Many students say they feel that COVID has reduced the value of their college experience. Complaints A detailed example of how a pandemic disrupted student learning, submitted to the Independent Judges’ Office in 2020. NS Recent reports Students at the National Institute for Educational Policy Research often consider universities to be relatively unworthy of money.

Such feelings were reported Before COVID closed the campus and sent students home. NS British government Recognized in 2019 Augar Review, College experience can lead to disappointment.But the pandemic Exacerbated the problem For many students and staff.

So students are unlikely Make sure there is a fee Funding raises the issue of value. And to answer that, you need to know how much it will cost to offer a degree course and what students and graduates will actually pay.

Course cost

Academic staff spending accounts for 29% to 32% of the UK university budget.My colleagues Norman Gowal and Michael Neff and I are in our book British university at stake, Almost the same percentage of non-academic salaries (IT support, admission, rise About bureaucracy) and facilities (libraries, lecture theaters).

You can calculate this direct cost by considering education as the core of a student’s education. Teachers in the UK start at around £ 40,000 and professors start at around £ 60,000.Number of students for each faculty member range From about 10 at some universities to about 15 at other universities. According to my calculations, if you receive a salary of £ 60,000 and add about one-third of the cost of national insurance and pensions, 15 students can hire a professor to teach for just over £ 5,000 per person. ..

This takes into account the fact that traditional instructors on research and education contracts spend about 40% of their time on education, 40% on research and 20% on administrative work.Although many universities hire some scholars to reduce their costs with some controversy. Education-focused contract, Lecturers teach about 50% more than traditional scholars.

This raises the question of whether undergraduate tuition is effectively subsidizing research, but it is very difficult to answer. However, students also benefit directly from being taught by active researchers. Simply put, can anyone tell you who has discovered a new theory or who just read about it?

Office for Students (Independent Regulator of Higher Education in the United Kingdom) Classify Most subjects are low cost and basically involve only instructors and lecture theaters. Clinical medicine and veterinary courses, and some expensive subjects, including lesser but experimental sciences, receive supplementary public funding.the government suggestion This subsidized funding for some arts subjects such as theater and music will be reduced by 50%, which is about £ 120 per student..

What students pay

year 2012, Government reform The UK’s maximum tuition was tripled to £ 9,000. The £ 9,000 cap was capped, and the cap was set at standard rates, even though the government wanted competition between universities to lead to lower rates.In addition, the government has phased out student number management, which limits the number of students at each university. Can be admitted..

These reforms aim to enable more young people to study by increasing the university budget without incurring immediate government costs. The key to this expansion is the loan repayment scheme. Students do not have to pay in advance. And they only start repayment after graduating and earning more than a certain amount of income.

NS 2020-2021 threshold Student loan repayments are £ 27,295 and interest rates are 5.6%, well above current market rates. After 30 years, all remaining balances will be amortized.

As a result, relatively low-income graduates pay off only a small portion of their debt and interest. NS Augar Report We calculate that the 30% with the lowest lifetime earnings pay less than 10% of the original debt and the top 30% pay more than they borrowed.

This means that some students pay more than their education costs, while others effectively receive subsidies. 2018, National Bureau of Statistics Decision That much (the government Become about 50%) Student loan books are never repaid and must be booked as government expenditures.

Economic benefits

NS Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that after considering student loan repayments, male graduates earn an average of £ 130,000 a lifetime from college and female graduates earn £ 100,000. ..

However, this depends on the type of university and the subject.Earnings for graduates of large, research-intensive universities in the Russell Group of the United Kingdom, and generally for graduates of medicine, dentistry, veterinary, economics, mathematics and engineering. It is shown It gets higher.

On the other hand, other students do not get the financial advantage. IFS report I got you About 20% of undergraduate students would have had an economic advantage without a degree.

Why do universities of different ranks charge the same fee in this case?As a colleague and me Shows, This is partly because the course is oversubscribed. A sufficient number of students are willing to pay the maximum fee to enroll in college, regardless of ranking. Besides, Considerable cost Through marketing and non-academic facilities, we have been working to increase student satisfaction.

But the pandemic has changed the situation. During many of the blockades, students have been unable to access, or at least maximize, the rates for new buildings, and have funded them. Recent complaints suggest that if some universities continue to charge the same fees, they will seek ways to improve their academic experience and make the value of their degree clearer.

Author: Jefferson Frank-Professor of Economics, Royal Holloway University, London