When you look at the cost of living away from home while at University, it’s clear to see that it’s not cheap. According to NUS, the average cost of studying in London costs £23,521 a year, with over £13,000 being spent on living costs. With the average annual student income (loans and funding) being £17,450, you’ll need to find £6,071 to cover the shortfall. I’m already worried.
But my main concern is this: what will I actually be getting out of the £9,000 I’m paying each year? This is where the issue of “contact hours” comes into play. “Contact hours” are the number of hours spent (per year) in lectures and seminars, and are published by universities as part of their Key Information Set (KIS). To give an example, I looked on Unistats at the KIS for a BA (Hons) in English Language at the University of Sussex and found that only 16% of my time would be spent in lectures and seminars. But it’s the same across many other universities: for a similar course at the University of Chester, 17% of your time is spent in lectures and seminars; at the University of York, you’d only spend 13% of your time in lectures and seminars for a BA in Language and Linguistics. Of course, courses such as Biology, Drama and Art will have a higher number of contact hours. But even for Biology, you’re still looking at spending only 30% of your time at Uni. Is it really fair to make us students pay this much for so little? I don’t think so.
So, whilst I’m already concerned about how much of my own money I’ll have to find to live at university, I’m equally concerned about where this £9,000 a year is actually going. Personally, I don’t think it’s fair that we should have to pay so much for so few contact hours and to study something that we love. And that is why I think that it’s about time that tuition fees were reduced for good.
By Lauren Moon
