Leeds Met will not charge £9000, but £8,500 fees

I laughed. Then I cried.

So I suppose that's the Coalition's claim that universities can only charge above £6000 in exceptional circumstances blown out of the water then eh.

This revelation isn't as funny as the one the Daily Mail claimed a while back that "The University of East London would need to charge the same as Imperial and UCL [£9,000] otherwise students would think it was a second rate university"

I've yet to read another tabloid sentence this year that made laugh as hard as that one

I did my first degree at Leeds Met (hated it) and paid £2k a year - no way is my course worth £8.5k a year!! It was poor quality and the uni has a bad rep. Why not pay an extra £1500 and go to a university with better prospects and teaching?

Because many students won't have this option, either because they have to go to a local university (for personal reasons),

because their course is not offered elsewhere,

or because they don't meet the entry requirements for a "better" university.

Such as?

Tough.
Their own fault.

nobody will want to go since they could go to a more prestigious university for the same price.

e.g. Primary Teaching, Furniture Design, some sandwich Engineering courses etc.

No, just life... some people do have "personal circumstances", and some people are less smart than others. It's just a fact of life, I don't see any reason to be snooty about it either way.

So, most of those students who currently go there will most probably still choose to go there, because they made that choice for a reason. Their personal circumstances are not suddenly going to change for the better, and/or they are not going to turn smart over night. Therefore, I think it is unlikely that Leeds Met is going to run out of students any time soon.

Leeds Met lol.

But on a more serious note, the ex-polys are in a tricky situation here. If they don't charge a sufficiently high amount, they will reinforce the notion that they are not worth going to; if they charge too much then nobody will want to go since they could go to a more prestigious university for the same price.

Well it begs the question, ARE they worth going to?

No, I think this is really not true. Many people will not be able to go to a prestigious university for the same reason that they currently don't: they won't get in. Leeds Met will always have a market.

+ I think that the government, or universities, or teachers (whose schools will soon be judged by how many pupils they get into universities...!* ) will eventually persuade students that the loan is not a debt but a graduate tax that they may not even have to pay back, the current fear of it will die down, I think, and students will choose pretty much as they do now.

*Gove's idea, not mine.

Depends really.
If you can only get into a poor uni, then even that is better than not having a degree at all.

And as you have agreed before, it does depend on the course (what it is and if it is accredited etc).

Frankly, people who aren't able to get into a better university than Leeds Met and are willing to pay £8.5K a year (+ debt, + maintenance loan, + maintenance loan debt) for a course there, or at similar universities, really need to look at their priorities. I would have trouble justifying anything but an Oxbridge, UCL, Imperial or Durham degree for that kind of price tag. I wouldn't be on my course at Leicester now if a degree cost that much.

So what is this bull**** about people saying the high fees will make poorer students less likely to apply to Oxbridge etc?

Yes, a 3rd in Entertainment Management is definitely better than having no degree at all.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12879817

Leeds Metropolitan has become the first of the newer, less selective group of universities to officially announce its new fee level.

Announcing the fee level, the chair of the board at Leeds Metropolitan University, Lord Woolmer of Leeds, said: "We are totally committed to providing a high quality student experience.

@18-02-2011: 02:05

Before you know it even the 'bad' universities will be raising fees to £9,000 to show that they 'are committed to providing high quality education' or some bulls*** like that.

Frankly, people who aren't able to get into a better university than Leeds Met and are willing to pay £8.5K a year (+ debt, + maintenance loan, + maintenance loan debt) for a course there, or at similar universities, really need to look at their priorities. I would have trouble justifying anything but an Oxbridge, UCL, Imperial or Durham degree for that kind of price tag. I wouldn't be on my course at Leicester now if a degree cost that much.

Well, if they want to pay £8.5k, let them.

Funniest joke so far this month.