Student Debt Matters

Why is student Debt a problem?

For those in the UK: did you know that, in the US, student debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy? Did you know that it is not dischargeable in divorce. If your ex-defaults, you may be liable.

In the UK, until recently fees have been manageable but some of my students will still finish degrees under the old system and leave the University £30,000 in debt.

For reasons not of their making, one of my students will need to repeat a year on a new programme. This will result in perhaps £60,000 in debt when leaving University. This student is under the new fee regime.

What does this amount of debt (£30,000 to £60,000) mean?

In my neighbourhood, you can buy a semi-detached house for £65,000 and houses have sold as low as £52,000 since January of this year (2014). 

The Student finance website of the UK government has a calculator (here) that puts things in perspective. They give an example of taking 29 years 8 months to pay back a loan of £50,025. This will require £161,007!

Although somewhat dated (2007), this article (here) suggests a university graduate makes on average £160,000 more than someone without a degree over their working life. This is average, not the median.

What not to listen to?

... that you don’t have to repay until you are making over £21,000. You accrue interest during this period and, in honesty, many entry level graduate jobs do not pay this much. 

... that any unpaid amounts will be forgiven after many years. The interest rate is listed as the rate of inflation as given by the retail price index plus 3%. Just because the debt is written off after a period of time this does not mean you will not be subject to a debt burden for a long period of time. 

What to do?

Get into as little debt as you possibly can while undertaking your studies. If you can live at home, do so. Consider studying in other countries. Look into studying in Germany. If you are a very good student consider the US private universities. If you have genuine need for financial assistance, there are very good programmes to assist.

If you can skip a masters and go directly into a PhD do so. Never pay for a PhD. If you can not compete for a fully funded PhD, consider doing something else.

Finally, my students bravely charge into education because they want to learn and because they believe in the benefits of education. If you really love your subject and learning, be careful. If you are doing it for the economic benefits, be careful. On the face of it, it is a marginal investment. I never thought I would ever find myself saying that. Minimize the amount you borrow to improve the value of the investment. 

Please read this article (here): It inspired me to write this. Although it is from a US perspective, it points out some pitfalls of student debt.

In Praise of Unions - They Can Win

If there was ever proof that disciplined and strategically rational Union action can and will win, look no further than the Universities Union. They achieved their objectives, they let the opposition tie itself in knots, and ended up with exactly what they had planned all along. 

It was a costly battle for the other side. It was a win-win for the union. They ended up richer than they were before due to the strategic incompetence of the other side. Union Organisers of yesteryear would be proud...

... or not. 

The Union I am referring to is UCEA (not UCU). UCEA is the Universities and Colleges Employers Association. Call it what it is – a Union and a very successful one at the moment. If it is not a Union, then perhaps it could be called a price fixing organisation. Union fits better and as a group, they fought UCU to a standstill. To my view, they gave only what they intended and nothing more. Actually, they did not even fight. They just waited while the other side self-destructed.

A rough synopsis is that the employers offered a 1% pay raise for the year. This is below current inflation, follows many years of below inflation pay raises and is well below the average rise in pay of Vice Chancellors (VCs). How could this be defended in the face of rising University incomes and surpluses? 

The Union considered this, balloted its membership on strike action and action short of a strike. Both were given a go-ahead. A work to contract was declared, a series of strike days followed together with a set of 2 hour strikes. The employers did not budge as far as I could tell and a subset of Universities took a hard line that deducted a whole days pay for a 2 hour strike, including hours worked before the strike commenced. In my opinion the latter is clear wage theft. There was a profound lack of any serious help from UCU on what should be done to recover this.

Academics have noticed that employers do not worry too much about strike days. The reason is the Academic mentality: we always do the work somehow. Students don’t leave the year missing, for example, the concept of x-rays because of a strike day. We always mark everything in the end and we try to help our students. Most of us chose to be academics because we love knowledge and learning and teaching and finding out new things.  We still do these things while out on the picket lines, taking a shower in the morning, or walking the dog.  Academics have also noticed that against this backdrop, strikes only enrich employers. Because of this, strike discipline was pretty appalling and got worse.

So the Union put its last option on the table, a marking boycott was to begin on a particular date in late April which would continue until, well whenever, ...  for us it would have been at least until mid-June. The employers (at least mine) made clear that refusing to mark would be a breach of contract and pay would be deducted from the time the boycott started. As disgusting as the deduction of pay from before a strike began by the UCEA militants, on the point relating to a marking boycott, I agree with the Universities on their position. If I decided to boycott lecturing or supervising labs, it would be perfectly within my Employer’s rights to decide I was not fulfilling my contract from the time I started the boycott to the time I stopped. 

Even the most militant Union members realised a marking boycott was a very costly proposition and if followed to the letter would result in loss of a month or more in pay. It was unlikely to happen in a disciplined manner and staff on tight budgets would not be able to afford it. That is pretty much where the fight ended.

Despite this, I think the Employers were a little nervous about the marking boycott. Negotiations took place close to the date the boycott was supposed to begin and UCEA came back with a masterful last minute gambit: they offered a 1% pay raise for this year (no change in offer) AND "sweetened" it with a 2% raise (probably what they would have offered anyway) for next year. This was sufficient to result in a ballot of UCU members, which voted overwhelmingly to call off the marking boycott. Game over.

So that is how you snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. A very just campaign to improve pay in the face of long term loss of real wages to inflation against the backdrop of large real average pay increases awarded to VCs was lost through tactical incompetence. It also puts the lid on any pay increases for probably another two years.

I am sure UCU will try to put the best face on this, but they were outgunned by a more disciplined and strategically competent Union. Simple as that.

A league Table that Matters (for Engineering and Physical Sciences)

It is an unfortunate fact of academic life that league tables matter. They matter not because they are inherently good things, but because people pay attention to them. University leaders care, parents care, students care, foreign students care, employers care. They should not care so much, because most league tables are foolish time-wasting restatements of average A-level grades and little more. Essentially, universities are ranked by the undergraduate students that attend.

There is an exception. There is an excellent one produced by the bibliometricians at the University of Leiden who use a variety of measures of paper productivity and quality to create a ranking system. Although this is an excellent resource, it has limitations. The table is concerned with science so is less useful for other areas. The creators seem mostly concerned with the best universities so the tables do not really give a sense of the full range of what can be expected from rather less distinguished universities. Finally, for the UK only about a third of the universities are listed.

What to do?  Answer, get help from EPSRC (The Engineering and Physical Science Research Council). 

The EPSRC funds scientific research AND also provides data on where those funds go. The data from 2012/13 is here. This provides data for attempts to obtain funding, conversion, total funds awarded etc. This is the input side of the UK University scientific research enterprise. This can be sorted to obtain a league table relating to Engineering and Physical Sciences. 

There are two metrics considered here. There is the number of proposals funded. This is an index of ideas deemed by peer review and the research council to be worth funding. These are the ideas that will create the university's future. The other is success rate. This is an index of the competitiveness of the researchers generating new ideas at an institution. This second one is a bit tricky because at the high end it is subject to the vagaries of small sample sizes, but it is still worth contemplating.

UK universities sorted by both of these metrics are listed below (as is all the data). In the rank by number of proposals, there are not so many surprises. But in the success rate index, there are. Setting aside the few at the top which are subject to the problems of small numbers, there are a few surprises. Oxford does not make the top 20 and Cambridge barely does. What this means is that there are pockets of excellent science in some unexpected places and there are opportunities in those universities to work with excellent researchers for a student willing to take the time. 

Before finishing, an apology. One of my pet peeves is the modern obsession with the last data point (this video explains why this is a bad thing). Please accept my apologies for presenting this as a single year.

Rank by fundable ideas:

Rank	Organisation	Total number of research proposals considered	Number of research proposals funded	% Funding rate by number	Total value of research proposals considered	Value of research proposals funded	% Funding rate by value
1	University College London	177	76	43%	151,898,494	81,894,518	54%
2	Imperial College London	215	69	32%	182,858,481	59,547,192	33%
3	University of Cambridge	116	49	42%	125,168,353	67,039,995	54%
4	University of Oxford	121	43	36%	81,868,450	21,079,033	26%
5	University of Bristol	98	42	43%	80,861,747	34,955,056	43%
6	University of Warwick	109	41	38%	73,634,307	31,295,359	43%
7	The University of Manchester	125	38	30%	82,969,932	27,168,293	33%
8	University of Sheffield	113	38	34%	83,653,607	24,390,110	29%
9	University of Leeds	83	31	37%	50,109,395	18,594,362	37%
10	University of Southampton	90	31	34%	41,243,114	16,451,281	40%
11	University of Nottingham	86	30	35%	72,815,137	27,046,795	37%
12	University of Bath	94	29	31%	60,789,852	25,513,404	42%
13	University of Edinburgh	75	28	37%	57,419,900	30,524,784	53%
14	Newcastle University	55	24	44%	52,395,451	22,784,557	43%
15	University of Liverpool	63	24	38%	39,792,268	11,985,869	30%
16	University of Strathclyde	74	23	31%	51,365,657	16,929,523	33%
17	Cardiff University	53	22	42%	31,191,330	12,002,146	38%
18	Loughborough University	58	22	38%	52,364,689	20,566,754	39%
19	Durham University	43	21	49%	22,256,391	10,984,571	49%
20	University of Birmingham	67	21	31%	44,939,520	13,229,351	29%
21	Lancaster University	38	20	53%	21,388,892	8,844,983	41%
22	University of Glasgow	48	17	35%	47,219,137	23,948,483	51%
23	King's College London	48	15	31%	16,790,091	2,988,748	18%
24	University of Exeter	49	15	31%	23,875,970	7,044,042	30%
25	University of York	41	15	37%	26,186,804	9,138,981	35%
26	Brunel University	39	14	36%	22,987,936	11,949,185	52%
27	Heriot-Watt University	49	14	29%	35,628,165	11,656,495	33%
28	Queen's University of Belfast	35	12	34%	26,934,491	10,336,054	38%
29	Cranfield University	46	10	22%	25,877,431	4,511,361	17%
30	University of St Andrews	33	10	30%	18,598,220	6,660,201	36%
31	Queen Mary, University of London	43	9	21%	17,949,342	3,436,930	19%
32	University of Surrey	61	9	15%	29,291,237	3,613,891	12%
33	Royal Holloway, Univ of London	14	8	57%	6,317,224	3,598,978	57%
34	University of Aberdeen	16	7	44%	9,397,157	3,405,566	36%
35	De Montfort University	14	6	43%	6,318,695	2,406,769	38%
36	Open University	19	6	32%	7,603,128	1,300,427	17%
37	Swansea University	27	6	22%	22,023,324	4,716,297	21%
38	University of Dundee	14	6	43%	18,016,949	8,121,898	45%
39	University of East Anglia	17	5	29%	5,324,459	892,486	17%
40	University of Kent	14	5	36%	3,890,258	664,053	17%
41	University of Leicester	17	5	29%	6,286,485	1,281,111	20%
42	University of Reading	17	5	29%	6,598,284	1,755,610	27%
43	University of Ulster	11	5	45%	4,405,034	2,677,818	61%
44	Aston University	8	4	50%	2,696,568	2,239,856	83%
45	University of Plymouth	5	4	80%	1,481,365	1,157,074	78%
46	City University London	7	3	43%	3,551,957	1,522,601	43%
47	Manchester Metropolitan University	5	3	60%	1,348,569	774,385	57%
48	Northumbria University	10	3	30%	3,501,519	1,458,259	42%
49	University of Greenwich	5	3	60%	915,163	728,059	80%
50	University of Hull	10	3	30%	4,449,550	310,363	7%
51	University of Salford	10	3	30%	4,962,922	1,176,128	24%
52	University of Sussex	13	3	23%	10,756,276	3,951,483	37%
53	Aberystwyth University	5	2	40%	1,246,869	289,624	23%
54	City University	7	2	29%	2,491,376	207,330	8%
55	Glyndwr University	6	2	33%	2,535,139	569,320	22%
56	Nottingham Trent University	7	2	29%	1,336,450	156,119	12%
57	University of Brighton	7	2	29%	1,641,575	438,923	27%
58	University of Central Lancashire	7	2	29%	3,232,697	164,132	5%
59	University of Huddersfield	7	2	29%	3,357,981	653,831	19%
60	Bangor University	2	1	50%	643,556	231,548	36%
61	Coventry University	6	1	17%	2,259,288	477,591	21%
62	Edinburgh Napier University	6	1	17%	1,076,504	238,068	22%
63	Goldsmiths College	1	1	100%	130,751	130,751	100%
64	Keele University	8	1	13%	1,143,491	15,762	1%
65	London School of Economics & Pol Sci	3	1	33%	266,294	93,836	35%
66	Oxford Brookes University	6	1	17%	2,563,759	1,184,087	46%
67	University of Hertfordshire	6	1	17%	2,311,986	375,542	16%
68	University of Portsmouth	7	1	14%	1,188,675	752,949	63%
69	University of Stirling	5	1	20%	2,598,610	1,228,231	47%
70	University of the Highlands and Islands	1	1	100%	116,054	116,054	100%
71	University of the West of England	12	1	8%	7,698,034	49,730	1%
72	University of the West of Scotland	3	1	33%	301,679	99,872	33%
73	Birkbeck College	2	0	0%	1,649,467	0	0%
74	Birmingham City University	3	0	0%	444,318	0	0%
75	Bournemouth University	3	0	0%	658,830	0	0%
76	Cardiff Metropolitan University	1	0	0%	280,056	0	0%
77	Glasgow Caledonian University	4	0	0%	1,402,026	0	0%
78	Kingston University	4	0	0%	633,880	0	0%
79	Leeds Metropolitan University	1	0	0%	220,878	0	0%
80	Liverpool John Moores University	4	0	0%	1,092,417	0	0%
81	London Metropolitan University	2	0	0%	915,227	0	0%
82	London South Bank University	2	0	0%	498,243	0	0%
83	Middlesex University	5	0	0%	8,415,091	0	0%
84	Royal College of Art	1	0	0%	1,126,393	0	0%
85	Sheffield Hallam University	4	0	0%	1,792,553	0	0%
86	Southampton Solent University	1	0	0%	272,421	0	0%
87	Swansea Metropolitan University	1	0	0%	75,586	0	0%
88	The Robert Gordon University	2	0	0%	1,910,764	0	0%
89	University of Abertay Dundee	2	0	0%	430,496	0	0%
90	University of Bedfordshire	2	0	0%	311,628	0	0%
91	University of Bolton	2	0	0%	1,220,192	0	0%
92	University of Bradford	9	0	0%	1,916,361	0	0%
93	University of Derby	2	0	0%	189,508	0	0%
94	University of East London	2	0	0%	196,302	0	0%
95	University of Essex	6	0	0%	1,878,555	0	0%
96	University of Glamorgan	7	0	0%	4,342,748	0	0%
97	University of Lincoln	4	0	0%	709,562	0	0%
98	University of Northampton	4	0	0%	504,265	0	0%
99	University of Teesside	1	0	0%	268,146	0	0%
100	University of Westminster	1	0	0%	4,067,836	0	0%

Competitiveness (%funding rate by number)

Rank	Organisation	Total number of research proposals considered	Number of research proposals funded	% Funding rate by number	Total value of research proposals considered	Value of research proposals funded	% Funding rate by value
1	Goldsmiths College	1	1	100%	130,751	130,751	100%
2	University of the Highlands and Islands	1	1	100%	116,054	116,054	100%
3	University of Plymouth	5	4	80%	1,481,365	1,157,074	78%
4	Manchester Metropolitan University	5	3	60%	1,348,569	774,385	57%
5	University of Greenwich	5	3	60%	915,163	728,059	80%
6	Royal Holloway, Univ of London	14	8	57%	6,317,224	3,598,978	57%
7	Lancaster University	38	20	53%	21,388,892	8,844,983	41%
8	Aston University	8	4	50%	2,696,568	2,239,856	83%
9	Bangor University	2	1	50%	643,556	231,548	36%
10	Durham University	43	21	49%	22,256,391	10,984,571	49%
11	University of Ulster	11	5	45%	4,405,034	2,677,818	61%
12	Newcastle University	55	24	44%	52,395,451	22,784,557	43%
13	University of Aberdeen	16	7	44%	9,397,157	3,405,566	36%
14	University College London	177	76	43%	151,898,494	81,894,518	54%
15	University of Bristol	98	42	43%	80,861,747	34,955,056	43%
16	De Montfort University	14	6	43%	6,318,695	2,406,769	38%
17	University of Dundee	14	6	43%	18,016,949	8,121,898	45%
18	City University London	7	3	43%	3,551,957	1,522,601	43%
19	University of Cambridge	116	49	42%	125,168,353	67,039,995	54%
20	Cardiff University	53	22	42%	31,191,330	12,002,146	38%
21	Aberystwyth University	5	2	40%	1,246,869	289,624	23%
22	University of Warwick	109	41	38%	73,634,307	31,295,359	43%
23	University of Liverpool	63	24	38%	39,792,268	11,985,869	30%
24	Loughborough University	58	22	38%	52,364,689	20,566,754	39%
25	University of Leeds	83	31	37%	50,109,395	18,594,362	37%
26	University of Edinburgh	75	28	37%	57,419,900	30,524,784	53%
27	University of York	41	15	37%	26,186,804	9,138,981	35%
28	University of Oxford	121	43	36%	81,868,450	21,079,033	26%
29	Brunel University	39	14	36%	22,987,936	11,949,185	52%
30	University of Kent	14	5	36%	3,890,258	664,053	17%
31	University of Nottingham	86	30	35%	72,815,137	27,046,795	37%
32	University of Glasgow	48	17	35%	47,219,137	23,948,483	51%
33	University of Sheffield	113	38	34%	83,653,607	24,390,110	29%
34	University of Southampton	90	31	34%	41,243,114	16,451,281	40%
35	Queen's University of Belfast	35	12	34%	26,934,491	10,336,054	38%
36	Glyndwr University	6	2	33%	2,535,139	569,320	22%
37	London School of Economics & Pol Sci	3	1	33%	266,294	93,836	35%
38	University of the West of Scotland	3	1	33%	301,679	99,872	33%
39	Imperial College London	215	69	32%	182,858,481	59,547,192	33%
40	Open University	19	6	32%	7,603,128	1,300,427	17%
41	University of Bath	94	29	31%	60,789,852	25,513,404	42%
42	University of Strathclyde	74	23	31%	51,365,657	16,929,523	33%
43	University of Birmingham	67	21	31%	44,939,520	13,229,351	29%
44	King's College London	48	15	31%	16,790,091	2,988,748	18%
45	University of Exeter	49	15	31%	23,875,970	7,044,042	30%
46	The University of Manchester	125	38	30%	82,969,932	27,168,293	33%
47	University of St Andrews	33	10	30%	18,598,220	6,660,201	36%
48	Northumbria University	10	3	30%	3,501,519	1,458,259	42%
49	University of Hull	10	3	30%	4,449,550	310,363	7%
50	University of Salford	10	3	30%	4,962,922	1,176,128	24%
51	Heriot-Watt University	49	14	29%	35,628,165	11,656,495	33%
52	University of East Anglia	17	5	29%	5,324,459	892,486	17%
53	University of Leicester	17	5	29%	6,286,485	1,281,111	20%
54	University of Reading	17	5	29%	6,598,284	1,755,610	27%
55	City University	7	2	29%	2,491,376	207,330	8%
56	Nottingham Trent University	7	2	29%	1,336,450	156,119	12%
57	University of Brighton	7	2	29%	1,641,575	438,923	27%
58	University of Central Lancashire	7	2	29%	3,232,697	164,132	5%
59	University of Huddersfield	7	2	29%	3,357,981	653,831	19%
60	University of Sussex	13	3	23%	10,756,276	3,951,483	37%
61	Cranfield University	46	10	22%	25,877,431	4,511,361	17%
62	Swansea University	27	6	22%	22,023,324	4,716,297	21%
63	Queen Mary, University of London	43	9	21%	17,949,342	3,436,930	19%
64	University of Stirling	5	1	20%	2,598,610	1,228,231	47%
65	Coventry University	6	1	17%	2,259,288	477,591	21%
66	Edinburgh Napier University	6	1	17%	1,076,504	238,068	22%
67	Oxford Brookes University	6	1	17%	2,563,759	1,184,087	46%
68	University of Hertfordshire	6	1	17%	2,311,986	375,542	16%
69	University of Surrey	61	9	15%	29,291,237	3,613,891	12%
70	University of Portsmouth	7	1	14%	1,188,675	752,949	63%
71	Keele University	8	1	13%	1,143,491	15,762	1%
72	University of the West of England	12	1	8%	7,698,034	49,730	1%
73	Birkbeck College	2	0	0%	1,649,467	0	0%
74	Birmingham City University	3	0	0%	444,318	0	0%
75	Bournemouth University	3	0	0%	658,830	0	0%
76	Cardiff Metropolitan University	1	0	0%	280,056	0	0%
77	Glasgow Caledonian University	4	0	0%	1,402,026	0	0%
78	Kingston University	4	0	0%	633,880	0	0%
79	Leeds Metropolitan University	1	0	0%	220,878	0	0%
80	Liverpool John Moores University	4	0	0%	1,092,417	0	0%
81	London Metropolitan University	2	0	0%	915,227	0	0%
82	London South Bank University	2	0	0%	498,243	0	0%
83	Middlesex University	5	0	0%	8,415,091	0	0%
84	Royal College of Art	1	0	0%	1,126,393	0	0%
85	Sheffield Hallam University	4	0	0%	1,792,553	0	0%
86	Southampton Solent University	1	0	0%	272,421	0	0%
87	Swansea Metropolitan University	1	0	0%	75,586	0	0%
88	The Robert Gordon University	2	0	0%	1,910,764	0	0%
89	University of Abertay Dundee	2	0	0%	430,496	0	0%
90	University of Bedfordshire	2	0	0%	311,628	0	0%
91	University of Bolton	2	0	0%	1,220,192	0	0%
92	University of Bradford	9	0	0%	1,916,361	0	0%
93	University of Derby	2	0	0%	189,508	0	0%
94	University of East London	2	0	0%	196,302	0	0%
95	University of Essex	6	0	0%	1,878,555	0	0%
96	University of Glamorgan	7	0	0%	4,342,748	0	0%
97	University of Lincoln	4	0	0%	709,562	0	0%
98	University of Northampton	4	0	0%	504,265	0	0%
99	University of Teesside	1	0	0%	268,146	0	0%
100	University of Westminster	1	0	0%	4,067,836	0	0%