of Exeter already supports asylum seekers through a partial tuition fee waiver,” a University spokesperson told Exeposé, “and through the excellent pastoral support which is available to all students. There is specific help for international students which includes mentoring, advice and guidance on arriving in and living in the UK.

As part of the University’s aim to work in partnership with its students, plans are already in place for Ian Blenkharn, Director of Education and Student Experience to meet with members of the Equal Access campaign on this matter.”

Should We Be Angry About Maintenance Cuts?

Student debt, two words that I’m sure make most of you physically recoil, will soon take on even more monstrous proportions for students from poorer backgrounds. Come September this year, students coming from families earning less than £42,000 p.a. will no longer receive maintenance grants but loans instead. It appears the last vestige of the ideal of free higher-education is being dismantled; folkloric are the days when university wasn’t synonymous with working oneself into a gibbering, debt addled wreck, fetishizing the salvation of a highly paid job.

Image: Flickr.com
Image: Flickr.com

Students have taken to the streets, placards are plastered with similar slogans to those we saw in 2012 and megaphones are again demanding ‘free education.’ Some of you may no doubt have been incensed to take part in a demonstration on this issue; some of you may have signed a petition, or some of you may be thinking the same thing as me: ‘free education’ has relatively little to do with a maintenance grant. Grants are there to help students pay for living, not their tuition. It is vital, before we all get stuck in to some good old-fashioned Tory-baiting, to question the logic of dishing out maintenance grants. They base themselves upon the assumption that every student’s parents or carers are willing to fund their children’s lives well after those children turn into adults. They force us to concede that the only reason parents don’t give their grown up offspring money is because they physically can’t.

If we accept that, we find ourselves acknowledging that higher education, on principle, can never be ‘free.’ If students really are as feckless as this logic constructs them to be, families with incomes of over £42,000 p.a. will simply have to continue paying ‘fees’ if they want to ensure their adult offspring are funded as well as the government funds students of poorer upbringing. We have to then presume that every student has a parent-child relationship that allows him or her to ask for mum and dad’s money. Of course the reality is that many students without grants don’t get help from anyone; their parents, sensibly enough, have decided that they shouldn’t need to pay to ‘maintain’ someone old enough to get a job and live on their own.

the reality is that many students without grants don’t get help from anyone; their parents

Such students, upon leaving the nest, receive a loan from Student Finance to help with rent and seek employment in the summer and perhaps during the term in order to feed themselves and occasionally gain entry into a nightclub. If you wish to do something, like live away from your parents, but don’t have the means to do it, you get a loan. The suggestion that one is entitled to be given, not lent money to do such a thing, deserves more interrogation than it’s currently receiving from complainants. Despite what the spectacle of white dreadlocks and Corbynite placards around Westminster might suggest, this policy of giving a lot of money to one set of young able bodied adults and giving nothing to the other isn’t actually the hallmark of social equality.

Megan Dunn, the President for the National Union of Students, believes that cutting maintenance grants could ‘risk putting many people off applying for university.’ She’s not wrong. Free money is a good incentive to do anything, and if maintenance grants are taken as loans, thousands of students will graduate with over £53,000 worth of debt. That’s a lot of money to pay off. £26,000 of that sum however, would be spent on your food, bed and lifestyle, things people with reasonable employment prospects don’t normally get for free. It is surely the other sum of £27,000 spent on tuition that demands our continued attention, especially given that the government is now planning to allow universities to increase tuition fees.

Image: Flickr.com
Image: Flickr.com

In any case, there’s nothing to say all students ‘helped’ by their parents aren’t borrowing from them. They will graduate with the same £53,000 to repay. The argument I assume Megan Dunn is trying to make is that student grants represent an effort to facilitate intergenerational social mobility. The free £10, 161 available to young people from poorer families aims to make university eventually cost less for them. Such aspiring students are encouraged to go into further study, get better jobs and salaries than their parents and scale the socio-economic ladder. Good times. Feudalism is dead. Jesus is smiling.

However, at the risk of sounding like I’m on the government’s pay roll, can the opportunity to navigate an academic pathway not present itself in the form of a large, interest free maintenance loan? Isn’t that an incentive enough? Why is it necessary to give an independent adult over £10,000? Poorer young people who don’t go to university and choose to instead get a job don’t get free money in the name of social mobility. These issues are only exacerbated by evidence that the ‘household income’ method is infuriatingly flawed, resulting in a misdirection of government spending as much as a promotion of social mobility. I shall give you some specific examples, sadly lifted from reality, of how the system fails:

If you happen to live with your divorcee mother, who earns under £25,000 p.a., but your father is a millionaire, your mother’s income goes on the student grant application. Your dad then gives you money while you are at uni, buys you a nice flat in Kensington, and you use the giant grant you’ve received to shop at Wholefoods and go on a few holidays in the summer. 42% of marriages end in divorce these days by the way. Equally, your parents could be rich enough to retire.

These issues are only exacerbated by evidence that the ‘household income’ method is infuriatingly flawed

With enough savings and pension money to buy you a new Fiat 500, their lack of ‘income’ still means you get free money from the taxpayer. Crucially, ‘household income’ fails to judge how equipped parents are to help their children. It accounts neither for the debts a family may have to pay, nor other children they may have to sustain. Your parents may collectively earn £42,500 p.a., but the needs of your four younger siblings mean they are simply unable to fund your adult life. On the other hand, you might be an only child with parents who are able and willing to fund you through university. Their £30,000 income means you’re eligible for nice a grant; you can scrap earning your own money this summer whilst your flatmate with four siblings serves you at the supermarket checkout.

Image: Wikimedia.org

So before, in response to these cuts, you burn an effigy of George Osborne cackling at the poor, consider what you actually mean when you complain. In being students we fill an odd social capacity. Are we adults? Independent? Are we still our parents responsibility? According to maintenance grants, we should theoretically remain under the jurisdiction of our parents until we graduate. If they can, our parents should be feeding and watering us, if they can’t then the taxpayer should chip in to help. I would suggest the transitional phase from child to student/adult probably occurs at around 18,19/ 20 years old- or for most students, the first year of university.

The Child Benefits system in this country seems to suggest the same thing. A parent can receive monetary help to look after a child under 20, provided the child stays in approved education or training. Doesn’t that contradict the practice of distributing student grants of £3,387 per year? Parents are given the means to care for children until they’re 20; after that, fair enough, you’re on your own. Generous loans are what should enable you to live the life you need to away from home. If you are passionate about social mobility, a great thing to be, well I respect that; even if it’s a slightly selective, eugenically orientated way to go about it, by all means fight for the continuation of maintenance grants for clever people. But I urge you, next time you hear a student protester say ‘I definitely wouldn’t have been able to afford to go away to Uni without a grant’, remember three things.

Firstly that they’re lying; the proposed loan of the same or a larger sum would clearly allow anyone to go away to University. Secondly, remember the story of our rich student with divorced parents, sitting in his flat in Kensington, snorting coke through a £50 note provided kindly by the taxpayer. And lastly, remember those thousands of 18 to 22 year old students who, considered independent adults by their families, don’t get given money by anyone. They rely on loans and jobs. Unsurprisingly, you might find their faces missing at student demonstrations against maintenance cuts, and not just because they’re probably working.

The Controversy Column: should Humanities degrees be cheaper?

Earlier this week one of my history seminars was cut short; our Professor let us leave 40 minutes early from a two-hour session, one of the two in an eight contact-hour week. We’d discussed everything we needed to, he said. Getting let out of class early for most is a god-send, a blessed excuse to head home and crawl back into bed; or else hit up the library and get a head start on next week’s reading there and then.

Image: Geograph.org.uk

Except, as we were trudging down Forum Hill in the omnipresent drizzle that seems to refuse to leave Exeter at the moment, my course mate turned to me and said, “I can’t help but think we’re paying nine grand for this, y’know?”

And that got me thinking.

The tuition debate is a familiar one to this generation of students, but as I arrived home to my empty student house, aware that my other housemates wouldn’t be home until 5:30 at the earliest from their Biology and Medical Science labs, I started to think about another aspect of the tuition debate that is often overlooked.

The issue of costing and ‘getting your money’s worth’ for specific degrees.

Contact hours are a sore topic amongst Humanities students, but looking at it objectively, is it really fair we’re paying the same as the 22-hour a week Engineers for less teaching time? The universities will say that our tuition fees contribute to the overall experience, allow investments in improvements to the library, and faculty renovations. Except library membership is free across the country, and with the new shiny Biosciences building going up on Exeter’s campus, I can’t imagine they’ll be investing in a new History or English building any time soon.

is it really fair we’re paying the same as the 22-hour a week Engineers for less teaching time?

In fact, despite being some of Exeter’s biggest courses in terms of numbers, the Humanities facilities are painfully out-dated in comparison to the Science labs and Business School, as they are, I imagine, across many UK universities. You can’t help but wonder what we, as humanities students, are actually paying for. Our library subscriptions to archives, and our lecturers and their time spent both teaching us and marking work, sure, except these are standard requirements for all degree programmes. In terms of Humanities, where else is our £9,000 a year going?

Image: Wikimedia.org

As an FOI request in 2014 by the University of Bristol’s student paper demonstrated, more often than not, fees from Humanities and Arts students are used to subsidise the sciences, with around half of the £9,000 each year from Arts students being allocated to other departments.

Following cuts to the Arts and Humanities, while the Sciences have retained their state funding, this is hardly surprising. Universities are attempting to cover the impacts of cuts by spreading fees where the money is needed most; which in this case is not your resident Theology department. Humanities don’t require fancy facilities, I appreciate that; we don’t need expensive testing chambers for chemical experiments, or mechanical equipment for Engineering. But, if we don’t need these additional facilities, isn’t it only fair we pay less than our contemporaries who do? Perhaps the tuition fee allocation works differently from the way most students assume it does, but in this case a comprehensive breakdown of where the money goes wouldn’t go amiss.

The more I talk to fellow Humanities students the more disillusionment I become aware of. A friend who does English snidely commented that £9,000 can’t quite stretch to covering their book costs, which takes at least a cool £100 out of her maintenance grant a term. Another course mate pointed out that with Humanities degrees, all work is independent; lecturers ask us questions we know the answers to through our reading, our essays are our ideas and seminars our discussion. As they put it, “we’re essentially paying to educate ourselves. It’s just buying a degree because we know that’s what’s valued in the world of work.” And, on my worst days, I must admit I agree with them. With the unspoken assumption we’ll all be leaving with at least a 2:1, I sometimes feel as though I’m paying £30,000 for the privilege of a degree certificate.

I sometimes feel as though I’m paying £30,000 for the privilege of a degree certificate

The issue of the cost of Arts and Humanities degrees over the Sciences has been raised before. Back in 2011, an article in The Telegraph reported that David Willetts, the then Universities Minister, said that institutions should limit Arts and Humanities tuition fees to £6,000 because they are cheaper to run than the Sciences and Medicine. Universities in turn responded to this by arguing that the comments were “flawed”, as Willetts had failed to recognise the impact of cuts to higher education budgets.

Though somewhat paradoxical to be criticising the rising cost of fees from the perspective of an administration that had just cut the education budget, Willett’s point stands. Arts and Humanities degrees are cheaper to run, and I fully understand students feeling a little bitter that the cost remains the same as the Sciences

Image: Wikimedia.org

On some level I feel that we shouldn’t think like this. We shouldn’t be demanding more of our underpaid and overstressed lecturers; we shouldn’t be expecting an already stretched university budget to invest in better facilities for the Humanities- but when faced with the almost incomprehensibly large sum of £30,000 worth of debt on graduation, can you really blame us? To expect our full money’s worth, not for the ‘university experience’ in general, but for our specific degree, whether it be Dentistry or Events Management, is only natural.

What can be done about it though, is another matter. As student numbers continue to rise, decreasing resources and timetabled teaching time, and the first generation of £30,000-in debt graduates navigates the working world, I’m sure the question of getting our money’s worth, in Humanities degrees especially, will be risen again. For now though, in the words of my seminar friend who got me thinking about this all in the first place; “we might hate it but we know that there’s not a whole lot we can do about it.”

 

Featured Image: Wikimedia.org

Students willing to pay £23k uni fees, survey says

Students would be willing to pay up to £23,000 in annual tuition fees, a new survey has revealed.

When asked the maximum they would be prepared to pay for a year of university education, the 223 respondents from the University of Birmingham gave a mean average of £22,770 – nearly two and a half times more than the current £9,000 fees.

Asked how much they should have to pay, however, the students, who were from a range of socio-economic backgrounds, felt that just £3,810 would be appropriate.

Senior education developer at the University of the Arts London, Elizabeth Staddon commented that the results may indicate that students “don’t feel they have a choice” about going to university due to career considerations and social circumstances.

Focus group findings showed that students were generally relaxed about debt levels, as repayments are directly deducted from their future salaries. “A number reported that they didn’t think in terms of value for money very often and that they were unconcerned about paying a debt for money that they will never see,” the paper concluded.

Nonetheless, 8.5 per cent of the Russell Group students surveyed would not have enrolled in university education if fees rose above current levels, while twice as many would not have gone if fees rose above £15,000.

Conducted by Ms Staddon alongside Jon Catling and Alison Davies of the University of Birmingham, the survey’s results were presented at the Conference of the Society for Research into Higher Education.

University Vice–Chancellor’s All Student Talk: Five things we learnt

On Thursday 26 November, The Students’ Guild hosted a talk from University of Exeter Vice-Chancellor Sir Steve Smith open to all students to attend. There was also a chance to ask questions to the VC, as well as to University Provost, Professor Janice Kay; Interim Chief Operating Officer Jacqui Marshall and Deputy Vice Chancellor for Education, Professor Tim Quine. Exeposé Comment headed over to Newman Blue (so you didn’t have to) and here’s what we learnt.

Nobody cares (that much)

The event itself was pretty appallingly attended, with less than a third of the vast expanse of Newman Blue being filled by students. Steve himself joked that it was incredible that the entirety of the student population had managed to fit into a single lecture theatre, but it was disappointing to see such a lack of engagement from the wider student community. The decision to hold the event in the middle of deadline season, and on the same night as a (rather better attended) Debsoc debate on the boycotting of Isareli goods, was questionable, but even so, the turnout was poor. Perhaps the stereotype of the apathetic student is more accurate than we’d like to believe.

Fees are going up

“Do we want fees to rise? Yes we do.” The words nobody wanted to hear, right from the mouth of the University Vice-Chancellor. After the release of the Conversative Government’s new Higher Education Green Paper earlier in the month, the question on everyone’s lips was whether or not Exeter intends to take advantage of the proposed Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) that will allow better universities to charge higher fees in future years. Unfortunately for prospective students, the answer to that question is yes, with Steve confirming that the University hopes to increase fees consistently in line with inflation to combat rising staff costs (a 4.7% increase last year alone.) Whilst this revelation is hardly a surprise given the VC’s commitment to higher fees in the past, it will still come as a crushing blow to prospective students from lower income families, who will also have to contend with George Osborne’s decision to replace maintenance grants with loans in a bid to cut the national deficit. Best start saving now kids…

Steve would be a great accountant

Whether discussing the recent increases in student intake, citing departmental budgets or revealing the university’s sources of revenue, the 63 year old Vice-Chancellor showed little sign that his brain was slowing up in old age. A remarkable memory for stats and figures is just one of the talents the big cheese has up his sleeve in order to keep the University in ship-shape. If only he could remember how much his salary was with such ease….

Big Brother may soon be watching you

Ok, so Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Education, Professor Tim Quine did specifically state that this was not Big Brother, but we’re going to go right ahead and call it that anyway. The University management team laid out the details of their new “Effective Learning Analytics” scheme that they hope will better support students through their education here at Exeter. The scheme, which the University aims to launch in the next couple of years, will see personal tutors given access to students’ attendance, grades and even see how often they’ve been going to the library. The aim of the scheme, according to Professor Quine, is “to support you better and have that conversation with you.” In principle the scheme seems like a good idea, but concerns have been raised about the sensitivity of such data, and whether the University should be collecting it – Exeter’s very own snooping charter could be just a few years away. Quine was, however, adamant that despite looking like former Prime Minister Tony Blair, he had nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq, which is a relief we suppose.

Extra Curricular activities may soon take place off University premises

In response to an excellent question from AU President Jack Bristow, Sir Steve reiterated his commitment to supporting extra-curricular activities within the University, despite the TEF not assessing them as part of their judgments regarding the quality of academic institutions. “We recognize students get jobs not just based on their grades,” he commented, “playing sport, volunteering and working on the newspaper are all great activities and we want to support them. We want to preserve student choice and space for activities.” Additionally, Chief Operating Officer Jacqui Marshall also confirmed the University is looking into sourcing suitable sites off campus in the city, such as Primary schools, which could be used as venues for such activities, due to a lack of space on the campus site. We’re just hoping we won’t get kicked out of Devonshire House anytime in the near future…