Wtf is New College of the Humanities? Is it an Oxbridge V2?

Indeed, it is an exceptional first. To be specific, it is the University of London International Programme which awarded the degrees rather than simply UoL. What is typically the case is that the host institution teaches the course, designs the course and assesses the course. Then the internal policies and a small sample of work are checked by the awarding institution, and usually ticked. Very minimal oversight. Therefore, the 85% would only have to be "exceptional" against UoL IP's students: foreign students who study abroad, and are not bright enough to attend a prestigious university in their own country.

The UoL IP information has been purged from the NCH site. Currently it is clear from the NCH site that NCH sets assessments (para 25) and marks assessments internally (para 33) according to Southampton Solent's guidelines (para 7.6). They are then moderated by EV (para 19), much like every other university.





That was not previously the case. There was a time when it was £18,000 (when most got an exhibition) and in recent years it was at £12,000. Whereas the tuition fee loan, which students at NCH have been eligible for since Sept 2015, was only at £6,000.

Importantly, the fees are £9,250 and the tuition fee loan available is £6,165. I find it hugely disingenuous to omit this from your description, especially as you had enough time to write down the merit-based and means-tested bursaries available.

More importantly, the maximum a student can claim is "usually £3,085", which means the most needy student would have their tuition fee paid for with £100 to spare. When you compare similar London universities, such a student would be entitled to full tuition fee paid for, a means-tested scholarship and a merit-based scholarship. A poor student would be much worse off at NCH than they would be at KCL, QMUL, RHUL, or Hull.




As I said, low-ranked tutors from Oxbridge. For law, if you exclude visiting professors who tend to do very little, this is the make-up.




It is terrible in comparison to even the most basic Russell Group unis. They really go just hire just labour from the mid-tier unis or incredibly young prospects from prestigious universities, and give said people impressive positions they are simply unqualified for.

My quick review here is quite heavily focussed on law, and on the face of it the other faculties seem to be a bit better. However, for non-law, specially arts, the faculty is always going to be Oxbridge-heavy. So while it might seem that Dr Votsis with a PhD from LSE is of decent calibre, you need to look further at his previous posts. A teaching fellow at Bristol; i.e. someone who leads seminars. A p/t position for a PhD in their second-year. Dr Ostrowski has BA, MPhil and DPhil from Oxford but only has previous experience as a tutor. Dr Barrell has a BA, MPhil from Cambridge and PhD from QMUL yet only has experience as a tutor. This is not to say they're poor quality, but in terms of reputation they're at the bottom of the food change, especially when you consider their rivals from RG unis.

Dear Notorious_B.I.G.,

For the ULIP degrees (under which the friend you referenced in your comment would have studied and graduated) the assessments were in their entirety set, marked and awarded solely by the relevant constituent college of the University of London which created the degree programmes. They were also sat by students in exam halls and under examination conditions managed by the UoL and independent of NCH. I think you are implying some sort of grade inflation on the part of NCH in this specific instance, when the fact is, this would not have even been possible in the case of your friend.

In 2015, the College introduced new degrees developed by its own faculty, which are taught and assessed as you state, and in line with the procedures you quote, and as you say much like any university. We have, of course, removed the information about programmes that we are no longer offering at the College from the website as this would be misleading to potential students.

With regards to your other points, I will be brief:

1. Fees - your principal argument thus far has been that 'only rich kids' attend NCH. This is simply not the case.
2. Academic calibre of faculty members - NCH places emphasis on the teaching abilities of its faculty and the evidence of our strength in this area can be found in the results of the National Student Survey amongst others.
3. Appeal of NCH to students: You are right, most students probably do not want to study 20 courses instead of 12 courses over three years, and write an essay or two a week, and have a full hour to discuss their essay with an academic, and participate in lectures where you cannot hide amongst the masses, at a College which is new and does not yet have the same awareness level as Oxbridge and Russell Group. However, others are just as interested in receiving the best educational experience and academic, personal and professional development they can achieve, and we invite them to find out more.

You obviously have very strong opinions about NCH, to which you are absolutely entitled. However these do not reflect mine, nor those of the students who have commented on this thread, nor do they reflect the vision for the College and why it was founded. Once again, we invite you warmly to visit the College and experience it for yourself so that you can make your posts from a properly informed position.

Kind regards,
Elizabeth

Is NCH allowed to award its own degrees yet, or must they still be validated by Southampton Solent University, ie NOT the Russell Group uni of similar name but the former Southampton Institute of Higher Education? At that rate you may as well just scrape a couple of A Levels and go to a former poly for your £9k a year.

I dont think you get it; most normal people dont want to go to a uni with 0 reputation and brand name which seems like a cheap rip-off of american colleges whilst spending their 3 yrs with a bunch of rich kids.

The basis for your view is?
NCH has an extensive amount of bursaries and scholarships, the fees are no more expensive than any other university and its graduate destinations are impeccable.
You clearly have absolutely no knowledge of the university's demographics or the education that it provides. For lack of a better phrase - you're speaking out of your arse.

Fixed for you, free of charge. You're welcome.

If your top priority for studying a degree is to get a very well-known brand name on your CV then you may well be right. However, if you value high-quality education and aspire to academic rigour and challenge that prepares you to deal with the multitude of opportunities and challenges that life in the 21st Century will present you, then you may think differently. In our graduates' experience, studying at NCH has helped them appeal to graduate employers including KMPG, PWC, Clifford Chance and Diageo, to name but a few, and universities such as Cambridge, Oxford, Edinburgh, UCL, and LSE for postgraduate study - again, to name but a few.

I am not as heavily agains the NCH as some on this thread have been, but surely these days the point of higher ed is to have a respected name on your degree certificate? So many people have degrees so you need to have that prestigious name.

I admire the concept of the NCH, but I personally would not want to risk attending: (1) a private university (fear of financial collapse or criminal practices by its management team); (2) a university not in existence for at least my own lifetime (because it will not have weathered all the problems which make unis better, nor have an established and consistent reputation and focus); (3) a 'university' which has its degrees validated externally (especially by a poor quality university like Solent - I may as well have stayed at my 6th form college and got a degree validated by Plymouth).

You also do seem to have a heavy number of recently viva-ed staff members. Also, why was one of your faculty heads still a DPhil student? at absolute most, he may have been made a lecturer if he was expected to finish his own studies soon, but not head of faculty. That is ridiculous.

Also, if NCH is so good, why are you bragging about the postgrad destinations (Oxford, etc.) when you have in-house postgrad degrees? Seems like you have a problem with student retention.

Well people at NCH disagree that the point of university education is to get a fancy name on your degree - I decided to attend NCH because of the quality of teaching and I wasn't disappointed. As people have said above, if what you want from uni is a degree with a well-known name then NCH obviously isn't for you. NCH is for people who are actually into learning - it's definitely one of the best unis in the UK for that.

And yes NCH degrees are validated by Solent, but they are designed and marked by NCH staff. Solent is basically not involved at all, just assuring us that our exams are properly marked because NCH is indeed such a new institution. We're also very close to getting degree awarding powers, I believe that's kicking in in the next 2 years.

And yes NCH does have about 3 MAs on offer at the moment, but generally NCH students prefer to go elsewhere for their postgrad in order to get a different university experience. Also, in my own experience, I want to do a research masters, which NCH doesn't offer. This is not a student retention issue. It's good for students to explore different places and different tutors.

If you're referring to Jaya Savige as the DPhil student head of faculty I would point out that Jaya is the head of Creative Writing, which is one of the few fields in academia which doesn't necessarily require a PhD. Actual writing and editing experience is far more interesting and important to creative writing students, which Jaya has plenty of. Jaya even has plenty of teaching experience. He's not just some 25 year old kid straight from school, he's a well-respected editor and poet in his own right. He also took something like 7 years to complete his DPhil, as far as I'm aware, which is MUCH longer than the average 3 years. So he is a proper academic like the rest of the English faculty, of which he is a part.

And we brag about our postgrad destinations to show that NCH students and NCH degrees are taken seriously by some of the most respected higher ed institutions in the UK and the world. This is proof that NCH degrees are on par with degrees from other unis in the UK, and that having a well-known brand name on your CV isn't the be all and end all of university education.

'NCH is one of the best unis for learning' HAHAHHAA wtf how can you qualify something so stupid.

Can someone explain why marketing grad genius decided to name a 'university' after a meal-replacement brand?

Are we gonna get Atkin's University for sciences next?

no.