Surreal Politics Better than you could do
A-Level candidates should expect to be treated like consumers by their universities
By Ethan and Anna
Those receiving their A-level results today may well enjoy university, but they’re getting a bad deal.
Universities are ripping their students off. Some of the most prestigious establishments in the country are getting away with an amateurish effort at education. My fellow students were probably too busy getting pissed to notice that, in 1998, when tuition fees were introduced: they became consumers. When payment is introduced to a previously free system, the dynamic between an organisation and its customers should change, shouldn’t it? I don’t think that it has.
Like many public services previously introduced to the market, universities are insulated from its harshest effects. They have a monopoly on middle-class expectations. From family, to teachers, to peers, the message is: if you want to get a job, you’ve got to go to university. Questioning the validity of that message is met with disbelief and that familiar patronising tone. Whether the promise of riches and fulfilment are true or not, universities seem to be guaranteed custom – so they can treat you how they like.
Having bought into the notion of university as innately good, too few students question the service that they’re getting. Most are utterly disinterested in the work that they’re doing – for the most part, guess what, they don’t really care about 19th century philosophy. For all the personal statements that declare a love for the subject and relentless enthusiasm, most students are in it for the promise of a job with lots of money attached, and some nights out getting drunk; or, they just couldn’t see any other option.
The familiar patronising tone is also found throughout university. Students are treated like children, despite the fact that the financial burden incurred is of adult proportions. Recently, at my university, students were asked to fill out module choice forms, detailing how they wanted their degrees to pan out over the next two years. I was sent an email from The Departmental Administrator explaining that I’d “failed” to register for one type of module. But when I wrote back explaining my choice of modules; how I had checked this with a number of staff; and questioning exactly what I had done wrong, I received a curt reply: “You are currently 30-credits short for next academic year so I think you should pick another module.” A student wanted to know more about how their £3225 a year degree worked; and the response suggested indignation at that student even daring to question the system.
This incident doesn’t stand alone either. Customer service at universities regularly carries this kind of arrogance and disinterest. It’s not unusual for essays to be handed back with a mark and three lines of feedback – in which word count or technicalities of referencing are detailed as the central cause for concern. One department handed essays back a week late, explaining, after their own deadline had passed, that there had been a bout of sickness in the department’s admin office and that the head of department had been away because of a personal issue. For similarly half-hearted excuses, a student would have had marks deducted, but it seems that universities are only accountable to themselves. It’s amateurish.
Beyond amateurish, the value of a degree more generally seems more open to question than it once was. As fees rise, students won’t be getting more than four lectures and two seminars a week, because the money we pay is becoming increasingly detached from the end product. The value of the degree seems almost entirely tied to the prospect of the job at the end of it – but is that really acceptable? It certainly doesn’t make for an enjoyable academic experience; having to simply “get through it,” as people keep explaining. I’m also not sure that the link between a degree, a job, and money, is as strong as it once was. In January, recent graduate employment was running at 20%, which is only marginally below the overall percentage of youth unemployment. Graduates are currently expected to earn more than those who haven’t bought the certificate, but will even this be the case if the majority of people own one?
The requirement of a degree is now the status quo for a lot jobs. It’s difficult to understand why jobs that previously only required you to turn up on time now demand years of, “any subject considered”, training. Competition is obviously high at the moment, and employees are able to select highly qualified candidates when this is ultimately unnecessary, but when a degree, a Master’s, and an unpaid internship are needed in order to pass the application stage, it surely means only the richest students can succeed.
“The customer is always right”. Actually, in my experience of universities, the customer is an annoyance that, ideally, would shut up and just hand over the money. It’s a business model that I’m sure many companies would like to emulate – and it’s certainly something that the current coalition is encouraging: raising fees without any consideration of value. Young people are being pushed into ever increasing amounts of debt, and then emerging into a sparse employment market. Surely basic consumer rights, or even simple courtesy, are the least that we can expect in return? We didn’t make the rules, or have any say in them, but if we have to be consumers, can we be proper ones, please?
Neatly encapsulates much of the university experience. I was fortunate to have some excellent lecturers and attended uni the year before the ‘top-up fees’ were introduced. My younger brother was less fortunate and the whole process of education became a trial that had to be passed in order for him to have a hope of getting the job he wants.
As for myself, I’ve never been ambitious and enjoy education for the sake of education so I certainly wouldn’t bother with uni as the fees are now.
More please Surreal Politics!
I think you’re right, but on the other hand, you’re also wrong. If you have a genuine issue then most universities have procedures in place for you to hand in coursework late; and many universities bend over backwards to help students in times of need. I know mine did, and I nearly fucked up beyond belief. I walked out with a first – largely because I made the university aware I had financial and health issues, and they, shockingly, helped me.
If students are disinterested in the work they’re doing and they signed up not to complete a degree but for “the experience”, then that’s not the fault of universities. That’s the fault of the student and their schools or colleges. Similarly, if the students’ response to not being interested in the degree is to just not care about what they’re doing, or the response to not getting onto law is to do business, then that’s not the fault of the universities either.
I’m sure if you had to run courses or classes or even an entire department at university, you’d get thoroughly sick of half-arsed statements of intent by students who never follow up, never hand in coursework on time, never tell you they won’t make lectures or tutorials, and who write poorly crafted essays in the last minute and then wander around saying things like, “Well, I’m paying for this so I should get better treatment.”
The reality is that despite the huge fee increases, university educations are still massively subsidised. If you had to pay the true cost of your new university education, then you’d be blown away by exactly how much it costs. As it stands, most students only pay a fraction of what that degree actually costs, and the university, quite often in recent times, hasn’t received nearly enough in subsidies to cover the gaps. As a result, they’re understaffed, the staff that are there are underpaid, and all the while they have to negotiate government that doesn’t want to invest, students that don’t want to work and resent paying, investors who demand returns and staff problems like understaffing, underpaying and overworking that flare up frequently.
If you’re a lecturer who runs five courses, and you have 200 essays of 3,000 words each to mark, then you don’t have time to write huge essays on students’ work – especially when for the most part it’s painfully apparent that students don’t really give a shit and haven’t bothered to put any effort in. Feedback in most cases would run to another 1,000 words that the student won’t read or pay attention to. However, if you book time with a lecturer, then they’re 9/10 more than willing to tell you what you need to do.
They’re not the majority consumers, and they won’t be until they pay the same levels of fees as international students. If you want to be treated better, then get used to taking your money overseas – pay the $50,000 a year an Ivy League college wants out of you. But they’ll suck you dry and give you exactly the same hard time.
I write as an entirely disinterested observer (disinterested in the correct sense of the word).
The consequence of the introduction, and subsequent increase, of fees is that students seem to me have become more consumerist. The result, as the blog post almost acknowledges, is that a growing number of students view a degree as a commodity to be purchased – and education as an outcome rather than a process. This explains what for many students is a lack of engagement with their subject. In a few of the more extreme cases, it’s manifested in a view that the award of a degree is somehow an entitlement: students have purchased a qualification (a 2:1 or better), but the means by which they get there is fundamentally unimportant.
This leads to a situation that benefits no one. Students are marooned on courses for which they have little enthusiasm, and burdened with a whopping debt on completion. Academics struggle to teach disengaged students, while simultaneously pursuing careers whose success is judged on research productivity rather than teaching excellence (a situation which might now be beginning to change). And employers end up with poorly equipped students, with limited intellectual hinterlands.
The solution: move away from mass volume education, and reserve the university experience solely for those who want it, using existing resources to support a genuinely non-elitist intake. For those, like Ethan ‘n’ Anna, who wish to pursue other things, encourage them to do so – and acknowledge the social, cultural and economic value of activities other than the unthinking pursuit of a university education.