Adrian Snook

Learning is simply coping with whatever life throws at you. Avoid graduation from the University of Life for as long as you can!

Absolutely Steve - deactivated from Twitter last week. Welcome to the New World.

I should perhaps clarify that I am not defending the dogma driven decision to create a monetised market. That was ill-judged. On the other hand I am not arguing for more subsidies either. I am arguing for measures that will expose the folly of the current model and drive more fundamental reform.

I agree with you completely on this. The notion of ‘good’ or ‘better’ universities reflected flawed and wishful thinking. However the perception that this distinction is valid drives market forces and the Russell Group exists to actively trade on that distinction.

The market in university courses has shrunk but top universities retain their traditional pulling power due to their brand reputation and the fact that they're no more expensive than the rest, so the net effect is a transfer of market share away from the smaller universities. Hence the alarm!

If you’ve got more of the Veblen good than you can sell at the current price, and the usual remedy (drop the price) is off the table because it's a Veblen good, then you are in a Veblen Trap.

A Veblen good is a good for which a price increase drives a shift in consumers’ perception of the good that outweighs the normal supply-demand effect and leads to an increase in consumption. Veblen goods are conspicuous, differentiable items like cars, watches, perfumes, and university courses.

The Veblen effect is a market behavior where consumers buy more expensive goods than cheaper alternatives, even when the lower-priced goods are similar. This can be caused by a desire to show off wealth and social status, or by the belief that a higher price means higher quality.

As non-profits with extra income the beneficiaries simply took on additional recurring costs to soak up the extra cash. Now their costs are genuinely £9,000 Pa and inflation is pushing that up.

They are now caught in a Veblen trap, with existing students paying these full fees.

A previous government raised the fees ceiling to £9,000 p/a on the basis that the typical course would cost about £6,000 and only “good” universities would charge that. This was wishful thinking. 100% of universities believe they're above average. So the cost of a university course is now £9,000.

I appreciate that some institutions are independently wealthy and benefit from endowments etc. But the public policy issue relates to the extent of state aid/funding. If independent means was material to the debate then the richest organisations should draw the least public support. And they don’t.

I did acknowledge that was the the case when I proposed a metric that includes “the total cost per student contact hour including the student revenue and all state aid/subsidy in the relevant academic year.” In other words a metric which includes all the costs borne by society for the learning hour.

Thanks Chris Smith. I am always happy to be corrected if I have erred. Please do explain how my founding principles are flawed.

10/10

Secondly, market economics will encourage institutions offering poorer value in face to face contact hours to offer more, or offer more synchronous online provision.

Thirdly, the masked all-up cost of the university system to society will become clearer, prompting more reform.

9/10

This universal obligation will have three predictable effects.

Firstly, universities that trade less strongly on their reputation can demonstrate the value for money they offer in tuition services exchanged for tuition fees, relative to more complacent, less efficient institutions.

8/10

Where universities offer a blended or online curriculum they include the cost of all synchronous online event hours in the metric and separately state the ratio between online and face to face hours for their course.

Self-paced online learning falls out of the scope of this regulation.

7/10

I acknowledge student contact hours are not necessarily reflective of hours actually spent learning. However, that assumption is baked into the medieval university operating model, where you make a pilgrimage to a seat of learning, stay there and are charged an entry fee to meet academics.

6/10

I appreciate that universities provide many services and social benefits not reflected in this metric. Quality of research for example. But the whole system is funded by tuition fees so more transparency in relation to the value for money actually offered for tuition is essential.

5/10

In addition, universities should public list the same fee metric as charged to overseas students. Finally they should list the total cost per student contact hour including the student revenue and all state aid/subsidy in the relevant academic year.

I suspect the effect would be profound.

4/10

As a basic market reform I suggest the regulator obliges all universities to publicly list via UCAS and their own website the fee charged UK students per contact hour every course offered, (ie the total annual fee tuition fee divided by the number of contact hours) with effect from next year.

3/10

The uncomfortable economic truth is that the proportion of resources invested in higher education that actually trickles through into learning outcomes for students is pitiful. We would not accept this inefficiency in other industries or learning systems so why are universities a special case?

2/10

Higher education institutions and their associated ecosystems are full of demonstrably very clever people, who are to be congratulated for mounting a spirited and well executed long-term defence of an increasingly indefensible status quo.

University cash crisis will get worse despite tuition fee rise, BBC told - BBC News More than three quarters of universities are expected to face financial problems next year.

The UK university operating model is overdue for review, reform and transformation.

Successive governments have ducked this, scared of the soft political power wielded by Universities UK, the Russell Group of Universities and their alumni networks.

#EduSky #universities #academicsky

1/10

Hi Donald - welcome to Blue Sky!