Universities forcing you to rent graduation dress from a certain company to graduate

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Why do you care that the company makes money? Unless you're complaining only about having to pay £50, which is different.

Maybe you would not care about losing $1 to a scammer but if that same scammer took it off a million people it has made him a millionaire. Many skim ming operations work in this way. I wouldn't have a problem paying it but why should people have to be forced to pay it. By the way you might remember the "poll tax" in the UK which was a charge that everyone had to pay. IIR there was a deal of "complaining" i.e. riots

Reply 21

Old_Simon

What bothers me is that the underlying implication is that universities simply have no idea of the real, financial circumstance of many of their students or their parents. Compulsory hire of expensive fancy dress is the type of thing which could usefully be phased out.

Reply 22

Hapana

My uiniversity has made wearing a gown compulsary to attend a graduation ceremony. I can afford it but I have decided not to do so as a protest. Is the university breaching any law?

Reply 23

myblueheaven339

We had to wear full academic dress from Ede and Ravencroft too. However our ceremony was free for both students and guests whereas a lot aren't.

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Reply 24

nulli tertius

I am not aware of any university that makes it compulsory to hire a gown from any hire company. The requirement is that you turn up in in the correct gown, hood and if relevant hat, specified by your university. If you know someone who owns the correct academic dress, you may borrow it for the day. You can approach any robe maker and ask them to make you and sell you your own gown, hood and hat (and yes there is a book that lists all the different gowns for all the universities). If any other robe maker happens to have a relevant gown and hood in its hire stock (perhaps because Poppleton University uses the same gown as Camford with the same hood as Fulchester), you can hire the outfit from them.

But the official hire company (a) undertakes to the university to have enough stock available for all graduands and (b) supplies valets to help you put it on properly.

Reply 25

hothedgehog

You don't have to go to your graduation service to get your degree. If paying £50 bothers you that much then I suggest you take this route.

Reply 26

Clearing and Applications Advisor

Original post by Nichrome

Even worse is universities charging students to graduate at all. UCL charge £35 for students to graduate along with £35 for each guest ticket, and that's on top of gown hire...

That's a complete rip off. Southampton is free for the graduate + 2 guests (and £10 for any extra guests) http://www.southampton.ac.uk/graduation/summer/faqs/faq.html#cost

http://www.wippellgownhire.co.uk/ are one of the other companies that hire and sell academic dress - but they come out at about £50 for ceremonies where they're present so I'd guess private hire would be more.

Often you can buy your own robe and then just hire the appropriate hood/hat for the ceremony (that's what most academic staff do)

Reply 27

Lizzy_R

Ive got to pay £40 for my robes only thing is I haven't got a clue where to get them from since my uni has decided to improve its website so you can find nothing.
Even £50 aint to bad heard of a few people from other unis having to pay £110 for robe hire :/
Still a rip off but what can you do? Rebel and get kicked out of the possibly once in a life time graduation?
I don't wanna chance it.

Reply 28

Juichiro

Original post by M_E_X

I'm due to graduate this May, from University of St Andrews, and I've just recieved an email which says:

The bit I don't like is that I am "required" to do this, and required to do it from a certain company. It's about £50 to rent what I need, for one afternoon.

Does this strike anyone else as a bit odd? The company must make an absolute fortune if it has a good number of universities operating this scheme...

St Andrews is a relatively small university, only about 1200 people will graduate this year, but that's still £60,000 turnover for the company at £50 a go. Crazy!

Any thoughts?

I think that company is to grad clothes what John Smith is to uni bookshops. Monopoly.

Reply 29

sophiaaaa76

I think £50 for a special day to feel proud of yourself is fine. Most ceremonies take place months in advance, so put a bit away every month if money is an issue and focus on feeling good about what you have achieved instead of a company making money on selecting a gown for you, delivering and collecting and then dry cleaning it all for you to feel good on your graduation.