UD began to sense the dimensions of the contact hours controversy in the UK when La Kid came back from visiting a friend in school in Scotland. “She never sees a professor! She doesn’t have classes!”
This had to be an exaggeration; but it wasn’t that far off.
Students studying subjects such as languages, history and philosophy have access to less than nine hours a week “contact time” with lecturers or tutors, research reveals today.
The study by the National Union of Students and HSBC shows huge differences in the student experience. Those doing medicine and dentistry have an average of 22.6 contact hours a week, compared with 14.8 for biological sciences, 12.2 for law and 8.7 for languages, the study found.
Those at the most prestigious universities receive significantly more time with academics through lectures, individual tutorials and drop-in sessions than those at other institutions, despite the vast majority of universities charging students up to the maximum fee level of £3,225 per year – whatever their subject.
The issue of contact hours has becoming increasingly contentious since fees were raised in 2006 and will be further scrutinised tomorrow when the government announces the details of a review. Some university vice-chancellors want to see the cap raised to £7,000 a year.
“Given that there has been no demonstrable improvement in the number of contact hours since fees went up in 2006, I don’t believe there can be any justification for an increase now,” said Aaron Porter, vice-president of the NUS…
UD‘s reminded of University of Toledo President Lloyd Jacobs, whose revolutionary, cost-cutting approach to higher education has the same unbeatable feature we see in the UK — gather income from students, but avoid expenditure on actually educating them in classrooms with teachers. Computers and podcasts cost far less than faculty.
The downloadable university degree takes its cue from generations of diploma mills that got there before.
In the UK, though, I don’t think they’ve even got the technology with which to fob off students. I think they’re still making due with lies.
November 8th, 2009 at 12:25PM
I see the basic complaint — but, I also see that the system COULD result in students who are more able to think critically.
November 8th, 2009 at 2:40PM
Ah…
At our place we are in a big fight over "tuition as revenue stream." We are a large state research university. The administration seems to be under the delusion that tuition is an adjustable parameter to make up for when the state doesn’t give us the money the administration feels is necessary to pursue, er, ambitious aspirations. (I know that’s redundant, but it is our marketing campaign.)
So I’ve been hammering away on arriving at an honest answer about the actual cost to educate an undergrad for one year, with numbers to back it up. The tuition they pay + state aid for tuition should not exceed the tuition they charge.
They don’t like this idea.
It is also surprising that the debt load at graduation for Carleton students is $20K and at our place it is $25K. Something does not compute.
November 8th, 2009 at 4:19PM
I’m a bit puzzled. What does "access to" contact hours mean? When I was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, I took four courses per quarter in my first two years–twelve nominal hours of classroom time, or ten actual hours (since a US academic hour is really fifty minutes). In my third year I took three courses per quarter, or nine nominal/seven and a half actual hours. I spent my fourth year overseas, at Cambridge, where if anything I had more contact hours in lectures and tutorials.
I was taught that a university student should spend at least two hours outside the classroom on their coursework for every hour in the classroom, and for difficult courses, more. Where I currently teach, that would be impossible: a normal undergraduate course load is 15 hours per week, many students take 18 to try to graduate early, and most have some kind of part-time job. Under those circumstances, it’s impossible for them to spend the time on solitary intellectual work and discussions with classmates that they really need–or even to visit their professors’ office hours regularly.
I think they’d be far better off with fewer classroom hours–say, 12 nominal hours–so their attention would be less scattered, they could do more in-depth study on their own, and we could hold them to a correspondingly higher standard.
November 8th, 2009 at 6:11PM
It is important to remember that the UK higher-ed funding model places research at its centre, whether under the old RAE or the new dispensation. A University’s income is to a great extent determined by the amount and – to a point – quality of academic research its faculty generates. Every additional hour given to financially unproductive undergraduates can be seen to cost lucrative research time. Having said that, the Russell Group of research universities has largely managed to provide both adequate contact time and exceptional research results. As usual in the UK, it’s important to distinguish between the very good top tier, and the very, very bad former polys. There, crap teaching is the rule, and it cannot be excused by research that is all too often simply trendy piffle. There are exceptions, e.g. the history department at Oxford Brookes, but not many. The best solution for the UK higher ed sector would be to close 30+ universities, and plough the money thus saved into endowments for the Russell Group.
November 8th, 2009 at 9:21PM
Undergraduate teaching at very top English research universities, e.g. Cambridge, is excellent.
This is in stark contrast to the situation at the top American research universities.
That’s why strong private liberal arts colleges in the US are so important. They turn out a disproportionate number of future top scientists and MDs. Tom Steitz went to Lawrence and Peter Agre to Augsburg College. (Off the top of my head recent NP winners.)
The real irony is that the average debt at graduation at Carleton is $20K and at the U of Minnesota it is $25K. (I know these are ridiculous numbers to you folks paying Ivy League – or GW – tuition.]
November 8th, 2009 at 11:46PM
Here’s an interesting take from a British exchange student at Princeton:
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2009/10/30/24324/
The top British schools–I spent this spring as a visiting fellow at Cambridge, as I had two years ago–seem to me to do a splendid job on undergraduate and MA teaching, in the programs I know. The obsession with research results and publication has somewhat eroded the contributions of senior academics, whose time is often bought for long-term research grants–but they are replaced by very talented young academics without permanent jobs: cheap, excellent labor, and those who provide it get a chance to make a name as teachers (imagine doing that in America) and moving to longer-term jobs. All this with relatively few contact hours–but, as Brian suggested above, a lot of preparation and self-motivated study assumed. Looks good to me.
November 9th, 2009 at 8:04AM
Our undergraduates end up with about the same debt (slightly less, actually) as those attending the state flagships. Many more at the state schools need an extra year or two because they can’t get all of the classes they need. I suppose that having faculty with 25%+ lower compensation is a factor too.
November 9th, 2009 at 10:23AM
Re: The University of Toledo
I was surprised by the casual attack on The University of Toledo in this instance. George Washington and UT are obviously very different schools. UT is a public institution in the mid-west, whose stats aren’t great due to the mission the state mandates it to serve – be an open enrollment institution and educate those who seek a higher degree who have earned their high school education. You can receive a top-flight education at UT, but many of those around you may not be all that invested in their academic present or future.
No doubt at GWU, where the tuition is 42,000 more (!) a year than at UT, the students there are all the cream of the crop. They can either afford to attend or they are academically excellent enough to earn their way into a very exclusive and competitive school. It must be very satisfying to look down on an institution dependent on tax dollars from a Rust Belt state knowing GWU’s money will always be there.
I know, I know, you’re only looking down on soulless, greedy administrators (though I think you "stand up" for UT faculty only because you look down on them less).
But going back to your post, the speech you make fun of from several years ago with satisfying clever one liners that make no attempt at context, it announced a new organization then-called "New Entity" – which you made fun of. What you didn’t mention is that even UT faculty at the time who were critical of Jacobs thought the organization was a good idea. They said so here: http://www.toledocitypaper.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=934&catid=96:cover-stories&Itemid=508
It’s called the UT Learning Collaborative now. The name is still a bit bulky but people have stopped making fun of it (in case you didn’t get the memo) because it is succeeding in helping students unsure of career directions find their path and helping those who didn’t take academics seriously prior to college earn their degree now. Lots of these students don’t have good grades currently. Many need help in math and English. Very few will be ambassadors or work at think tanks. Most will probably stay in northwest Ohio and rarely interact with GWU graduates.
But they will be productive members of society, better educated and better citizens. And it is the faculty and staff who will help them succeed. But it was Jacobs’s idea, which you made fun of, to bring all the different parts of UT together to provide them the tutoring, mentoring, advising in a single unified way.
UT doesn’t have as much money as GWU and the recession has hurt even more. Still, UT has invested in this new organizational structure that serves a population of students GWU has never heard of and never dealt with.
If UT was experiencing what you described in your sarcastic post that you linked to, I would be against it too. Imagine my shock to discover your diagnosis of UT from the halls of one of the richest universities on the planet doesn’t mesh with the work I do everyday in the UT Learning Collaborative to help these students succeed.
November 9th, 2009 at 11:02AM
N – I appreciate your updating me on this initiative, and I’m going to learn more about it now so that my remarks can be more fair.
In the meantime — I hope you’re not teaching your students that attacking opposing positions as elitist is an effective way to go about things.
November 9th, 2009 at 1:09PM
A nice irony in N’s post is that it could be taken almost word for word from a defence of some ghastly English former poly. If the taxpayers of the state of Ohio want to fund a University to do the job of a community college, so be it, but I don’t see the ad hominem attack on UD as particularly fair. Nor does N’s conflation of excellence and elitism make me particularly hopeful about the quality of a Toledo education.
November 9th, 2009 at 2:35PM
Margaret,
You made me smile cause I truly believe you see no irony in your response to me. As if the very function of your blog wasn’t about opposing those whom you believe display hollow elitism. I do not doubt GWU elitism, in the very best sense of the word. But if you truly mean the things you say and sound off in scathing simplistic remarks to complex issues you have the very barest understanding of, I hope you don’t teach you students to analyze literature and life in so superficial a way. No doubt you reserve your depth for the classroom and your superficiality for this forum. Thanks for the catharsis.
Colin, thank you for proving my point for me. You will come off quite well in this echo chamber.
November 9th, 2009 at 3:07PM
I’ve had a quick look at the links relating to Toledo’s Entities and Collaboratives and so on and so forth. I am reminded of what happened with the A-level in the UK. It became student-centered and relevant; modules replaced exams; student choice became all-important; information technology became a fetish ("a computer in every classroom"); vocational topics were weighted equally with academic; grade inflation became rampant; any criticism was deflected with a "how dare you insult our hardworking students". The result? Nobody takes A-level seriously. The best universities are again setting their own entrance tests; ambitious schools are taking up the IB in place of A-level. Why did this happen? Because it seems our society has decided to educate vast numbers of young people to a level they can not possibly attain, that does not interest them, and will not do them any good. Naturally, we cannot tell the students (or their parents) this. They will not listen, and we will lose our jobs. So, we must make higher education as easy as possible without admitting that this is what we are doing. If anybody says anything, attack. A charge of elitism is usually best, although (outside NEA conferences) much less effective in the US than in the UK. Of course, all that will really happen is that graduates of elite schools like GW will extend their advantages yet further. But that’s a small price to pay, isn’t it?
November 9th, 2009 at 4:24PM
Colin: It does seem to me that one of the best ways to distinguish vocational schools and universities involves the extent to which the institution is market-driven, essentially giving students what the market at any one point in time seems to want them to have; and the extent to which the institution is in possession of an established intellectual tradition, a serious curriculum, reflecting serious knowledge whose shape and content has evolved with time and thought on the part of independent-minded, historically informed scholars.
If a university evolves into a vocational school, I don’t see how it can compete with the commercial, for-profit places out there – they will probably be cheaper, quicker, and more efficient. They will not ask the student for extra money for environmental elements like football teams and orientation weekends and so forth. In the long term, I don’t see the vocational university surviving against the vocational for-profit.
November 9th, 2009 at 4:35PM
Yes. I could not possibly agree more. But why should they pretend and drag the rest of us down with them?