Students don’t get ‘value for money’. But we shouldn’t expect to

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/13/students-value-for-money-refunds-university-strikes

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So students don’t feel as though they get good value for money at university? The survey results released by the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) last week are hardly surprising. Getting our “money’s worth” is impossible when there’s no simple way to calculate exactly what we pay for. Dissatisfaction should be expected as tuition fee hikes, pension cuts and the teaching excellence framework push higher education as a product students purchase. But beyond this, the very concept of “value for money” is harmful. In utilising it, we buy into all the damaging effects of marketisation.

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In the current climate, measuring education in terms of “value” often proves nonsensical. At my university, the University and College Union (UCU) strikes left students at our union’s council head-scratching over the issue of the “price” of lost teaching time. This divide was seen on a national level, too – many students who lost contact hours were staunchly in favour of demanding refunds, but quantifying the price was a stumbling block. How much does a lecture, a seminar, or having an essay marked cost per student? Would all students be refunded the same amount, or would it vary between courses? What about between universities? And by that logic, when fees tripled in 2010, should the value of the degree “product” have improved?

That’s one of the reasons why student activists such as me generally rejected the idea of refunds: there is no simple way of demonstrating what they might look like. The flow of funds is complex – fees drive research, and fees from different subjects fund each other. We also know that students largely don’t understand where fees go and how they operate. In my own experience of applying to university at 18, two years after the tuition fee hikes, my tuition fee loan was conceptual rather than tangible. And it will stay that way, as for the overwhelming majority of students the £9,250 fee will likely never get paid. But the confusing nature of paying for our education can also be seen in the convoluted terminology that surrounds it, from the Tef, to the Ref, it benefits the government that the structure of the higher education system is increasingly unintelligible to the general public.

Moreover, when education becomes something we can buy, return and refund, universities become less accountable. With regard to the strikes in particular, the concept of students as consumers would mean we were entitled to complain about the quality of the service we received, and get our money back without any improvements to the “service” at all. This would allow cuts to keep happening – when another cut is met with another strike, students could be met with another refund to placate them. This sets a dangerous precedent in terms of the relationship between universities and students.

It shouldn’t be overlooked that marginalised students are the most impacted by the effects of marketisation. The fact that BME students report lower value for money in Hepi’s survey goes unexplained, but I’d argue it is indicative of the ways that higher education fails BME students. Getting to university, and studying there, those from ethnic minority backgrounds face a host of structural disadvantages, ranging from lack of preparedness to white curriculums and a dearth of institutional support. We’re also disproportionately likely to be from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and to study at universities that rank lower on the league tables. The end result of a degree is also less promising for us – the gap between the proportion of white and BME students obtaining firsts and 2:1s stands at 15 percentage points, and employment prospects for BME students are also lower. The hurdles that BME students have to jump during their degrees, alongside lower outcomes, undoubtedly factor into the fact that study may feel less of a “valuable” investment.

In the era of marketisation, it is predictable that students feel that they don’t get their money’s worth, particularly those that face structural disadvantage. However, we should reject the concept of “value for money”. It is a flawed metric that furthers the agenda of marketisation, and perpetuates a dangerous push towards education as a product, rather than a public good.

• Micha Frazer-Carroll is the welfare and rights officer at Cambridge University Students’ Union