The call for discounts/refunds on student fees is an ongoing theme, so we thought we’d weigh in a bit. Feel free to respond/attack/hug. We actually think students should get more, and something back...
#tuitionfees
A (longish) thread.
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At first glance, the call for lower fees or refunds makes sense. Students have been hoodwinked to some extent by unis, lured to campuses, and there’s a lot less face to face (F2F) teaching than was expected/promised.
#tuitionfees
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Some of this loss of F2F was entirely predictable, some perhaps less so as the pandemic situation is dynamic. It’s clear that unis should have offered online teaching as far as possible, up front. But they didn’t.
#tuitionfees
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We’ve tweeted about why universities have done this. In part, they’ve been badly supported by government and forced into a financial corner over decades. They’re screwed whichever way they turn. They should still have done it differently.
#tuitionfees
4/ https://twitter.com/UWankings/status/1309415315743404032

Students might/should have seen this coming - they could have deferred for a year. But universities enticed them – they kind of had to. Many people have been social distancing at home for months, and the economy/job market is screwed. Difficult choices.
#tuitionfees

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Students are getting less of an ‘experience’, and they are rightly aggrieved. If it was us, we’d also be scared, angry, frustrated. As a paying customer, the standard response is to ask for recourse...a discount, a refund, improved terms.
#tuitionfees
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Sidenote: A lot of students are not in their late teens/early twenties and living on campuses, so their experience of HE is not 'young and residential' – what they’re ‘losing’ perhaps less/different. See work by @Dr_Finn_ on this.
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7/ https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/berj.3287

So let’s follow the discount/refund argument. How much? One figure is 15%, as this is potentially the ‘loss’ in learning outcomes. The study that this number came from, though, said that good online teaching has no observable difference.
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http://www.heqco.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/How_Online_Learning_Affects_Productivity-ENG.pdf

First off, relationship between fees and ‘the service’ is murky. Some courses cost more, some less, and arts/humanities/social sciences subsidise medicine/chemistry/engineering. All pay the same per year and the latter tend to earn more. It’s a mess.
#tuitionfees
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Secondly, the proportion of fees that actually go into teaching varies. It’s around 45%, but varies by discipline, university, etc. The rest covers the running of the uni – all of that admin, maintenance, library services etc costs money.
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https://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Following-the-pound-1.pdf

N.B.1: Remember – as fees rose in the UK, this was accompanied by reductions in state support for teaching. So universities aren’t getting much more than before, it’s just coming directly from students, often via state loans.
#tuitionfees
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N.B.2: It’s also worth mentioning that many (most?) academics and other uni staff would prefer that fees were low or non-existent. They pollute much of the sense of what HE is for – personal and social development, as well as jobs, economic contributions etc.
#tuitionfees
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We can all see, though, big salaries for VCs and lots of shiny new buildings. But much of this building was based on loans, staff are already heavily overworked, and there are a lot of staff on precarious contracts. Hmm.
#tuitionfees
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If a refund/discount was to be offered, who would it hurt? Not senior leaderships, there’s no pain for them. It could be absorbed by the university’s savings, if they have any; history suggests this is unlikely as managers' focus is on 'efficient' parsimony.
#tuitionfees
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This means that it’s rank and file staff who would carry the can. Redundancies for many, more overwork for those who stay, even less academic jobs for people coming out of their PhDs, and a poorer overall experience for students - not what staff or students want.
#tuitionfees
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There’s a central social justice angle here, too: working class, women, and BAME staff are the most at risk, more likely to be on part-time/precarious contracts. Cuts would further entrench inequalities in what is predominantly a pale, male and stale academy.
#tuitionfees
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The people who’d get hurt are not those responsible for the mess, but the ones who’ve (been) bent over backwards, doing everything they can to clean it up - at personal cost/risk - by moving teaching online, preparing campuses, and generally supporting students.
#tuitionfees
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The real problem here is a uni system that doesn’t work. On the surface, money’s pouring in, but underneath it’s broken - for staff, many of whom have been striking about workloads, pay, and pensions issues, and for students' pockets, learning, mental health.
#tuitionfees
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Where does this leave the discount/refund? Students are getting ‘less’ in experience if not in teaching, but universities can’t/won't pay. Uni leaderships are partly to blame, as are the government - not staff, who the discount would hit.
#tuitionfees
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We'd argue that students should get additional support, and money back, but funded by the government, who're the primary culprits, having created an unworkable, now dangerous situation.

This should be an opportunity to rethink how HE works and is paid for.

#tuitionfees
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