The value for money of higher education is under growing scrutiny in Britain. Graduate hires are falling, student satisfaction is plunging even at elite institutions like the University of Edinburgh, and many question whether university justifies the cost. In a market-like system where students are seen as consumers, value is often reduced to a crude equation: tuition fees weighed against contact hours and job prospects. At Edinburgh, undergraduates may have as few as nine contact hours a week, which some see as poor value. Yet this view strikes me as reductive, and frankly, lazy when applied to what a university education truly offers.
A century ago, elite universities were not judged on the number of hours in the lecture hall. They were, instead, springboards for social and professional ascendency. A glance at the biographies of Britain’s distinguished leaders – politicians, judges, and industrialists – shows a striking concentration of Oxbridge affiliations. For Scotland, the tripartite distinction of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and St Andrews similarly shaped the country’s elite and professional classes. Admission itself provided one with a ticket; the prestige conferred by a place at one of these institutions opened doors that no amount of classroom hours ever could.
That remains true to a degree. Employers do not recruit graduates from these institutions because they assume that they have spent forty hours a week in tutorials. They recruit them because of the university brand and the signal that good performance, whether at admission or during the degree, provides. Universities are, above all else, signalling institutions: they tell the world that you can show up, be given tasks and meet a set of standards. Complaining about contact hours misunderstands the nature of what you are actually buying.
Historically, universities were a compromise between the demands of the state, the church, and industrialists. Today, they operate more like businesses, and students are increasingly encouraged to see themselves as customers. This mindset is part of the problem. If you believe you are buying a service, you expect a neat transaction: X amount of money, Y amount of teaching. But a university degree is not Spotify. It is an investment in intellectual and social capital, reputation, and access. If you approach it as a consumer on a base level, you will inevitably feel short-changed; if you expand your approach, you will leave far richer.
The apparent irony in all this is that British students, particularly home students, are not actually paying the full cost of their education. Most universities lose money on them, a gap subsidised by international students and research funding. In Scotland, where tuition is free for residents, this loss is even sharper. In other words, students already get more than their money’s worth. To complain about value is to ignore the fact that the system is carrying you.
Moreover, what students count as value for money is often absurdly narrow. Nine hours of lectures are one part of what a university provides: a wealth of resources – libraries, societies, careers services, laboratories, guest lectures and networks – are all subsidised and contribute to the value you can get. Students who measure their degree in timetabled hours are like gym members who only ever use the elliptical machine and then complain the place is a rip-off. The opportunities are there; it is up to you to take advantage of them.
And this is the heart of it: the onus is on the student. A university is not meant to provide knowledge for a set number of hours each week. It is designed to create an environment where self-directed learning, independent thought, and initiative flourish. Waiting four years for an invitation to fill your diary is to miss the point. The graduates who succeed, and likely place a lot of value in their degree, are not the ones who complained about a lack of contact time; they are the ones who used the resources, built networks, took part in societies, and learned how to think and act for themselves.
So, are students at prestigious universities like Edinburgh getting their money’s worth? Without question. Specifically, they are getting a subsidised education with prestige attached, and access to opportunities they will never again have so cheaply or abundantly. To malign contact hours is to reveal a shallow, transactional understanding of higher education. University is not about clocking in and clocking out. It is about demonstrating that you can handle work, take initiative and thrive independently in all sorts of environments. The difference in elite universities is that the competition to show this is higher, and thus to do so successfully signals an even more astute student. Employers know this, which is why they still value degrees from these institutions. The real waste is not the lack of contact hours, but the failure to take advantage of what is on offer.
“Old College, University of Edinburgh” by Su Hongjia is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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University is Worth the Money – Students Aren’t Making the Most of It
The value for money of higher education is under growing scrutiny in Britain. Graduate hires are falling, student satisfaction is plunging even at elite institutions like the University of Edinburgh, and many question whether university justifies the cost. In a market-like system where students are seen as consumers, value is often reduced to a crude equation: tuition fees weighed against contact hours and job prospects. At Edinburgh, undergraduates may have as few as nine contact hours a week, which some see as poor value. Yet this view strikes me as reductive, and frankly, lazy when applied to what a university education truly offers.
A century ago, elite universities were not judged on the number of hours in the lecture hall. They were, instead, springboards for social and professional ascendency. A glance at the biographies of Britain’s distinguished leaders – politicians, judges, and industrialists – shows a striking concentration of Oxbridge affiliations. For Scotland, the tripartite distinction of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and St Andrews similarly shaped the country’s elite and professional classes. Admission itself provided one with a ticket; the prestige conferred by a place at one of these institutions opened doors that no amount of classroom hours ever could.
That remains true to a degree. Employers do not recruit graduates from these institutions because they assume that they have spent forty hours a week in tutorials. They recruit them because of the university brand and the signal that good performance, whether at admission or during the degree, provides. Universities are, above all else, signalling institutions: they tell the world that you can show up, be given tasks and meet a set of standards. Complaining about contact hours misunderstands the nature of what you are actually buying.
Historically, universities were a compromise between the demands of the state, the church, and industrialists. Today, they operate more like businesses, and students are increasingly encouraged to see themselves as customers. This mindset is part of the problem. If you believe you are buying a service, you expect a neat transaction: X amount of money, Y amount of teaching. But a university degree is not Spotify. It is an investment in intellectual and social capital, reputation, and access. If you approach it as a consumer on a base level, you will inevitably feel short-changed; if you expand your approach, you will leave far richer.
The apparent irony in all this is that British students, particularly home students, are not actually paying the full cost of their education. Most universities lose money on them, a gap subsidised by international students and research funding. In Scotland, where tuition is free for residents, this loss is even sharper. In other words, students already get more than their money’s worth. To complain about value is to ignore the fact that the system is carrying you.
Moreover, what students count as value for money is often absurdly narrow. Nine hours of lectures are one part of what a university provides: a wealth of resources – libraries, societies, careers services, laboratories, guest lectures and networks – are all subsidised and contribute to the value you can get. Students who measure their degree in timetabled hours are like gym members who only ever use the elliptical machine and then complain the place is a rip-off. The opportunities are there; it is up to you to take advantage of them.
And this is the heart of it: the onus is on the student. A university is not meant to provide knowledge for a set number of hours each week. It is designed to create an environment where self-directed learning, independent thought, and initiative flourish. Waiting four years for an invitation to fill your diary is to miss the point. The graduates who succeed, and likely place a lot of value in their degree, are not the ones who complained about a lack of contact time; they are the ones who used the resources, built networks, took part in societies, and learned how to think and act for themselves.
So, are students at prestigious universities like Edinburgh getting their money’s worth? Without question. Specifically, they are getting a subsidised education with prestige attached, and access to opportunities they will never again have so cheaply or abundantly. To malign contact hours is to reveal a shallow, transactional understanding of higher education. University is not about clocking in and clocking out. It is about demonstrating that you can handle work, take initiative and thrive independently in all sorts of environments. The difference in elite universities is that the competition to show this is higher, and thus to do so successfully signals an even more astute student. Employers know this, which is why they still value degrees from these institutions. The real waste is not the lack of contact hours, but the failure to take advantage of what is on offer.
“Old College, University of Edinburgh” by Su Hongjia is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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