5 ms·

I'm not saying it's wrong but people are reacting to this as if the Times university guide is some objective truth. Regarding the potential lowering of standar

I'm not saying it's wrong but people are reacting to this as if the Times university guide is some objective truth. Regarding the potential lowering of standards for widening participation purposes, this doesn't change the fact that the entry standards for Oxford and Cambridge are still higher than LSE and St. Andrews.

afavour 1y ago
I don't know anyone at Oxford but do have friends who work in higher education. From what I hear from them Brexit has turned UK higher education upside down when it comes to funding and research. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is a consequence of some universities navigating that better than others. But you don't get anywhere near as much online outrage with that theory so "leftists are ruining western civilisation" wins out again.
- fatfox 1y ago
  Yes I’d agree with that. International student income dropped, rounds of layoffs. Some universities are better at optimising for rankings, see also REF research funding and how much effort and resources are spent on it, which varies by university: https://2029.ref.ac.uk/about/what-is-the-ref/ https://2029.ref.ac.uk/about/what-is-the-ref/
  - KaiserPro 1y ago
    Its a double whammy of EU students suddenly have to pay a lot more cash for a lot less certainty but on the other end our political class fail to understand/sell that stopping international students means that we have to fund university education.
  - cs02rm0 1y ago
    How did international student income drop with Brexit, when the UK now have 4-600k student visas granted in each of the last few years vs 2-300k pre-Brexit?
    - skippyboxedhero 1y ago
      Because universities borrowed staggering amounts of money and hired massive numbers of people. The assumption was that international student numbers would be allowed to grow as fast or faster than in the past, ignoring the fact that the UK is not able to provide infrastructure for the people who live here let alone temporary inhabitants. There is no way to keep the bubble going (as with every bubble, for government and university administrators it just seemed unlimited because there are no limits to resources, dangerous).
      - varispeed 1y ago
        Don't forget that the Universities focused on getting foreign students and cashing in instead of providing valuable education. The quality of teaching is non-existent. It's about giving foreign parents ability to tell their peers look my brilliant child is studying in England! But really they are not studying. Attendance is not checked and lectures are a sham.
        anonymousDan 1y ago
        This is such garbage. The only reason universities focused on getting foreign students is because the introduction of fees that don't increase with inflation means they are all slowly going bankrupt.
        varispeed 1y ago
        The funding squeeze is real, but that’s not the whole story. Universities didn’t have to turn into diploma/visa mills - they chose to. Instead of protecting standards, they pivoted to a business model of brand-selling: recruiting overseas students at inflated rates and cutting corners on teaching. Domestic students end up with debt for degrees that deliver little value, often taught by underqualified lecturers. Those who complain get brushed off or quietly bought out with NDA-style settlements. Foreign students mostly keep quiet because openly questioning standards would devalue their own diploma. So yes, funding cuts mattered - but the bigger scandal is how universities responded. They saw the “golden years” were over and decided to milk the brand, not safeguard education. They are basically a scam.
  - physicsguy 1y ago
    The big fall in income is nothing to do with Brexit, and it's worth saying that international students from within the EU paid the same as home students pre-Brexit. What happened was a massive expansion to non-EU students paying the larger uncapped fees because of an expansion of student visas to allow (a) dependents to come (b) a route to staying in the UK. It led to over a million immigrants in one year, was massively criticised politically, and so got scrapped. There's no a lot of arguing that we should as a country remove/change the Indefinite Leave to Remain route because those graduates (and dependents) are from January starting to be eligible to apply and stay permanently.
- tialaramex 1y ago
  Government decided it doesn't want to pay for tertiary education. But, it does want UK students to get tertiary education, and they can't afford it. So, OK that circle can be kinda squared by "student loans" except of course the cost on these loans would sky-rocket. So, then government says ah, you can't charge more than this small fixed amount, and we'll never increase it because that's unpopular. For-profit lenders can charge as much as they can find an excuse for, but you educational charities too bad, you're not getting an extra penny. So a good UK university cannot profitably offer education for UK students. So for some of the best they'll focus on non UK students. These students aren't subject to a capped price we can't afford, so we can gouge them to make up for the lost revenue from home students. But the usual "I'm not racist but..." people of course hate foreigners. How dare any of these people be different in any way. And so while some of them will pretend their hatred only extends to some foreigners it's always the same exact people who are aggrieved and want yet another excuse to hate foreigners. This results in government efforts to make it harder to study here, and more expensive to teach students here. That way they slightly appease racists who weren't going to vote for them anyway and they feel justified. I assume eventually this will collapse, and judging from Brexit nothing whatsoever will be learned by the supporter/victim class, the same gullible morons will keep falling for lies from the same people who feed off them. Certain that somehow it must be somebody else's fault their lives are shit while the leaders they're feeding are doing so well.
  - pbhjpbhj 1y ago
    Just on a point of fact, fees went up by RPI-based inflation this year. I find the rates high for what some (most?) students are getting.
- smcin 1y ago
  Where can you anecdotally find out about the accept/reject rate by students offered places? in particular I read the preference for UK universities by international students nosedeived ~2021 when the UK govt + universities said they couldn't even guarantee them either a definite visa during/after graduation, and fees went up.
cal85 1y ago
> I'm not saying it's wrong but people are reacting to this as if the Times university guide is some objective truth. I can’t see a single example of anyone reacting to it that way.
t_luke 1y ago
All the UK university ranking systems use basically the same data — the National Student Survey (NSS) which measures students' impression of teaching quality, the Graduate Outcomes Survey (GOS) which measures employment 15 months after graduation, and a bunch of standard data collected by HESA — entry standards, whether students complete their degrees, average degree classifications, etc. Much of this data is extremely 'gameable', and a lot of the 'alpha' between successful and less successful institutions is being 'good at surveys.' e.g. for NSS, between comparable institutions it's really a question of how good they are at getting students to complete the survey (students mostly ignore it, and you lose marks for poor completion rates). Of course — it should also go without saying that there is no 'correct' weighting for any of this data, and depending on how you weight the different indicators, the rankings change.

afavour 1y ago

I don't know anyone at Oxford but do have friends who work in higher education. From what I hear from them Brexit has turned UK higher education upside down when it comes to funding and research. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is a consequence of some universities navigating that better than others. But you don't get anywhere near as much online outrage with that theory so "leftists are ruining western civilisation" wins out again.

fatfox 1y ago
Yes I’d agree with that. International student income dropped, rounds of layoffs. Some universities are better at optimising for rankings, see also REF research funding and how much effort and resources are spent on it, which varies by university: https://2029.ref.ac.uk/about/what-is-the-ref/ https://2029.ref.ac.uk/about/what-is-the-ref/
- KaiserPro 1y ago
  Its a double whammy of EU students suddenly have to pay a lot more cash for a lot less certainty but on the other end our political class fail to understand/sell that stopping international students means that we have to fund university education.
- cs02rm0 1y ago
  How did international student income drop with Brexit, when the UK now have 4-600k student visas granted in each of the last few years vs 2-300k pre-Brexit?
  - skippyboxedhero 1y ago
    Because universities borrowed staggering amounts of money and hired massive numbers of people. The assumption was that international student numbers would be allowed to grow as fast or faster than in the past, ignoring the fact that the UK is not able to provide infrastructure for the people who live here let alone temporary inhabitants. There is no way to keep the bubble going (as with every bubble, for government and university administrators it just seemed unlimited because there are no limits to resources, dangerous).
    - varispeed 1y ago
      Don't forget that the Universities focused on getting foreign students and cashing in instead of providing valuable education. The quality of teaching is non-existent. It's about giving foreign parents ability to tell their peers look my brilliant child is studying in England! But really they are not studying. Attendance is not checked and lectures are a sham.
      - anonymousDan 1y ago
        This is such garbage. The only reason universities focused on getting foreign students is because the introduction of fees that don't increase with inflation means they are all slowly going bankrupt.
        varispeed 1y ago
        The funding squeeze is real, but that’s not the whole story. Universities didn’t have to turn into diploma/visa mills - they chose to. Instead of protecting standards, they pivoted to a business model of brand-selling: recruiting overseas students at inflated rates and cutting corners on teaching. Domestic students end up with debt for degrees that deliver little value, often taught by underqualified lecturers. Those who complain get brushed off or quietly bought out with NDA-style settlements. Foreign students mostly keep quiet because openly questioning standards would devalue their own diploma. So yes, funding cuts mattered - but the bigger scandal is how universities responded. They saw the “golden years” were over and decided to milk the brand, not safeguard education. They are basically a scam.
- physicsguy 1y ago
  The big fall in income is nothing to do with Brexit, and it's worth saying that international students from within the EU paid the same as home students pre-Brexit. What happened was a massive expansion to non-EU students paying the larger uncapped fees because of an expansion of student visas to allow (a) dependents to come (b) a route to staying in the UK. It led to over a million immigrants in one year, was massively criticised politically, and so got scrapped. There's no a lot of arguing that we should as a country remove/change the Indefinite Leave to Remain route because those graduates (and dependents) are from January starting to be eligible to apply and stay permanently.
tialaramex 1y ago
Government decided it doesn't want to pay for tertiary education. But, it does want UK students to get tertiary education, and they can't afford it. So, OK that circle can be kinda squared by "student loans" except of course the cost on these loans would sky-rocket. So, then government says ah, you can't charge more than this small fixed amount, and we'll never increase it because that's unpopular. For-profit lenders can charge as much as they can find an excuse for, but you educational charities too bad, you're not getting an extra penny. So a good UK university cannot profitably offer education for UK students. So for some of the best they'll focus on non UK students. These students aren't subject to a capped price we can't afford, so we can gouge them to make up for the lost revenue from home students. But the usual "I'm not racist but..." people of course hate foreigners. How dare any of these people be different in any way. And so while some of them will pretend their hatred only extends to some foreigners it's always the same exact people who are aggrieved and want yet another excuse to hate foreigners. This results in government efforts to make it harder to study here, and more expensive to teach students here. That way they slightly appease racists who weren't going to vote for them anyway and they feel justified. I assume eventually this will collapse, and judging from Brexit nothing whatsoever will be learned by the supporter/victim class, the same gullible morons will keep falling for lies from the same people who feed off them. Certain that somehow it must be somebody else's fault their lives are shit while the leaders they're feeding are doing so well.
- pbhjpbhj 1y ago
  Just on a point of fact, fees went up by RPI-based inflation this year. I find the rates high for what some (most?) students are getting.
smcin 1y ago
Where can you anecdotally find out about the accept/reject rate by students offered places? in particular I read the preference for UK universities by international students nosedeived ~2021 when the UK govt + universities said they couldn't even guarantee them either a definite visa during/after graduation, and fees went up.

cal85 1y ago

> I'm not saying it's wrong but people are reacting to this as if the Times university guide is some objective truth. I can’t see a single example of anyone reacting to it that way.

t_luke 1y ago

All the UK university ranking systems use basically the same data — the National Student Survey (NSS) which measures students' impression of teaching quality, the Graduate Outcomes Survey (GOS) which measures employment 15 months after graduation, and a bunch of standard data collected by HESA — entry standards, whether students complete their degrees, average degree classifications, etc. Much of this data is extremely 'gameable', and a lot of the 'alpha' between successful and less successful institutions is being 'good at surveys.' e.g. for NSS, between comparable institutions it's really a question of how good they are at getting students to complete the survey (students mostly ignore it, and you lose marks for poor completion rates). Of course — it should also go without saying that there is no 'correct' weighting for any of this data, and depending on how you weight the different indicators, the rankings change.