University students hit by rising rents and fees

London offers just 55,000 purpose-built student bedspaces, enough for one-in-five students

 

More than 7,700 new bed spaces are under construction in London but this has been dwarfed by a 6pc increase in student numbers to 283,500 in the last academic year, according to Drivers Jonas Deloitte’s Student Housing Crane Survey.

There is already a significant supply and demand imbalance in London, with the city offering just 55,000 purpose-built student bedspaces, enough for one-in-five students.

Chris Baldwin, head of student housing at property consultant DJD, said: “The fact remains we are still a long way from filling the supply gap and this level of undersupply looks unlikely to ease any time soon. This is only being exacerbated by the lack of bank finance and tougher planning policy for developers as they struggle to get approval for schemes.”

The imbalance means the average rent on student beds in London increased 9pc to £145 per week over the past year and is now 55pc greater than the rest of the country. This means students in London face a major extra financial burden as universities prepare to crank fees up to £9,000 a year.

 

Rough road ahead for El Camino students

Summer is fast approaching, which usually means a slower season is around the corner. But for students at El Camino College – and most other community colleges in California – it will mark the beginning of a frantic year of competing for scarce classroom seats.

In less than a month, when students begin registering for summer courses, they are bound to discover that the courses are tougher to get into – even more so than the year prior – because about a quarter of the normal summer offerings have vanished.

Come this fall, classes will be more expensive. A few months later, signing up for winter-session courses will likely be impossible, as El Camino officials plan to eliminate the six-week mini-

semester altogether. Spring semester also will see quite a few class reductions at the Torrance-area campus.

All told, the number of course offerings is scheduled to shrink by 8 percent next year – and the number of students served is expected to dwindle by more than 2,000 – setting the stage for a first-come, first-served rat race for seats.

“The situation is more uncertain this year than it has been in any other year I can recall, and probably more ominous,” said El Camino President Thomas Fallo.

The dire outlook is tied to the way El Camino is shouldering its share of the $400 million budget cut that will shave an estimated

7 percent from the entire California community college system next school year – all in

English and EU students face charges hike in Scotland

Mike Russell wants to fill a ‘funding gap’ for Scottish universities by hiking fees for English and EU students 

Mike Russell said he wants to find a way within European law, which forbids discriminating against youngsters from the Continent, of starting to charge EU students while ensuring Scots continue to pay nothing.

He suggested £22 million could be raised by introducing a new fee for undergraduates of all nationalities then reimbursing Scottish students using the public purse.

The minister also confirmed plans to increase fees for students from the rest of the UK, who are not protected by EU law. He has previously indicated he wants to raise £62 million by increasing their annual charge from £1,820 to £6,375.

The minister outlined the proposals in a statement to the Scottish Parliament about how he intends to fill a funding gap that will emerge once English universities start charging higher fees next year.

Principals have warned that failure to close the shortfall will mean cuts to courses, student numbers and standards, but Mr Russell promised to find however much money is required from the taxpayer without charging Scottish students.

University leaders last night cast doubt on this pledge, suggesting he is underestimating the scale of the problem, and a European law expert said he was “sceptical” about the legality of the minister’s EU charge.

Mr Russell told MSPs the funding gap could be whittled down to £70 million but universities insist the correct starting figure must be £202 million, which was calculated by an expert group of civil servants and academics.

“My main priority is to protect opportunities for Scottish students to study at Scottish institutions. I make no apologies for that,” the minister said.

“It is said that increasing fees for students coming from elsewhere in the UK is a move to subsidise Scottish education. It is not.

“I have long had concerns about the subsidy we pay for EU students so I intend to explore further, within the boundaries of European law, the possibility of reducing this.”

Mr Russell claimed the initial funding gap is only £93 million. This assumes that English fees will not rise annually in line with inflation, despite the UK Government indicating they will.

It also assumes the same number of English, Welsh and Northern Irish students comes to Scotland despite the increased fees making a four-year Scottish degree more expensive than its English equivalent.

The minister claimed the gap could be closed to about £70 million by charging EU students using a system that operates in Ireland.

The Higher Education Authority in Ireland confirmed it applies a service charge to all undergraduates, but said it would be illegal to reimburse only Scottish students.

To comply with EU law, it offers grants to all students who have lived in Ireland for three of the last five years. This has the effect of helping most Irish students.

However, those who have recently moved back to Ireland are not reimbursed and foreign students who satisfy the residency requirement are offered support.

Jim McLean, a visiting professor in procurement and state aid law at Edinburgh University, said he was “sceptical” about Mr Russell’s claims.

“To extend this to tuition fees seems a step too far. As a general rule, if somebody thinks they’ve found a way round EU law, they’ve not,” he said.

Universities Scotland, which represents the country’s higher education institutes, welcomed Mr Russell’s promise to fill the funding gap but said that income from EU students cannot be relied upon until these “legal uncertainties” are resolved.

Alastair Sim, its director, added: “University Principals are concerned about the optimistic assumptions that continue to be made on various ways to fill the gap.

“Parties’ commitments to address the funding challenge facing Scottish universities need to be based on realism about the scale of the challenge.”

More students cheating on university applications

Growing numbers of students have been caught copying phrases into their personal statements.  By Graeme Paton, Education Editor 12:37PM GMT 18 Feb 2011

Figures show almost 30,000 candidates copied phrases directly from the internet into their personal statement – a detailed note setting out their reasons for choosing a particular course.

The 600-word statements are intended to give students the chance to “stand out from the crowd” in an increasingly fraught race for university places.

But technology employed by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) found more candidates were copying phrases parrot-fashion from the internet and other statements.

Some 189 candidates attempting to study design courses started their personal statement with a quote from Coco Chanel: “Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only”.

The disclosure comes amid growing competition for university places.

Almost a third of applicants failed to get on to degree courses last year. Demand for places is expected to be even more fierce in 2011, with some 583,500 people submitting applications by the end of January – a rise of more than five per cent.

Alan Vincent, joint general secretary of the Association for Careers Education and Guidance, told the Times Educational Supplement that the rise in plagiarism was linked to applicants’ increased access to the internet.

He added: “If this is a response to the growing pressure on pupils to secure university places, it is ill-conceived because the detection process is there.

“It is one thing to look at good practice on the internet… but it is another thing to then lift the material.”

Ucas has been employing Copycatch – a system that scans personal statements and checks candidates’ work against other published writing – for several years.

It checks statements against a library of personal statements previously submitted to Ucas, sample statements collected from websites and other internet and paper-based sources.

When it was first employed in 2007, it found cheating in five per cent of applications. Some 234 candidates attempting to study medicine wrote that their passion for the subject had been sparked after “burning a hole in my pyjamas at age eight” with a chemistry set.

Public awareness of the cheating crackdown saw the number of cases drop to three per cent in 2008 and 2.8 per cent in 2009.

But latest figures show the proportion of personal statements containing plagiarism increased by around a third to 3.85 per cent in 2010 – some 29,228 cases.

The most popular opening line in personal statements last year was “I am currently studying a BTEC National Diploma in…”, which was employed 464 times.

Some 275 started applications with the line “Nursing is a very challenging and demanding career”, while 166 candidates wrote “For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in…”.

A Ucas spokesman told the TES: “The personal statement is one of the most important parts of the online application process. It gives applicants the chance to stand out from the crowd, which is why it should be an individual, and personal, piece of work.”

Tuesday session looks to help solve high suspension, dropout rates for PBC black students

The numbers aren’t pretty.

Black male students in Palm Beach County are suspended at alarmingly higher rates than white and Latino students, with a recent study finding that 53 percent of black male middle school students were suspended at least once in 2006. Black students in Palm Beach County are also less likely to graduate — fewer than a quarter earned a regular diploma in 2004, according to a national study.

“We have a huge problem,” said Gloria A. Crutchfield, the district’s director of secondary education. “Clearly there are concerns and issues that have to be addressed.”

In September, Superintendent Art Johnson formed the African American Task Force, a group charged with creating strategies to reduce suspensions and boost the graduation rate among black male students.

On Tuesday the group, comprised of educators, district officials, parents and community leaders, will hold its second Graduation Symposium to share information and generate ideas to combat the problem. The last symposium was held in October at the Palm Beach County Convention Center and attracted more than 400 people, Crutchfield said. She said she’s expecting a similar turnout for Tuesday’s three-hour symposium at Atlantic Community High School in Delray Beach.

A third symposium is scheduled for April, Crutchfield said.

The group is also planning to hold a student empowerment summit in April to get more feedback from students.

“It’s important for adults to plan, but we really need to hear from the students themselves,” Crutchfield said.

She said the group has talked to several parents whose kids have dropped out of school. Crutchfield said those parents told the group their kids felt isolated and that school didn’t matter.

Ten action teams are working on a suspension reduction plan to be presented to Johnson in late April or early May, Crutchfield said. Those teams are focusing on ten areas, including career readiness programs, student empowerment and parent/community involvement.

The outline of a preliminary plan was submitted in December, Crutchfield said.

Starting next week, the district will begin implementing its Peer to Peer Mentoring program in 16 schools, including Santaluces, Palm Beach Lakes and Atlantic, Crutchfield said. The eight-week program will train about 400 kids how to become mentors and develop leadership skills.

Palm Beach County School Board member Marcia Andrews said the district is going in the right direction with the symposiums.

“We need to learn what we can do better,” Andrews said. “It’s very important to hear and learn what’s being done around the country to help all our children.”

‘Spoon-fed’ students lack resilience needed at Oxbridge

Oxford and Cambridge students are struggling to cope with the pressures of studying at a top university, according to Guy Claxton. Photo: GETTY

Oxford and Cambridge are both reporting a rise in referrals to university counselling services amid claims new students lack the “resilience” to get through degree courses.

Professor Guy Claxton, author of the book Building Learning Power, said teenagers were increasingly led through bite-sized GCSEs and A-levels by teachers – gaining a string of straight A grades and winning places at top universities.

But he warned that many then suffered a culture shock as they struggled to cope with the increased demands of higher education.

According to figures, up to a fifth Cambridge students are referred to counsellors at some point during their degree, he said.

Addressing a conference, Prof Claxton, co-director of the Centre for Real-World Learning at Winchester University, said: “[Oxford and Cambridge] are seeing a year-on-year rise in the number of young people who arrive apparently confident, with four to five As at A-level, but lacking resilience, lacking the ability to cope if they do not get great success.

“Fifteen to 20 per cent of Cambridge students will find their way to the counsellors’ waiting room – 1,200 did so last year at Oxford.

“They are very clear that these high-achieving youngsters are becoming more and more vulnerable because they are being spoon-fed more and more efficiently by their teachers to get them through their exams.

“There is more modularisation, more packaging and learning is more chopped up.”

Many academics have complained that students are starting university lacking the independence and basic inquiry skills needed to get by on a degree course.

At some universities, traditional three-year degrees have been extended by 12 months to teach the skills that students failed to learn at school and college.

Most GCSEs and A-levels are currently broken up into bite-sized modules that students can re-sit to boost their overall grades.

But last month the Coalition pledged to scrap modular courses at GCSE to give pupils more exposure to “deep learning”.

Senior figures at Oxford and Cambridge’s counselling services told the Times Educational Supplement that many students felt like failures if they struggled to understand difficult issues.

Mark Phippen, head of Cambridge’s counselling service, said: “We are quite aware of the number of students who are obviously very academically able but paradoxically lack confidence.

“That may come about from no longer being a large fish in a small pond, but also people being less prepared to take on challenges without others helping them out.”

Alan Percy, clinical director of Oxford’s counselling service, told the TES: “The kind of conversation I often have with a lot of clients is that students often don’t grasp the full meaning of learning.

“Learning is finding out something that you did not know and struggling with it. It’s almost as if, if they do not know something immediately they feel as though they are failing.”