University students should not be charged their full fees because of the level of disruption caused to learning by almost a year of heavy lockdown restrictions, according to a group of students who are calling for a “day of action” to highlight the matter. An online petition calling for tuition fees to be reduced has received almost 600,000 signatures. BBC News has the story.
A group of university students are calling for a day of action to demand fee refunds because of how Covid has affected their learning experience.
The Write Off, Right Now (WORN) group, led by three University of Bristol students, wants April 16th to be used to apply pressure to the Government.
It said online learning did not provide the same value for money and students should not be charged their full fees.
The Government has previously said fees must be paid in full for remote study…
WORN is encouraging students across the country to “take over” social media on April 16th to spread the message about what they say is an unfair decision to charge full fees for those studying remotely during lockdown, when in-person classes have been banned.
An online petition, calling for tuition fees to be cut from £9,250 to £3,000, has now received more than 580,000 signatures.
And while the National Union of Students has not called for tuition fee rebates, or a reduction in fees, it is pressing for the creation of hardship funds to be large enough to meet demand.
Student and WORN campaign leader Lianna Denwood said it was time for the government to “take ownership” of the situation and recognise students “haven’t been provided with the education they were sold”.
One of WORN’s leading members, Scott Weavers, has said that it would be “morally unfair” for students to be forced to pay their tuition fees in full.
We were promised when we signed up for university that we would receive sufficient access to facilities, course equipment and social contact to help us achieve our degrees.
This year we have acquired anything but that standard, and yet we’re still expected to pay full price.
The onus, they say, is on the Government to “help students” since universities “do not have the financial ability to compensate their entire student population”.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The petition to reduce university student tuition fees from £9,250 to £3,000 has received a response from the Government. No prizes for those who guessed that this reduction is not under consideration!
Tuition fee levels must represent value for money and ensure that universities are properly funded. Government is not considering a reduction in maximum fee levels to £3,000.
Read the full response here.
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While I agree students are not getting value for money, my worry is that the campaign’s thrust is more about financial compensation a la furlough than the real issue which is that universities, like schools, should never have been closed in the first place.
The fact is that universities have NEVER reopened in any meaningful way – they have been closed for more than a year, and graudation ceremonies this summer are already cancelled.
Also it’s not just the learning that has been affected. In truth, a large part of what people are getting for their money at uni is the social experience – societies, bars, parties, sports, trips etc etc. All of that has been cancelled, and goodness knows if it will ever restart or be the same again.
Agreed – and if there should be compensation, then the universities can pay it – after all, to say they can’t afford it is to say that the money they’ve taken from students wouldn’t have been spent on their education anyway.
Oh come now, fact-finding expeditions to the Caribbean etc for the Vice-Chancellor and associates don’t come cheap!
A close family friend who is during post-doctoral research at a Russell Group university surprised us all by annoncing that the university had formally granted her tenure in October 2020. I like her a lot, and I don’t doubt her academic abilities, but she freely admits she has no interest in teaching and hasn’t set foot in the University since early 2020. This really does suggest that the university has no qualms about giving two fingers to its paying customers.
The treatment of students has been appalling – second only to that meted out to school pupils.
They should not be paying full fees for a massively diminished experience.
The management of universities has been a vivid illustration that the turds come to the top of the sewage. These are supposed to be centres of academic excellence, ffs – and they can’t even demolish see-through myths and join in solidarity to defeat dishonesty and misrepresentation.
Pace the usual band of grousers, I know that decent teaching/lecturing and research staff are extremely pissed off, even though the unions have been compliant. Those I know hate the Zoom non-experience and hands-off stuff – and anybody who thinks that distance learning (apart from in a particular niche is an adequate substitute, is not in touch with reality.
As with large retail and WFH, covid/lockdown has accelerated an already existing trend of University education leaving the built environment and going increasingly digital.
Even before Covid I have heard students boast that they don’t bother attending lectures because they are all put on the University intranet and in any case much more interesting and useful material can be found on world leading University YouTube sites.
Freshers week may never be the same again but does anybody know what full fees are at the already digital Open University ?
A full-time degree at the OU would cost £6300 per year versus £9250 at a bricks and mortar uni.
http://www.open.ac.uk/courses/fees-and-funding
Thank you, plus far cheaper living costs or such costs offset by also having a job.
I hope this prompts some thoughts among prospective students about whether a remotely taught course in Grievance Studies is really worth running up £50K of debt for.
If you’re just going to be watching a screen, free or low cost alternatives are available online. As an employer, I actively prefer applicants who have made the smart decision to go that route.
The problem with waiving fees is that the majority of students do not end up paying them in full anyway – the student loan system ensures that the debt is written off after 30 years and only the richest will pay it off in full – the rest will pay some, so a fee reduction won’t help. What would help is a guaranteed extension of the loan system for all students whose education was disrupted so they can start again or repeat the year if they want to, and most importantly, compensation for money lost through sky-high rents paid in advance for accommodation never used. Whatever it is, it needs to provide a sufficient deterrent against simply closing down and keeping students locked up. My impression is there was no appetite from Universities to challenge the lockdown narrative because thet were not bearing the consequences ….
There is no such thing as student loans. If you look at the loan company they cannot recognise them as loans under accounting standards and the company is technically insolvent.
Student loans is nothing more than PR cover for a list of people who have done something with their lives who the government can apply a higher tax rate to. There used to be a time when Tories were for cutting taxes for such people.
Agreed, it is not a ‘loan’ in any recognisable sense, but still puts off people from poorer families who are put off by not wanting to get into debt, and I suppose satisfies people who don’t think government should subsidise students, not realising that most of it is written off.
You make some good points and some good suggestions for recompense.
“My impression is there was no appetite from Universities to challenge the lockdown narrative because thet were not bearing the consequences ….” Possibly, but I think mainly they just fell into line with everyone else, including many businesses who were bearing the consequences, because they believed the lies or were too afraid to speak out against them. Let us not forget the unprecedented propaganda campaign to which many many millions fell victim – people who run universities, businesses etc are only human and clearly as fallible as the rest of us, though as Rick H quite rightly pointed out in another post on this article, as centres of academic excellence their critical thinking skills ought to be more finely honed than the average.
The petition is old and has passed its sell by date. Is there a new one?
Pity the poor developers of private student Halls of Residences. During Lockdown 1. building work on two very large new student blocks in my city carried on regardless.
They are now complete but have about 10% occupancy while the ground floor retail units remain unlet😥.