University students ‘not getting their money’s worth in courses’
FEWER UNIVERSITY students think they are getting their money’s worth because of the Covid-19 pandemic and industrial action, a survey suggests.
The proportion of undergraduate students reporting that their course is good or very good value for money has dropped to 39 per cent from 41 per cent last year, new research has found.
Students, who pay up to £9,250 in tuition fees, say strikes and Covid-19 have had a negative impact on their experience due to a loss of contact hours.
Third-year students had lectures and seminars cancelled in their freshers year and have been hit twice by strikes this academic year. The disruption has prompted demands for tuition fee refunds.
The study, based on a poll of more than 10,000 undergraduates, found students who completed
the survey after March 16 – around the time face-to-face teaching was reduced – were less positive in their perceptions of value for money than those surveyed earlier on.
As universities move towards a blended approach of online and face-to-face learning amid the pandemic, the majority of students (90 per cent) reported that
“basic” technology was used in their teaching.
Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi), which published the survey with Advance HE, said he believed the results on student wellbeing partly reflected “challenges of being young in the current environment” and uncertainty about the graduate job market”.