The Student Room Group

Have your say: Tuition fees ‘should be higher’ for science than arts and humanities

Here's where you can post a comment about our Tuition fees ‘should be higher’ for science than arts and humanities article.

Read the full Tuition fees ‘should be higher’ for science than arts and humanities article and join in the discussion by posting a message below.

Scroll to see replies

Personally, I don't see it as being fair to charge more for one subject of Bachelor's degree to another. Whether Bsc or BA, you are still going to be taught to Level 6. As a potential Bsc student for the next academic year, I hope Bsc programme costs aren't raised. My pathway is always going to be Bsc, it's what I've worked towards so I simply don't see it as fair.
Original post by candokoala
Here's where you can post a comment about our Tuition fees ‘should be higher’ for science than arts and humanities article.

Read the full Tuition fees ‘should be higher’ for science than arts and humanities article and join in the discussion by posting a message below.


I’m kinda thinking feed should just be outright scrapped. Replaced with a graduate tax (ie the exact system we have at the moment. But skip the whole fees bit. Means super rich people won’t pay up front etc)

May be biased as I’m doing a stem subject.

How do you fully decide which subjects are stem so get charged more and which don’t. It’s obvious what some subjects are but what about economics etc.

Can’t really just split it by BA vs bsci. Since if I stop at 3rd year I get a ba 4th year is meng.
Reply 3
You need to decide. Encourage people into STEM, or deter them. Having higher fees for STEM is confused incompetence.
Reply 4
Haven't read the article but I can't think how it could justify charging more for those degrees that we need to encourage people to take.
In 30 years the number of students attending university has trebled, yet even with 3 times as many students, we have fewer studying stem now than we did 30 years ago.
Astounding isn't it.
Somehow I don't think the OPs suggestion will help the situation.
(edited 5 years ago)
The costs of delivering a course should be taken into account when calculating tuition fees, according to some students and experts.

On average, each full-time undergraduate student on average costs a university £7,694. But subjects like science and medicine are more expensive to deliver than arts and humanities, due to requiring more expensive equipment and longer teaching hours.



We need scientists for all obvious reasons, do we need sociologues in the same measure? Of course science courses are more expensive to 'deliver' by definition, it's a reflexion of how much more practical content and requirements there is to them than to 'the arts and the humanities' sector that has exploded merely as a result of the commercialization of universities.

Another way of putting it would be 'tuition fees should be lower for arts and humanities than for science'. No problem with that, you get what you pay for or should do anyway. Choice of perspective in the title noted.
(edited 5 years ago)
If you got rid of the government sponsored loans most of these mickey mouse degrees would disappear overnight and costs for STEM subjects would plummet.
Original post by DrMikeHuntHertz
If you got rid of the government sponsored loans most of these mickey mouse degrees would disappear overnight and costs for STEM subjects would plummet.

Is correct.
An indicator of how desperate universities are to keep this gravy train rolling is in 2012 they made about 2,500 unconditional offers.
Last year they made over 60,000.
It's a house of cards they will do anything to prop up.
51% of students get to uni with 3x D's at A level.
Leeds Met ran over 90 courses where you could get in with 2 E"s at A level and consequently a £50,000 loan.

80% of students won't pay it back fully and as many as 50% at all.
The whole thing costs £100bn and increases by £12bn a year.
It makes the PFI debacle look like a good deal.

Of course by the time these chickens come home to roost the people that made these decisions and pushed for it all will be on their own state funded index linked pensions.

You can read it all in "The great university con- how we broke our universities and betrayed a generation". by David Craig
(edited 5 years ago)
It is a terrible idea to implement that difference in cost. The real reason this government would want to do that is to make sure only the richer people go into the stronger degrees in STEM, that is totally unfair and inconsiderate, think about who the change in cost will affect the most. If you want poorer families to improve their standard of living, we should not try and dissuade them away from degrees.
Original post by GreenDeath
It is a terrible idea to implement that difference in cost. The real reason this government would want to do that is to make sure only the richer people go into the stronger degrees in STEM, that is totally unfair and inconsiderate, think about who the change in cost will affect the most. If you want poorer families to improve their standard of living, we should not try and dissuade them away from degrees.


Totally agree. If these fees keep increasing for STEM subjects, then the only people who are going to pay up front are the rich... and they will be able to pay it all (or most of it at least) up front.
I don’t think the fees should increase for STEM subjects - they are high enough already. But I do think the fees could be less for humanities subjects.
Today's Telegraph pg 8.

"British universities are falling behind employability rankings as foreign institutions increasingly use English.
The UK's position the Times Higher Educations (THE) global rankings has declined more than any other European country in recent years
Meanwhile, the rapid improvements of universities in the East has seen countries including South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore rise.
There are now 10 British universities in the top 150 down from 15 in 2011
The US are at 34 down from 55 in the top 150.
The trends in universities around the world to now teach courses in English has been a significant Factor in British and American institutions losing their Edge."

Another reason they are looking around desperately for ways to keep their income flowing.
Personally, I think if science degrees are going to have their tuition fees changed, then they should be lowered and the govt should put more money into it.

Plus, if the tuition fees for science are lowered, more people might be inclined to apply, which hopefully will bring more women into science and then all the silly arguments about women being discouraged from science can stop.

Nobody is stopping them from applying. If anything, it's that they don't apply in the first place.
(edited 5 years ago)
Original post by AlgeBrains
Personally, I think if science degrees are going to have their tuition fees changed, then they should be lowered and the govt should put more money into it.

Plus, if the tuition fees for science are lowered, more people might be inclined to apply, which hopefully will bring more women into science and then all the silly arguments about women being discouraged from science can stop.

Nobody is stopping them from applying. If anything, it's that they don't apply in the first place.

It's true that people are not stopping women from applying to scientific courses however it has been proved that women often do not grow up believing that they could achieve or should do such a career, ( this is not true for all cases, however girls often think that some jobs are for men and some for women when they are growing up)which is why women in science has been promoted so much to change societies views and encourage more women to apply. Often universities are very happy to take women onto science courses. I personally don't think science courses tuition fees should be raised as this will put some people off applying especially if they do a course longer than 3 years, and it will most likely affect the poorest in society most as they are unlikely to have extra financial support from parents. However I am not entirely decided on whether courses with less contact hours should cost less as of yet.
Original post by candokoala
Here's where you can post a comment about our Tuition fees ‘should be higher’ for science than arts and humanities article.

Read the full Tuition fees ‘should be higher’ for science than arts and humanities article and join in the discussion by posting a message below.


No the science degrees should be free and the numbers of people taking degrees with no direct jobs linked to them in anywhere near the quantities of people taking the course should be drastically cut.

We don’t even need half the universities we currently have
Original post by candokoala
Here's where you can post a comment about our Tuition fees ‘should be higher’ for science than arts and humanities article.

Read the full Tuition fees ‘should be higher’ for science than arts and humanities article and join in the discussion by posting a message below.


The never used to be any tuition fees. 50 years ago you got a grant that you could live on. It was much harder to get into uni then, and it was called university, not uni.
It used to be less than 1 in 6
It's now over 1in 2
That's why it's not free.
It used to be less than 1 in 6
It's now over 1in 2
That's why it's not free.
Reply 19
only a minority of science graduates work in STEM jobs

"the study finds that the majority of science graduates choose not to or are unable to - work in highly skilled science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) occupations at any time in their careers.

“...simply increasing the number of students studying STEM subjects at university something that has proven very difficult will be an ineffective way of addressing any labour shortages that may exist.”

in other words, more STEM grads does not mean more STEM contribution or whatever the argument is - it just means more STEM grads doing other things.

on another note, STEM degrees (in the UK) are just as financially accessible as any other degree - they're all equal in that regard, proving kids who go to uni do not choose their degree based on price. they choose based on interest which stems from how they were raised and what kind of future they see for themselves. if you don't see yourself doing math or science, guess which degrees you won't be doing.

Quick Reply

Latest