Should we be going back to university?

Well for some degrees such as healthcare courses which are very practical, the time is ticking as graduation looms ahead. These courses definitely need to get up and running again otherwise we’ll end up with a bunch of medical, dental, nursing and other allied healthcare students who graduate with insufficient skills to actually be competent at their job - and this in itself is fatal.

Or, an alternative situation is these students are not allowed to graduate and then you’d end up with a backlog of HCP students - and that would be a whole other issue.

No offence, I respect your opinion BUT, It's this kind of sympathetic thinking that 'universities are businesses and they need money', which makes the tuition fee so expensive.

Do you know that Universities have endowments, totalling well over £100 million per annum. Our tuition fee is just additional pocket money for them.

Students are one of the least at-risk groups available, if any group can survive an outbreak it's the student body. The same can't quite be said for staff at universities of course, and that's why a large number of universities have reduced in-person staff-to-student contact in favour of online options. So this shouldn't be confused with the complete return to a normal HE environment. However, that's not me saying that there are no risks. The government's job now is to look at all Britain's industries and sectors, calculate all the risks and advise from there. In the government's eyes this risk is calculated to be safe enough for return under certain conditions:
https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Documents/2020/principles-and-considerations-emerging-from-lockdown-june-2020.pdf

Do you know that Universities have endowments, totalling well over £100 million per annum. Our tuition fee is just additional pocket money for them.

I'm studying medicine. I'm going into my second year (but technically 3rd year). We go into clinical phase next March. We haven't done our end of first year clinical exam yet because it needs to be done in person. So we're doing it next term, alongside learning the clinical skills for next year and everything else and studying for our second year exams. We're also doing 'blended learning' that is essentially online learning with maybe 4-5 hours in person per week. I'm not about to graduate, but I already feel like I won't be as prepared as I could be for my clinical years, and will end up becoming overwhelmed next term and maybe fail my exam. I know our teachers are doing the best they can for us, but between isolation, stress, and it essentially being one big experiment, I am worried, and so are a lot of people in my cohort. I couldn't imagine NOT starting again next month, otherwise the beginning of the New Year will be an absolute **** show for us all.

Blue_Cow is well acquainted with HE funding, my question to you is if universities are so wealthy why are many of them operating at a loss and 13 recently at risk of going bust?

I think this is due to many factors.
But, the main factor I believe is university senior management and academic staff being paid salaries above what they should be paid.
The vice chancellor of Imperial College London was paid £500,000 per annum, which I think is ridiculous.

Then they complain 'we're about to go bust'

I think this is due to many factors.
But, the main factor I believe is university senior management and academic staff being paid salaries above what they should be paid.
The vice chancellor of Imperial College London was paid £500,000 per annum, which I think is ridiculous.

Then they complain 'we're about to go bust'

I'm studying medicine. I'm going into my second year (but technically 3rd year). We go into clinical phase next March. We haven't done our end of first year clinical exam yet because it needs to be done in person. So we're doing it next term, alongside learning the clinical skills for next year and everything else and studying for our second year exams. We're also doing 'blended learning' that is essentially online learning with maybe 4-5 hours in person per week. I'm not about to graduate, but I already feel like I won't be as prepared as I could be for my clinical years, and will end up becoming overwhelmed next term and maybe fail my exam. I know our teachers are doing the best they can for us, but between isolation, stress, and it essentially being one big experiment, I am worried, and so are a lot of people in my cohort. I couldn't imagine NOT starting again next month, otherwise the beginning of the New Year will be an absolute **** show for us all.

I'm also studying medicine but only going into my second year (undergraduate) so not the worst situation but we have new clinical skills to learn and practice as well as the ones that we missed due to lock down so I really want to go back in September. Are you doing GEM?