The Perfect Storm: Tertiary Education in the UK

Recently I had the opportunity to sit down and think a bit about what is happening in tertiary (University) education in the UK, and I think we may be heading for a 'Perfect Storm'.

For readers not in the UK here is a little 'back-story' for this post (if you know about the 2012 changes in the University tuition fee structure in the UK, then please feel free to skip ahead to the next paragraph): In 2012 the University tuition fee structure in the UK will significantly change. At present (and this started in 2006) 'home' (EU) students pay ~£3,000 (~$4,500 USD) per year in tuition fees. This will be increasing to around ~£9,000 (~$13,500 USD) in 2012.

In 2012 we will see the first generation of students coming to University that have never known a world without the Internet*. And, look at the tools they will be bringing! iPhones, iPod Touches, iPads, Kindles, and all manner of laptops, and who knows what other mobile devices will be out there by 2012**. Combine this incredible familiarity and experience of technology and the Internet, with the increased fees, and we may be about to witness a 'Perfect Storm'.

The Perfect Storm

So, what is this 'Perfect Storm'? Well, 2012 is be a bit of a 'Schrödinger's cat', that is, we really do not know what is going to happen. Will students stop coming to University as they think it is too expensive? Will a degree be perceived as more valuable as it now costs ~£9,000 (~$13,500 USD) per year, and as a result applications will increase? Students may decide to stay at home and go to their 'local' University, which could have profound affect on student numbers at Universities in regions where traditionally 'locals' have not gone to University. Or students may decide to go for a more flexible approach to learning and spend more hours working in paid employment. We really don't know what will happen.

However, if I put myself in the position of a student paying ~£9,000 (~$13,500 USD) per year for a degree with their level of expertise and expectation for what the Internet can do, then I would be expecting a lot more than most of the Universities in the UK can currently offer. That is, we are going to have a 'Perfect Storm' - students will expecting more because of the fee increase (they will want more for their money), and as students will be used to what technology can do they will expect their teaching to be delivered to the device of their choosing, at a time they want. This makes it a 'Perfect Storm' as student expectations will increase dramatically on two fronts.

The good news is that the days of the large rooms at Universities full of bulky desktops machines pumping out heat (and the associated nasty bacteria on the keyboards) may finally be over!

The Changing Student

An added wrinkle to all of the above is not only are the fees and technology changing (and also the students' expertise in the use of technology), but we may be at a point in education where the way students wish to learn is changing. (More on that in a later post.)

I am not going to repeat the post of another blogger here, but I really recommend you go over to HASTAC and read Finn Leslie post on "A Dying Breed: The Excitement Of Being The Last Generation Of Traditional Higher Education". Finn is a first year student at Duke University and their post raises some interesting points on the use of technology, and whether or not we will all keep up-to-date with technology as we age, or will the next generation overtake us. In particular, I must admit the course at Duke University which Finn took on "This is Your Brain on the Internet" sounds really interesting, particularly as it is peer-assessed, and peer-led.

So, what will the future hold? Who knows. However, if you think I am talking total non-sense, or you have some thoughts of your own on this subject, then why not share them below.

* OK, this is a tough one to argue. The Internet was really invented in the 1960s, and Tim Berners-Lee did his first work with HTTP (see Do you speak my language: H is for htaccess, hacker, host, http, https, html, hardware) in the late 1980s. However, I would argue that the Internet, and in particular the World Wide Web (WWW; see Do you speak my language: W is for Web services, Wiki, W3C, Webserver, WWW, Wordpress), did not really arrive until the mid-1990s, and the use of the WWW in schools and in homes really took-off around 2000 - and in 2000 the class starting University in 2012 would have been 4 or 5.

** I often think the Internet and technology are a bit like a dog, that is, they all age at the same rate! One human year is 7 dog/Internet/technology years.

Image: Wiki Commons - Hurricane Daniel 2006

1 Comment

May 10, 2011 | 01:39 PM

Posted By: Nick Morris

Interesting piece over at 'Learning with 'e's' on 'Student owned devices' - http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2011/05/student-owned-devices.html - that makes the point of whether or not students should access their learning material using their own mobile devices.

The Perfect Storm: Tertiary Education in the UK

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