University guest lecturers be posting some wild questions recently.
The part that does make universities' selling strategy quite unique is that every seller decides to charge the exact same amount, and yet the value one gets can vary wildly from course to course and uni to uni, in all aspects; from contact time to graduate prospects to how good/awful the city you're going to have to live in for the next 3+ years is. It intrigues me that no university bothers to try and 'compete' by charging less than the maximum in an attempt to sway consumers one way or the other.
As markets go it's about as dynamic as a plain white wall, and it's quite hard for students to find the best value if they're forced into paying the maximum amount, regardless of where they end up and what they end up doing. It's no wonder some might end up feeling a bit ripped off: It's hard to imagine that everywhere needs to charge £9250, and with everywhere charging the same it feels more like you're paying for the qualification at the end rather than anything to do with your actual learning experience.
Sometimes I feel like I could do a lot of the learning myself armed with nought but the set texts and google. I go to glasgow uni where they do the whole scottish "do 3 subjects for the first 2 years lol" gig. My theology and philosophy lecturers will drop some immense knowledge bombs outside of any of their recommended reading, and help me to engage in a way that I don't think I'd be able to otherwise. Meanwhile, I also do level 1 economics, who more or less teach directly from the textbook (which is £80) and provide absolutely nothing that I wouldn't have been able to get from the set textbook other than the final exam papers and the grade to get me into honours. Economics is my third subject and I have no intention of taking it to honours so it doesn't affect me so much, but somebody with real passion for economics with the intention of doing it for the full four years a scottish degree takes is going to be spending £9250 in year one when they could've learned the entirety of first year's content with an £80 book, some sample questions downloaded off google and a bit of elbow grease. I know from experience that I get through the content faster sat in bed with my laptop than most of the people that turn up to the lectures and tutorials do.
I'm not sure if universities are doing anything wrong with their pricing per se, as they assume you're going to turn up to the vast majority of teaching sessions, and lecturers don't come cheap. However, in some courses/years (particularly first year courses), if they simply offered a package of just the exams and a list of set texts and nothing else, some students would be far better off. I think to answe the poll question, it's more that in certain subjects, it can almost entirely be you in some courses, whereas in others the contact time is essential. Universities do not bother to make this distinction, and thus vastly overcharge sometimes. They should perhaps assess how much some courses are actually worth, in terms of contact time and the impact of attendance on overall results.
This has been a ramble, I would certainly never hand this essay in to any self respecting lecturer. M'pologies, hope something in there was clear.