Last week the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) published their annual Student Academic Experience survey. Given that many courses cost £9,000 per year, it was no surprise they found that two thirds of students feel their degree doesn’t represent good value for money.
Degree debt
Sir Peter Lampl and the Sutton Trust recently published a report that analysed graduate debt in eight English-speaking countries. They found that graduates in the UK are coming out with significantly higher amounts of debt than their European and US counterparts.
“It’s no surprise that students’ perceptions of their degree being ‘good value for money’ are falling,” said Sir Peter Lampl.
“Our research has shown that English university graduates face extremely high debts on graduation, more than double their American counterparts. Increasing fees even more will only leave students in more debt and feeling even more short-changed.”
Satisfaction levels have fallen rapidly over the past four years with just 33% of students in England feeling they received “good” or “very good” value for money. Back in 2012, this figure was significantly higher at 52%.
Students of Asian, Chinese, African and African-Caribbean ethnicities were the least satisfied.
Increase
HEPI’s report also found that an overwhelming majority of students are opposed to the government’s plans of increasing the fees further. Of the 15,000 students surveyed only 8% were in favour of the proposals laid out in the recent higher education bill, whilst 86% were against it.
Aside from the issues with tuition fees, 85% of full-time students were satisfied with their course and stated that they valued quality teaching over smart, new facilities.
Sally Hunt, the general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU), said: “Despite limited knowledge about where their fee money goes, it is interesting that students have little time for building projects at the expense of teaching.
“It is encouraging they value substance over style and have so overwhelmingly rejected fee increases linked to controversial plans to measure teaching quality.”
You can read the Sutton Trust’s Degrees of Debt report, here: http://www.suttontrust.com/researcharchive/degrees-of-debt/
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