The Changing Face Of UK Education – 21st Century Learning
Cast your mind back into recent history, say 30 years. ‘A’ Levels students followed a well-worn path to university; it didn’t matter what degree they studied as university was a time to have fun, expand their real social network, learn a few things and the widely-held perception was that as long as you left with a 2:1 degree you were set for life.
Since then things have changed, at times gradually and at other times – like the present – exceedingly rapidly.
And higher education is the arena in which these changes have occurred.
More places apart from universities offer degrees: The expansion of the university system, the 1992 enfranchisement of polytechnics as universities, and the increase in the number of degree courses at technical colleges means that University is no longer the only option for those seeking a degree qualification. The expansion continued and hit a peak around 1980 – since then the government realised that it was economically unsustainable. Maintenance grants were first reduced, then abolished.
Student loans: First introduced to boost the grant and cut student overdrafts. From a small initial average (£390) it quickly grew to become an accepted part of student life. Loans were a consequence of changing political attitudes, and were designed to be affordable and thus continue to entice poorer students to apply to university following the abolition of the maintenance grant.
Once in place however, the loan system was inevitably extended to cover part or all of the student’s fees also, which they were obliged to bolt on to their by now sizeable debt.
In 2004, tuition fees climbed from £1000 to £3000 pa. Since this time the proportion of course fees expected to be borne by the students has expanded to its current maximum of £9000 pa. This increase of the burden of course fees borne by students has always been justified by the fact that that UK graduates on average earn on average in excess of £100k than non-graduates in the course of their working lives.
At the time of writing (September 2011) it is estimated that the average student will pay somewhere in the region of 50k in tuition fees and maintenance following a 3 year degree course. When this is balanced against the likelihood of increased future earnings the attraction of following such a course has diminished over over the years.
Should we be surprised then that many potential students are eschewing expensive degree course for the cost-effective and flexible option of online courses? Distance learning is now an established and growing part of the education landscape, a fact the universities have themselves helped engender.
