I can see both sides of this argument. On one hand, when you pay £9,000 for an education, you expect to get exactly that - an education, not someone pointing yo

I can see both sides of this argument. On one hand, when you pay £9,000 for an education, you expect to get exactly that - an education, not someone pointing you towards a bunch of information that you could have found yourself with half a dozen Google searches and the wherewithal to do dig through yourself... for free. It brings to mind a quote from Good Will Hunting: "you dropped 150 grand on a fuckin' education you could have got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library!" So I completely understand the mentality that when I pay you £9,000 for an education, I expect you to actively participate in educating me - doubly so when every student in that classroom is paying equally. On the other hand, I disagree with the sentiment that students feel like they are buying a degree. At least from my perspective, the degree itself is largely meaningless. It's the education piece I'm after. I am buying education via access to a pre-vetted, qualified and educated mentor that I can go to with all questions I have regarding my understandings and misunderstandings. I can do the learning piece myself, but I can't ask YouTube and online course material questions if I don't understand it, or to clarify my understanding of it... and I expect that as long as I meet my obligation to work hard to understand the material you are presenting me with and submit the coursework required for the course, I am indirectly buying that degree - and that withstanding, I expect to get the degree that I not only shed blood, sweat and tears for, but also paid £9,000 for. As a person, I also demand respect, not because I think the world owes me that, certainly not because I feel like I'm naturally entitled to it, but because I understand just as you do that we all have lives outside of the situation in which we interface. Sometimes those lives get in the way of our best intentions, some days trying to juggle those lives and get to work on time is all but impossible, and just as we are expected to afford respect to those around us, I expect the same affordance, no more, no less. So if my circumstances have prevented me from handing an assignment in on time, I expect some consideration for those circumstances, just as I am expected to afford the professor consideration for not attending class today because their real life prevented them from doing that, and you know what, given that I paid £9,000 to be in that classroom, I do feel like some respect should be given to that. As a lifelong student, watching the exponential increase in tuition fees and the attitudes of students towards educational systems and vice versa, I find it hard to blame the student. The education system is broken, tuition fees keep going up, the quality of education remains mediocre at best, through no fault of the professors who work hard and get pittance compared to what the university makes off the students. The media constantly bangs the drum of entitlement and consumerism into everyone from an early age; and the media is really just a product of the society that we began building in the 1950's... Guess what? Consequences.