When I arrived I thought the campus was great but I felt anonymous and excluded
When I arrived, I thought the campus was great but I felt anonymous and excluded. “It’s a question of providing an environment in which students can talk about their difficulties without being penalised, and being open about what students can expect.”The seminar, `Non Completion: Assessing the Problem and Seeking Solutions’ is being sponsored by `The Independent’ and organised by the Society for Research into Higher Education.It will take place on 3 February, 10.30am to 4pm, at One Great George Street Conference Centre, 1-7 Great George Street, London SW1P 3AA. For information call 0171 637-2766.Ashamed, embarassed, I felt a sense of failure”I went to a small private school and was expected by the school and my parents to move on to university. That suggests that the Government will have to keep a close watch on the effects of its funding reforms, says Prof Yorke.He has calculated that the annual cost to the public purse of drop-outs is as much as pounds 91m, based on an estimate of the core funding for places from Hefce, tuition fees paid to institutions, and grants.All the researchers believe universities could do more to prevent students from dropping out, by paying more attention to teaching and learning, making students feel valued, and improving guidance and support.”This is an issue for vice-chancellors,” says Professor Ozga. The introduction of student loans, the freezing of grants and the policy of stopping students from claiming benefits have intensified pressure. He found that 39 per cent of drop-outs cited financial problems, in addition to complaints about poor teaching and having chosen the wrong course.Such a finding chimes with vice-chancellors’ views that financial difficulties are hitting students hard.
Professor Yorke’s research also showed that students from working-class homes were particularly likely to mention money as a reason for dropping out, and were less likely to re-enter higher education later. That may get worse when grants are phased out and the pounds 1,000 annual tuition fee is introduced. In a report to be presented at the seminar, it adds: “Our initial results indicate that the actual non-completion rate may be as high as double the 4 to 5 per cent per year reported by the research teams.”At next week’s seminar John Thompson, an analyst with Hefce, will explain the latest research findings and Professor Mantz Yorke, of the centre for higher education development at Liverpool John Moores University, will talk about his research into drop-outs, carried out in six higher education institutions in north-west England. According to the funding council, 4 to 5 per cent of English undergraduates – 30,000 people – are throwing in the towel each year.That figure, however, does not include students who drop out at the end of a year; it records only those quitting during the academic year. Again the researchers found disillusionment with university life: that it was not the enriching experience students had imagined, but a matter of making do with substandard facilities and less-than-brilliant teaching.Are more students dropping out of higher education than ever before? No one knows for sure, because the figures that exist are thought to be an underestimate.
That is why Hefce is now undertaking further research, following students over a three-year period. That way it can see what happens from year to year, and the extent to which students are moving from a university that doesn’t suit them to one which does. “They didn’t get to know you, and you were constantly having to do things by yourself. It wasn’t like A-level.”Another explained: “The course wasn’t structured enough; it wasn’t interesting, and it wasn’t like what I’d done for A-levels … my sociology tutor was terrible; his seminars were awful; no one understood anything.”The Keele researchers interviewed student drop-outs during one year, 1994-95, at three kinds of university – a campus, a civic and a new university.
