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[oddlyodd]

I did the talk to potential students and their parents at the open day today. The main question from the floor was about contact hours, and I got an audible response of 'is that all?' from a few parents. I'm in the humanities, and I know we do offer more lectures and seminars than other universities, but it got a little tiring explaining to them all about 'reading' for a degree, university not being like high school, independent study and research, etc.

I've not had this level of concern about contact hours before. Do you think it's due to the fact that these are the first students to face paying £££thousands in fees? How do you deal with the question?

[britmom]

It could well be as I've never been asked this question before. I'm also in the Humanities. (I'm in Scotland = no fees for Scottish students, which make up the majority of our intake.)

Out of curiosity, how many contact hours do you have?

We have no less than 6 hours per semester. Depending on the combination of subjects, this may increase to 9 or 10 hours

[seniorscholar]

Do the parents know what they're asking? Have you explained what a "contact hour" is? And whether the number you give is total hours per term or hours per week during the term? Even in the US, it's possible for parents to believe that a "six hour load" means you spend only six hours per semester actually teaching and the rest of the time eating chocolates in front of the TV.

(Or as one of my neighbors used to ask me every two or three years when she would notice that my car was sometimes in front of the house all day "have you been laid off again?")

[oddlyodd]

Yup, I explain that students do 4 modules per semester, and each module has one lecture and one seminar = 8 hours a week. We've already increased some of the 2nd and 3rd year modules to 3 hours a week. I also reiterated how students are expected to do around 2 hours' preparation for each contact hour they get = total working week of c.40 hours.

I get the impression that parents who haven't been to university seem to think that all students' learning occurs within the classroom, a bit like school. Perhaps I should make the analogy with learning the piano: "if you haven't done your practice between lessons, then you aren't going to learn to be a proficient player", but that would seem a little patronising?

[britmom]

Duh! Sorry, that should have read 6 hours per week. (1st and 2nd year = 3 modules per semester, with 2 hours of lectures and 1 hour tutorial; 3rd year = 2 modules per semester, with 1 lecture and between 2 and 3 hours of seminars; 4th year = 2 modules per semester, with 3-4 hours of seminars).

On preview - I always start open day sessions with an explanation of the wondrous values of higher education/Humanities, ie learning how to research a topic independently and work through a range of evidence/reading to arrive at one's own interpretation. I also emphasise the way in which teaching is research-led, and how they are getting the benefit of people who are at the cutting-edge of the subject/those who are developing new ideas and areas of study.  I also emphasise that there's no guarantee of getting rich off the back of a Humanities degree. If they want to do that, they should sod off to Engineering. (Not sure those higher up would appreciate this approach, but I figure it's always best to be honest.)

I'm struck (and saddened) by how there's usually more parents than applicants at open days, and it's invariably the parents that ask the questions. When I was applying for UG study, you wouldn't be seen dead with your parent at an open day.

One final point....I've heard some complaints amongst students that there aren't enough contact hours, but they want lectures and would kick up such a fuss if, by increasing contact hours, they also had to do more reading.

[oddlyodd]

I too have noticed the increased parent presence. I make a point of when parents ask me a question during an open day, I respond directly to the student, looking them in the eye and asking them if they have questions. This is easier to do face to face, however, rather than in a big lecture hall during the subject talk.

Perhaps 10 years ago, most students then came individually or with their schoolmates, and then made friends with other students there on the open day. That doesn't happen anymore, as each student sits with their parents, often a good few seats away from anyone else, in their own little bubble. There obviously doesn't seem to be that embarrassment factor anymore, or the usual teenage desire to be as far away from one's parents as possible (some clarification: we are a post-92, whose intake is predominantly local, living at home).

[charlottchen]

Considering how much money the parents have to spend on their kids' education it is only too understandable that they want to know what is happening. Ten years ago you paid 1000 pounds per year, now you end up with a 9000 pound bill in England. This 800% increase has not brought about any improvements in terms of teaching hours/contact hours though. Understandably parents are a bit irritated about that.

[scotia]

Considering how much money the parents have to spend on their kids' education it is only too understandable that they want to know what is happening. Ten years ago you paid 1000 pounds per year, now you end up with a 9000 pound bill in England. This 800% increase has not brought about any improvements in terms of teaching hours/contact hours though. Understandably parents are a bit irritated about that.

Unless I have missed something, it is not parents who are footing the bill. The fees will be repaid through taxation of the students' incomes post-graduation.

It would be more useful if the parents asked these questions of those in government. Every time I hear MPs talking about how we are going to reduce costs in higher education they talk about 'efficiency savings'. The most obvious way to bring about efficiency savings is to move to larger classes and fewer contact hours. Of course, this can - and in my experience mostly does - make teaching a lot less effective, but nowhere in the rhetoric do I hear anything about effectiveness.

[science_expat]

That's an interesting point.

We too have to make efficiency savings and hence this morning I've been looking at module provision - should we restrict student choice for the reasons Scotia outlines.

But at the same time, we're facing the introduction of the Key Information Set which will force unis to provide data on things that contact hours.

[theblondeassassin]

Considering how much money the parents have to spend on their kids' education it is only too understandable that they want to know what is happening. Ten years ago you paid 1000 pounds per year, now you end up with a 9000 pound bill in England. This 800% increase has not brought about any improvements in terms of teaching hours/contact hours though. Understandably parents are a bit irritated about that.

The cost of a university education in the UK did not suddenly jump from £1500 to £9000 (next year) with the jump in price. That £7500 (or in some cases, much more than that) gap had to be filled from somewhere -- mostly direct taxation and indirect taxes that fall mostly on the middle-class consumer in the form of corporate contributions, research council funding, and subsidisation by academic staff in the form of lower wages (not true of management and VC's, obviously, who earn market or above).

NO extra money has come into the system to fund extra teaching hours. Parents who don't understand that should examine the ideology of the party for whom they vote, and/or read some basic economic and political theory.

[drspouse]

I've been getting the contact hours question for ages though we are in science and have lab classes so have a slightly "better" image on this. I often tell parents that universities with more contact hours are likely to give a lesser quality education as they are not encouraging the students to study on their own, or giving them time to do so.  I am thinking I might ask them, before saying this, whether they are asking this because they think more contact hours = better (perhaps they don't, they are just interested - I also get the occasional question about this from mature students or those who want to live at home a little distance away - for them it's because they want to know how much they'll have to be on campus - and occasionally from those who want to take on a job too).

Perhaps we should turn the question around and tell the questioners (who are often potential students, actually) how many hours they'll spend doing X, Y and Z. In fact, I've just had the bright idea to get this information circulating among colleagues so we as a department are on the same page. (See - posting on the fora is productive. Honest).

An old family friend is sending her eldest to university this year (note - 2011 not 2012) and decided to top up their mortgage instead of the student loan. I wrote her several impassioned emails asking her to reconsider, even though as she said it would be £9000 at 8% I was initially under the impression he was heading to uni in 2012. She not only had the level of fees and interest wrong, but from everything I've read and been told was completely misinformed about how much he would likely end up paying back. She was also pretty convinced that it would be a "family loan" and that other families would be "making decisions about who actually paid it back". I know she is a little protective of her teen, but I don't know anyone who's topping up their new graduate's income - well, maybe in kind i.e. free rent/food - but not in cash to pay back a student loan. They have one parent earning, only, too - so he'd miss out on any grants.  Crazy (and I basically told her so).

[qrypt]

Considering how much money the parents have to spend on their kids' education it is only too understandable that they want to know what is happening. Ten years ago you paid 1000 pounds per year, now you end up with a 9000 pound bill in England. This 800% increase has not brought about any improvements in terms of teaching hours/contact hours though. Understandably parents are a bit irritated about that.

The cost of a university education in the UK did not suddenly jump from £1500 to £9000 (next year) with the jump in price. That £7500 (or in some cases, much more than that) gap had to be filled from somewhere -- mostly direct taxation and indirect taxes that fall mostly on the middle-class consumer in the form of corporate contributions, research council funding, and subsidisation by academic staff in the form of lower wages (not true of management and VC's, obviously, who earn market or above).

NO extra money has come into the system to fund extra teaching hours. Parents who don't understand that should examine the ideology of the party for whom they vote, and/or read some basic economic and political theory.

It's not really even a matter of ideology -- it's a more basic question of honesty.  The Tories are imposing a tax increase on future taxpayers (those who go to university and then meet the income threshold).  But the policy has been presented as something else, because naturally the Tories can't *say* that they are imposing a tax increase.

I'm in favour of a tax increase to pay for higher education.  I do wish it were being presented as such.  On the other hand, I don't mind so much that it's the Tories and LibDems that are doing it -- and then paying the price for having been so opaque and misleading about it.

What I really *do* mind is the exacerbation of the distorted market logic that accompanies it.  The more general notion that students should know what the true cost is and bear it more directly is not entirely objectionable (though I do object to the notion that the benefit accrues only to them in the form of individual financial gain).  It's the particular mechanisms of implementing/manipulating the "costs" and "benefits" that pose more of a threat to universities (some more than others, naturally). 

Of course, there's little hope of communicating all of this to parents (let alone students) at open days.

[snape]

Its interesting to ask what sort of contact time students want more of. It's not usually more lectures or more seminars they want (their parents might want more of these though).

[drspouse]

Our students' union asked for more lecture/seminar time, and we had to nudge it up a bit because we weren't meeting some limit or other. They also seemed to think this would be better for them, though I'm not sure all the other students agree with them.

[babbinacara]

For the first time ever, this year I was asked by a student whether one optional module had one more contact hour per week than an alternate module. It didn't, but I couldn't work out from his facial expression whether having one more would have been a good or a bad thing.