It’s spring and it’s time for the first league table of the season.
The Complete University Guide and league table for 2014 is now out. The details can be found on the Guide website together with lots of other analysis (including by subject, region and mission group) and information on careers, fees etc.
The main table uses nine indicators: Student Satisfaction, Research Assessment, Entry Standards, Student:Staff Ratio; Spending on Academic Services; Spending on Student Facilities; Good Honours degrees achieved; Graduate Prospects and Completion. The Subject tables are based on four: Student Satisfaction, Research Assessment; Entry Standards and Graduate Prospects. The results tend to be fairly consistent year on year and there is not huge volatility in this table.
Rank 2014
Rank 2013
1
(1)
Cambridge
2
(3)
Oxford
3
(2)
LSE
4
(4)
Imperial
5
(5)
Durham
6
(6)
St Andrews
7
(8)
UCL
8
(6)
Warwick
9
(10)
Bath
10
(13)
Exeter
11
(9)
Lancaster
12
(12)
York
13
(22)
Surrey
14
(14)
Loughborough
15
(11)
Bristol
16
(20)
Leicester
17
(23)
Birmingham
18
(16)
Edinburgh
19
(18)
King’s
20
(27)
UEA
20
(15)
Southampton
So, little movement in the top 10 apart from the slight rejig to ensure Oxbridge dominance in the first two places. Glasgow and Nottingham slip out of the top 20 to be replaced by UEA, Birmingham and this year’s start performer at 13, the University of Surrey.
Graduations: A bit like the Olympics but then some
Graduation is one of the most significant events in the university calendar. It is a slightly bizarre and rather ritualistic event. Everyone (well, nearly everyone) dresses up, in gowns and/or posh frocks or newly acquired suits.
I have attended two of my own and over 150 others at different institutions. Whilst I was a bit grumpy about attending the one for my undergraduate degree (I decided I was doing it just for my parents), pretty chipper about the second (after nearly 10 years’ hard graft on my PhD I genuinely felt I’d earned it) and having skipped the one for the Diploma in Management Studies in between I do really rather like them now.
A US commencement
Whilst there is something to be said for the total experience of the US style commencement, I do think the UK model is hard to beat in its mixture of pomp, flummery and joy. And it is quite a bizarre event when you think about it, with few parallels in public life; whilst weddings, funerals, christenings and knightings come close they all involve smaller numbers of people whereas in graduations hundreds of people are the centre of attention, albeit only for a few moments each. Graduation days are just about the only days in the university calendar when everybody is happy or at least the smallest number of people are gloomy.
The closest parallel I think is with the atmosphere around the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics where the experience in all of the venues and on Olympic Park was one of uniform near rapture from volunteers, staff, participants (most of them) and audience alike. OK the various garish sportswear combinations aren’t quite as formal as gowns, hoods and mortar boards but the analogy broadly holds good I think.
London 2012 crowd
Organising graduation ceremonies is one of most thankless tasks in the administrator’s panoply of duties. I’ve often thought it is a bit of a short straw in that many aspects of your work are extremely visible (and permanently on record, available on DVD for a very reasonable price), you are dependent on lots of other people doing what you expect of them and there are just dozens of things which can go wrong and over which you have little or no influence. Senior staff, whatever their role in the event, will always delight in passing on some helpful bits of advice about where things went wrong or could have been improved.
Rituals
Rituals are interesting. Shaking of hands and bowing in different combinations are pretty much commonplace. My recollection of graduating at Edinburgh was that you leaned forward and were hit on head by a large piece of velvet claimed to be a piece of John Knox’s breeches:
According to University legend, the graduation cap (the Geneva Bonnet) was made using material from the breeches of John Knox.
I’m sure it was orange when I graduated but it looks a bit different in the photo. It also now strikes me as rather unlikely that the said item would have lasted for 400 years of head bashing (and it would be generally rather unhygienic too). It also seems a distinctly odd thing to decide would be a good way to signify graduation.
Things are even odder at Cambridge where, naturally, things are also all done in Latin:
The Praelector presenting the graduand holds the candidate by his or her right hand and says:
“Dignissima domina, Domina Procancellaria et tota Academia praesento vobis hunc virum (hanc mulierem) quem (quam) scio tam moribus quam doctrina esse idoneum (idoneam) ad gradum assequendum (name of degree); idque tibi fide mea praesto totique Academiae.”
“Most worthy Vice-Chancellor and the whole University, I present to you this man (this woman) whom I know to be suitable as much by character as by learning to proceed to the degree of (name of degree); for which I pledge my faith to you and to the whole University.”
The graduand’s name is called and they step forward and kneel. Clasping the graduand’s hands, the Vice-Chancellor says:
“Auctoritate mihi commissa admitto te ad gradum (name of degree), in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.”
“By the authority committed to me, I admit you to the degree of (name of degree) in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
Similarly at Oxford:
If you are attending a degree ceremony to confer your MA (or DD, DCL, DM or MCh), you will be required to kneel in front of the VC, who touches each person on the head with a Testament, admitting them ‘In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost’.
It’s slightly less elaborate at Nottingham although there is lots of bowing. Indeed students, regardless of instruction, never seem to know whether they are bowing to the Chancellor, the Vice-Chancellor, the crest behind the stage, the platform party or the mace. They will bow to just about anyone.
As with most universities we do have a heavy and finely crafted mace. One day someone might explain why. We also have Marshals of various kinds and levels of seniority and an Esquire Bedell (who looks after the mace). All of these people, despite their strange titles, are key to making the event happen and to ensure that students actually make it to the front, across the stage and back to their seats without mishap.
Dress
Gowns can be pretty hot and some of more ceremonial officers’ robes even more so: Nottingham’s chancellor has a train and plenty of very heavy gold trim. The best gown ever saw was I think from a Spanish university. Bright orange with a very chic pillbox hat it looked as if it had been unchanged for 500 years. The 60s were a boom time for gown designers with the new universities at that time looking for a contemporary take on the traditional style (I am told); UEA gowns were designed by Cecil Beaton who clearly had fun with the hoods. There was another spate of gown design excitement in 1992 when all the new universities launched and then began adopting their own appropriately differentiated livery. Gown companies, of which there are only a handful in the UK, have really got this market literally and metaphorically sewn up.
Beyond the gowns there can be some interesting dress issues for graduands and, despite the very sound advice issued to all about the inadvisability of trying out stilettoes for the first time many people do. Despite lots of inappropriate footwear – from flip flops to biker boots – people rarely fall over or off the stage. I do know I’m getting old though because of my irritation at the number of graduands who think casual wear is appropriate for such a ceremony. Attempts to legislate have so far failed.
On graduands
It’s pretty easy to have all your lazy prejudices confirmed about the kind of students following different kinds of courses. For example, you can be pretty sure that at least several archaeology graduands will have long hair and beards. It is inevitable that many art history and psychology students are tall and blonde. Physiotherapy students have the firmest handshakes. Names, particularly but not always of international students, are quite tricky and sexing the graduand can also occasionally be problematic and embarrassing for the Dean if called incorrectly. On the plus side, British graduands often have amusing middle names which no-one has ever heard attributed to them before.
Platform party
These things I have learned:
Some members of the platform party seem to find it challenging to stay awake for an hour on a stage. Even when you are clapping a lot (or pretending to clap because you have sore hands from excessive clapping in the previous ceremony).
Drinking at lunchtime is generally not conducive to effective working, including at graduation. Just because you only have to walk and clap doesn’t mean you can drink with impunity.
Sleeping on stage is still frowned upon.
You have to behave. Furtive blackberry use is going to be noticed. Even so, lots of parents and friends of graduands will have lots of pictures of people in funny dress doing odd things on stage.
Every university has some really oddly titled courses and we all appear, judging by the small number of graduands on some programmes, to have many more uneconomic courses than we thought. These are not things to raise with members of faculty during the procession.
Honorary graduates
I’ve written before about these and a previous post noted the two broad categories for the recipients of honorary degrees. Although there are a few borderlines, by and large I think it’s still the case that you can divide the worthy holders of honoraries into serious or celebrities. Another post on last year’s round of awards noted the wide range of celebrities who have collected honoraries, from Donald Sinden to Pam St Clement. An even earlier piece noted the success of some individuals in accumulating large numbers of honorary awards (although Kermit has still only got the one degree as far as I can tell). It’s all good fun although can get messy if you decide, as Edinburgh did in the case of Robert Mugabe, that the recipient is not perhaps as worthy as he once was and ask for your degree back.
Recipients of honorary degrees, or in the US where famous individuals are invited there just for this purpose, normally deliver an address to inspire and uplift the new graduates. There are thousands of US commencement speeches on you tube and many lists of the best including this rather good one.
One recent and very good one from the University of Nottingham is an address by author Jon McGregor who advises graduates to “get lost”:
Forward not back
Graduation is still a major rite of passage. It remains one of the most wonderful events in the university calendar and, for all concerned it is generally a positive and forward looking event. Everyone is thinking about future work or study or other plans but also with fond reflection of their time at university. There is an over-riding sense of optimism even in the most difficult economic circumstances. It’s a bit like having the Olympics in your patch every year.
2012 Shanghai Jiao Tong World Rankings: Top 20 and UK placings
Keep calm. Top 20 follows:
1
Harvard University
2
Stanford University
3
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
4
University of California, Berkeley
5
University of Cambridge
6
California Institute of Technology
7
Princeton University
8
Columbia University
9
University of Chicago
10
University of Oxford
11
Yale University
12
University of California, Los Angeles
13
Cornell University
14
University of Pennsylvania
15
University of California, San Diego
16
University of Washington
17
The Johns Hopkins University
18
University of California, San Francisco
19
University of Wisconsin – Madison
20
The University of Tokyo
The rankings have been published and are or will shortly be available at the ARWU website
As last year though there are no surprises and absolutely no movement in the top 20 with Harvard retaining the number 1 spot for the sixth successive year and everyone else unchanged too. They are going to have to think about changing to doing this every five years instead of annually.
In terms of the UK placings, again very little change:
5
University of Cambridge
United Kingdom
1
10
University of Oxford
United Kingdom
2
21
University College London
United Kingdom
3
24
The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine
United Kingdom
4
40
The University of Manchester
United Kingdom
5
51
The University of Edinburgh
United Kingdom
6
68
King’s College London
United Kingdom
7
70
University of Bristol
United Kingdom
8
86
University of Nottingham
United Kingdom
9
Only change is that Sheffield slips out of the Top 100.
Let’s hope there will be more excitement with the Times Higher and QS tables.
Yes, it’s another new world ranking. This time from the previously unheard of Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) from Saudi Arabia. The website offers little information about the organisation but we do know that the US has the lion’s share of the top 100 places:
The distribution of top 100 institutions among countries is as follows: USA (58), England (7), France (5), Japan (5), Israel (4), Switzerland (4), Canada (3), Germany (3), Australia (2), Netherlands (2), Denmark (1), Finland (1), Italy (1), Norway (1), Scotland (1), South Korea (1), and Sweden (1).
The detailed methodology is also available on the CWUR website. Anyway, the Top 10 is as follows:
Top 10
Harvard
MIT
Stanford
Cambridge
Caltech
Princeton
Oxford
Yale
Columbia
Berkeley
And the UK placings in the Top 100 are:
4 Cambridge
7 Oxford
28 Imperial
31 UCL
60 Edinburgh
76 Manchester
97 Nottingham
98 Bristol
So, overall not that dissimilar from the SJTU Academic Ranking of World Universities or the QS table. Will it gain a niche in the rankings market? Time will tell but at first sight it doesn’t seem to be sufficiently distinctive to attract a major profile.
30 April 2012: To mark the start of Universities Week 2012 (30 April – 7 May), a new report launched today reveals the statistics behind Team GB for the last twenty years. Detailed analysis of UK Olympic athletes shows that Team GB Olympic medallists are nearly twice as likely to have gone to university as the UK population as a whole, with 61 per cent of medallists having been university-educated, compared to 31 per cent of the population as a whole.
The report, Olympic and Paralympic Games: The impact of universities, highlights that university-goers from the combined Team GB competitors since Barcelona 1992 to Beijing 2008 have won 65 per cent of the nation’s gold medals, 66 per cent silver medals and 49 per cent of the bronze medals. At the last Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, 64 per cent of Team GB’s medallists had been to university, compared to 66 per cent at the previous Games in Athens.
Excellent linkage between university attendance and Olympic success. Which also gives us a new league table: a ranking of universities by number of Olympic medals won. No surprises about who is in first place:
Place University and medals
1-2 Joint: University of Cambridge and University of Oxford with 15 medals each
3 Loughborough University with 11 medals
4-5 Joint: Oxford Brookes University and University of Edinburgh both with nine medals each
6 University of Bath with 7 medals
7 University of Nottingham with 6 medals
8-9 Joint: University of Reading and University of Southampton with 5 medals
10 University of Exeter with 4 medals
The Complete University Guide and league table is now out. The details can be found on the Guide websitetogether with lots of other analysis (including by subject, region and mission group) and information on careers, fees etc. The main table uses nine indicators: Student Satisfaction, Research Assessment, Entry Standards, Student:Staff Ratio; Spending on Academic Services; Spending on Student Facilities; Good Honours degrees achieved; Graduate Prospects and Completion. The Subject tables are based on four: Student Satisfaction, Research Assessment; Entry Standards and Graduate Prospects.
Rank 2012
Rank 2013
1
(1)
Cambridge
2
(4)
LSE
3
(2)
Oxford
4
(3)
Imperial
5
(5)
Durham
6
(6)
St Andrews
6
(8)
Warwick
8
(7)
UCL
9
(9)
Lancaster
10
(10)
Bath
11
(11)
Bristol
12
(12)
York
13
(15)
Exeter
14
(19)
Loughborough
15
(14)
Southampton
16
(13)
Edinburgh
17
(21)
Glasgow
18
(16)
King’s
19
(17)
Nottingham
20
(23)
Leicester
So, little movement in the top 15 apart from the slightly surprising news that LSE has usurped Oxford to climb to second place in the table. Oxford has dropped from first place in 2011 and this change will undoubtedly grab the headlines for the table. Glasgow and Leicester join the top 20 but Sussex and SOAS drop out.
University Ranking Watch has published a distinctive table: the universities which have won the most University Challenge series. Leaving aside the detail that Oxford and Cambridge enjoy the special privilege of multiple entries, via the Colleges, it’s an interesting list:
Surprisingly, they've never won
1. Oxford 39 points
2. Cambridge 21
3. Manchester 8
4=. Imperial College London 5
4=. Open University 5
6=. Durham 4
6=. Sussex 4
8=. St. Andrews 3
8=. Birkbeck, University of London 3
10=. Bradford 2
10=. Dundee 2
10=. Keele 2
10=. Leicester 2
10=. Belfast 2
10=. Warwick 2
(Note that it’s two points for a win and one for being runner up.)
One day, the University of Nottingham will be there I hope.
Students have always behaved badly. Not all of them and not all of the time but universities have often felt the need to seek to constrain the worst excesses. In 1584 at Oxford University, statutes were approved to prevent disorder among the student body. These regulations also contain references to specific degree requirements including attendance at lectures on Aristotle and an instruction not to play football. (Sylvester, D (1970), Educational Documents, 800-1816, London: Methuen pp151-153.)
These days universities around the world tend to have more comprehensive requirements (but perhaps more supportive of sporting activity). A rather striking devlopment of this has been reported by the Chronicle which notes that Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Higher and Secondary Education has issued a rather thorough ‘code of conduct’ for students, covering such matters as how they should shake hands with professors and the proper time to visit the toilet during classes.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (quoted by the Chronicle) described the code, “Ethical Rules for Higher Education Institutions,” as an attempt by an authoritarian government to keep its youth population in line:
The ministry is requiring that its pedantic “Ethical Rules for Higher Education Institutions” be signed by every university student and professor in the country.
Any idea what kind of book this might be?
“These rules are being introduced to form and retain, as well as defend, the ethical integrity of members of higher educational institutions,” the document says. It promises to “prevent the decay of students…and defend them from alcoholism and drug addiction, as well as the threats of religious extremism and mass culture.”
(It’s good to see that someone is still fighting that last battle, particularly after Rutgers University paid Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi of MTV’s “Jersey Shore” $32,000 to lecture its students in March 2011. Snooki got $2,000 more than Toni Morrison, the Nobel Prize-winning author who for $30,000 delivered the keynote address at Rutgers’ commencement ceremony in May 2011.)
Notwithstanding the lofty language of the prologue, many of the new guidelines read like a rather poor joke, the work of ministry officials with an acutely sardonic sense of humor. Article 3.8 stipulates that “members of a higher education institution, when moving, should take the right side. It is recommended to greet each other in the following way: students first greet professors; men first greet women; younger students first greet older students. Shaking hands is excluded from this rule, since elders should reach out to shake first.”
And there’s more:
“It is prohibited to post on the Internet materials that are not in line with national values or related to the internal problems of higher educational institutions,” the rules say, before going on to note that they “categorically ban publishing, saving, or distribution via computers of different materials not related to a higher education institution.”
And just when you thought things could not get any worse: “Don’t walk around a university campus with no reason,” the rulebook advises.
Rather harsh and somewhat backward looking (if indeed true – I haven’t been able to locate the original code which is quoted). And suspect it won’t help their international student recruitment either.
The latest edition of the MINES ParisTech league table is based on the achievement of graduates in the highest roles in the top companies and the methodology is pretty straightforward:
The academic career for qualification in higher education of “top executives” (subsequently referred to as CEOs) has been redefined and, for each person in question, a point has been awarded to each of the various institutions which contributed to their higher education.
(Note that where the individual studied at more than one institution, the point has been divided up amongst the contributors.)
The points awarded to each institution for all of the 500 CEOs are then added up, so as to classify the range of institutions having contributed to the graduate training of one or several CEOs of the 500 companies listed by Fortune Global 500. In 2010, the 500 companies of Fortune Global 500 were run by 508 people (eight companies had two leaders). We were able to obtain information on the higher education career of 487 of the 508 CEOs. For the other 21 (i.e. 4.1% of the total number), it was not possible to reconstitute any aspect of their academic career. For five CEOs, the assessment was only partial. Lastly, 13 CEOs had not pursued any higher education studies.
All clear and uncontroversial I would have thought
Sadly, MINES ParisTech itself falls just outside the top 20.
1 Harvard University
2 Tokyo University
3 Keio University
4 HEC (France)
5 Kyoto University
5 University of Oxford
7 Ecole Polytechnique
8 Waseda University
9 ENA (France)
10 Seoul National University
11 University of Pennsylvania
12 Columbia University
13 Stanford University
13 Tohoku University
13 University of Nottingham
16 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
17 Institute for Study of Politics – Paris
18 University St Gallen
19 University Sao Paulo
19 Northwestern University
The other UK showings are Cambridge at 30 and Sheffield, Manchester and Glasgow at 38. Over 100 universities are tied in 92nd place with 1 point each which does kind of undermine the lower end of the table somewhat. Good showing for Japanese universities though with four places in the top 10
2011 Shanghai Jiao Tong World Rankings: Top 10 and UK placings
The rankings have been published and are available at the ARWU site I believe but there seem to be problems with access at time of writing. Am therefore going with second hand accounts of the positions (which I hope are accurate).
As last year though there are no surprises and very little movement in the top 10 with Harvard retaining the number 1 spot for the fifth successive year (last year’s position in brackets):
1 Harvard University (1)
2 Stanford University (3)
3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (4)
4 University of California, Berkeley (2)
5 University of Cambridge (5)
6 California Institute of Technology (6)
7 Princeton University (7)
8 Columbia University (8)
9 University of Chicago (9)
10 University of Oxford (10)
The Times Higher (which clearly has managed to access the ARWU site) has the UK’s top performers (ie in the Top 100) as follows (last year’s position in brackets):
5 Cambridge (5)
10 Oxford (10)
20 University College London (21)
24 Imperial College London (26)
38 University of Manchester (44)
53 University of Edinburgh (54)
68 King’s College London (63)
70 University of Bristol (66)
85 University of Nottingham (84)
97 University of Sheffield (88)
So, very little change at all to report apart from Birmingham dropping out of the top 100. Perhaps there will be more excitement with the Times Higher and QS tables.
The Telegraph and Sunday Times both carry this most interesting of stories about the establishment of the ‘New College of the Humanities’. The Guardian also has the story but includes reactions from those expressing some consternation at the proposition as well as the key piece of information that the degrees will be awarded by the University of London.
The Telegraph reports that the College will charge £18,000 a year and that for this princely sum students will enjoy a range of benefits:
”Our priorities at the College will be excellent teaching quality, excellent ratios of teachers to students, and a strongly supportive and responsive learning environment.
”Our students will be challenged to develop as skilled, informed and reflective thinkers, and will receive an education to match that aspiration.”
The college claims to offer a ”new model of higher education for the humanities in the UK” and will prepare undergraduates for degrees in Law, Economics and humanities subjects including History, Philosophy and English literature.
Students will also take three ”intellectual skills” modules in science literacy, logic and critical thinking and applied ethics.
Practical professional skills to prepare them for the world of work including financial literacy, teamwork, presentation and strategy will also be taught.
And the staff will largely be star academics (Grayling, Ferguson, Dawkins, Pinker to name just the back four), motivated it seems by the desire to bring more high quality education to the UK HE sector and to improve society.
College chiefs say students will receive a ”best in class education”, with one-to-one tutorials, more than 12 contact hours a week and a 10/1 student to teacher ratio.
Prof Grayling said that budget cuts and dwindling resources are likely to limit both quantity and quality of teaching in the UK, leaving the fabric of society poorer as a result.
But there are a few questions here:
Will anyone sign up at these prices?
Will students be eligible for any public financial support?
Who are the “College chiefs” quoted above?
What does the logo look like?
Will a ‘BA Hons (London) DNC’ award be embraced by employers?
Did they test out the model using Virtual-U (it really does exist) before launching?
And, most importantly, who is doing all the administration here? Or are they dividing it up amongst themselves?
Whichever way you look at it, it’s certainly a different approach to the challenges facing UK higher education. And it does create an entirely new game – fantasy uni league – where you too can put together your own team of top academics to deliver an Oxbridge-rivalling student experience (but perhaps best to do the dry run using Virtual-U beforehand).
The Complete University Guide and league table is now out. The details can be found on the Guide website together with lots of other stuff (actually there really is a surprising amount of useful information in here).
Rank 2012
Rank 2011
Institution
1
(2)
Cambridge
2
(1)
Oxford
3
(3)
Imperial College London
4
(5)
London School of Economics
5
(4)
Durham
6
(6)
St Andrews
7
(9)
University College London
8
(7)
Warwick
9
(8)
Lancaster
10
(12)
Bath
11
(16)
Bristol
12
(10)
York
13
(11)
Edinburgh
14
(14)
Southampton
15
(24)
Exeter
16
(13)
King’s College London
17
(18)
Nottingham
18
(15)
SOAS
19
(21)
Loughborough
19
(19)
Sussex
So, no big surprises in there and little movement in the top 10 (apart from the Oxbridge swap at the top). Two new entries to the top 20 from Exeter and Loughborough but otherwise it’s as you were. (Modest advancement for Nottingham too, as I’m sure everyone has noticed.)
Entertaining attempt this by Chris Leslie (my local MP). He recently introduced a short ‘ten minute rule Bill’ in the Commons (the Master’s Degree (Minimum Standards) Bill). The Bill seeks to prohibit Oxford and Cambridge Universities from automatically awarding a ‘free’ postgraduate Master’s degree to anyone who left with a BA(Hons), whereas anyone else who wants an MA must actually study for a full year, sit exams and pay rather more in fees than is required for the Oxbridge award.
The Hansard exchanges give a flavour of a good natured but, you fear, sadly doomed proposition:
Eleven years ago, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education said:
“The Masters title causes much misunderstanding… most employers think it always represents an award for postgraduate study.”
There is no logical or justifiable defence of that historical anachronism, which grew out of ancient circumstances that have long been irrelevant to modern academic practice. To preserve the MA’s academic integrity, it is time to discontinue Oxbridge colleges’ ability to award unearned qualifications that can so easily cause confusion. That is why my short Bill would prohibit granting master’s degrees unless certain minimum academic standards are attained.
So, a worthy effort by Chris Leslie. Whilst it would be unfortunate if Parliament were to think it was appropriate to legislate for or against particular autonomous institutions’ awards, this should serve as a reminder that this really should be sorted out.
The BBC reports on a warning from the Universities Minister concerning fee setting plans. Speaking at the Dearing Conference at the University of Nottingham on 17 February he warned that, because the government had assumed that the average fee would be £7,500, if most universities charged higher than this the additional cost of student finance would have to be met from elsewhere in the HE budget. Thus, higher fees will result in more cuts:
David Willetts has warned that there will be more cuts to higher education if too many universities opt to charge maximum tuition fees. The government wants most universities to pitch their fees lower – because it faces costs from supporting students’ loans. The universities minister said savings would “reluctantly” have to be found.
The government has said it wants the top fee to be charged only in “exceptional circumstances” but as independent bodies, universities are free to charge fees they want. Imperial College, London has become the first to opt to charge the top rate and Oxford and Cambridge appear to be moving that way.
The government says if too many universities charge higher fees, the costs to it will be too high.
The key point here is the independence of universities. Without further legislation on fees the government is not able to dictate what universities will charge. So, the exhortations to pitch low and the assertion that £9,000 will be exceptional represent helpful advice from the Minister but it will be up to universities to decide. And, if we have the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Central Lancashire, as reported in The Times (£), saying that his institution probably needs to charge around £8,000 in order to survive, then we will soon see whether this means that even more cuts will be on the way for higher education or if this was just sabre-rattling.
