Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Given that non-lecture based STEM courses are less than twenty years old, they could all be reset to lectures+essays+exams quickly, except for computing.
I have no idea what you mean? Chemistry, physics, biology? Chemical engineering? Mechanical engineering?
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Economics if you class the quantitative side as STEM, that's what I studied my BSc in and it was predominantly lecture based.
As far as I understand it most mathematics/statistical courses, theoretical physics, computer science, quantitative economics etc are still predominantly lecture based at an undergraduate level.
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Which is why I think they should go for a merging of technical and academic - apprenticeships need an academic component, some rigour and transferability. The universities could provide that in partnership with the employers.
You mean they could be like polytechics and technical colleges?
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Economics if you class the quantitative side as STEM, that's what I studied my BSc in and it was predominantly lecture based.
As far as I understand it most mathematics/statistical courses, theoretical physics, computer science, quantitative economics etc are still predominantly lecture based at an undergraduate level.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Economics is not a science. And you are missing the small group teaching element - did you never have tutorials, workshops etc?
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
Even the courses that are 90% lecture based still have smaller study groups, and have work that needs assigning and marking every week.
Of course they do, however £10k per student is still nearly twice as much as schools get per pupil with considerably smaller class sizes and work that needs assigning and marking too, with pupils taught full time.
Ironically, £10 k a year is what an SEN student with an EHCP is funded.
I thought at the time it was a mistake to drop the age at which people could stand for election from 21 to 18.
"Council boss quits, leaving 18-year-old in charge
Reform UK councillor Rob Howard released a short statement in which he said he had made the decision with "much regret". George Finch, 18, will lead Warwickshire County Council"
"On the New Reformer website, he said his politics could be summed up as "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"."
Excellent. The council has a £3m deficit, how do we fill it? "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit" A crisis in education, with not enough teachers available to keep Southam primary open. ""Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
Britain’s benefits bill will rise by a further £8bn even if Sir Keir Starmer defeats Labour rebels on his flagship welfare reforms, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned.
Spending on health-related benefits for working-age adults is expected to hit £61bn by the end of the decade, the analysts said, regardless of the Prime Minister’s planned cuts. This is up from £36bn in 2019-20, reflecting the surge in welfare claims post-Covid. Without the reforms, the IFS said the welfare bill would be on track to reach £66bn.
I thought at the time it was a mistake to drop the age at which people could stand for election from 21 to 18.
"Council boss quits, leaving 18-year-old in charge
Reform UK councillor Rob Howard released a short statement in which he said he had made the decision with "much regret". George Finch, 18, will lead Warwickshire County Council"
"On the New Reformer website, he said his politics could be summed up as "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"."
Excellent. The council has a £3m deficit, how do we fill it? "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit" A crisis in education, with not enough teachers available to keep Southam primary open. ""Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Economics if you class the quantitative side as STEM, that's what I studied my BSc in and it was predominantly lecture based.
As far as I understand it most mathematics/statistical courses, theoretical physics, computer science, quantitative economics etc are still predominantly lecture based at an undergraduate level.
The Elon Musk effect continues as Europe’s Tesla sales drop for fifth month in a row
Tesla's sales in Europe have plummeted for the fifth consecutive month, with new figures revealing a significant 28 per cent drop in May.
The car in front is a ... Skoda. They would be doing even better if their electric cars did not have such stupid names - I'm waiting for the El Cid to appear.
Skoda has overtaken Tesla for electric vehicle (EV) sales in Europe as motorists continue to shun Elon Musk’s carmaker in protest against his support for Donald Trump.
Tesla’s total sales across the Continent fell by 28pc to 14,055 in May, according to market research firm DataForce, which were lower than Skoda’s EV monthly tally of 14,920.
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
Even the courses that are 90% lecture based still have smaller study groups, and have work that needs assigning and marking every week.
Of course they do, however £10k per student is still nearly twice as much as schools get per pupil with considerably smaller class sizes and work that needs assigning and marking too, with pupils taught full time.
You need more expertise and time to mark university student work than school work. The curriculum changes and needs updating more often. A university needs to pay for way more expensive library resources than a school. We need more expensive computing resources. The university is also doing research, that benefits the UK economy, but which is underfunded by government and it is expected teaching income will cross-subsidise it.
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
From 'Simon shows you maps' on facebook (I think Simon is Australian so has no particular axe to grind on this:
It's a forecast, not a statement of fact. Citizen X sell passports https://citizenx.com/
Although that doesn't mean the map is wrong. But I would have preferred a map of actual data, not a forecast from somebody with an axe to grind
He doesn't have an axe to grind, but he does have pockets to fill.
Perhaps he could put his axe in his pocket. Although that would make grinding a bit precarious. The axe, that is. He'd have to straddle the grinder. There'd be sparks and possibly awfulness. Hmm.
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
I think he's missing the point here. The aim is to prevent all small boats from landing and send them back without the consent of France. It's not something you negotiate, it's something you impose.
I thought at the time it was a mistake to drop the age at which people could stand for election from 21 to 18.
"Council boss quits, leaving 18-year-old in charge
Reform UK councillor Rob Howard released a short statement in which he said he had made the decision with "much regret". George Finch, 18, will lead Warwickshire County Council"
"On the New Reformer website, he said his politics could be summed up as "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"."
Excellent. The council has a £3m deficit, how do we fill it? "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit" A crisis in education, with not enough teachers available to keep Southam primary open. ""Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"
I thought at the time it was a mistake to drop the age at which people could stand for election from 21 to 18.
"Council boss quits, leaving 18-year-old in charge
Reform UK councillor Rob Howard released a short statement in which he said he had made the decision with "much regret". George Finch, 18, will lead Warwickshire County Council"
"On the New Reformer website, he said his politics could be summed up as "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"."
Excellent. The council has a £3m deficit, how do we fill it? "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit" A crisis in education, with not enough teachers available to keep Southam primary open. ""Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"
etc
You can't govern by slogan.
Education, education, education.
Bollocks bollocks bollocks
Your lack of education betrays you - you've missed out the commas.
"DAN HODGES: Keir Starmer's time is up and his party 'have had enough'. That's the withering verdict from his own MPs... and this is what they tell me is coming next"
I expect Starmer to survive no matter what happens next week, but he is very diminished and frankly looks haunted
In his speech to 'Business' today he championed all his successes, including the much vaunted (by him) trade deals, but everything he spoke about is a long time in the making and amplified after the speech with the question 'all very well and good but when will people feel it ? '
He talks long on change and his 10 year plan, but the electorate won't wait 10 years, nor even 5 years, and he has to hope that by the next election the public haven't decided to deliver to labour the same as happened to the conservatives in 2024
Ultimately, Reeves has been an unmitigating disaster for him, and at times at PMQs yesterday she looked grim and close to tears
In his next shuffle Reeves has to be moved, and as poor as Starmer is, Reeves has compromised his government far more than anyone else
On a wider point the country is spending, borrowing, and taxing far beyond it's means and every year more and more is demanded from the cake 'that is no more'
I know the idea the IMF will intervene is suggested by some, but irrespective ultimately hard and unpopular decisions will be forced on a future government, probably by the markets
Good morning, I agree with your analysis of the political situation.
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Economics if you class the quantitative side as STEM, that's what I studied my BSc in and it was predominantly lecture based.
As far as I understand it most mathematics/statistical courses, theoretical physics, computer science, quantitative economics etc are still predominantly lecture based at an undergraduate level.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Economics is not a science. And you are missing the small group teaching element - did you never have tutorials, workshops etc?
Tory Council leader now ousted by the Tories called them "fucking bastards" on a WhatsApp group. Has now quit the party after 45 years. Making her the second Tory council leader here in succession to (a) be removed by the Tory group and then (b) quit the party.
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Given that non-lecture based STEM courses are less than twenty years old, they could all be reset to lectures+essays+exams quickly, except for computing.
I have no idea what you mean? Chemistry, physics, biology? Chemical engineering? Mechanical engineering?
The bulk of my physics degree was lecture based. Labs was only about 10%
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Given that non-lecture based STEM courses are less than twenty years old, they could all be reset to lectures+essays+exams quickly, except for computing.
I have no idea what you mean? Chemistry, physics, biology? Chemical engineering? Mechanical engineering?
The bulk of my physics degree was lecture based. Labs was only about 10%
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Economics if you class the quantitative side as STEM, that's what I studied my BSc in and it was predominantly lecture based.
As far as I understand it most mathematics/statistical courses, theoretical physics, computer science, quantitative economics etc are still predominantly lecture based at an undergraduate level.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Economics is not a science. And you are missing the small group teaching element - did you never have tutorials, workshops etc?
Have you never heard of BSc (Econ)?
We require two science A levels to get on our course, one of which must be chemistry. We are currently phasing out A level economics as it is no longer regarded as scientific. Granted that's at A level, but the performance of most economics graduates strongly suggests that they don't actually learn any scientific skills in their courses.
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Economics if you class the quantitative side as STEM, that's what I studied my BSc in and it was predominantly lecture based.
As far as I understand it most mathematics/statistical courses, theoretical physics, computer science, quantitative economics etc are still predominantly lecture based at an undergraduate level.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Economics is not a science. And you are missing the small group teaching element - did you never have tutorials, workshops etc?
Have you never heard of BSc (Econ)?
My degree is also titled as a BSc(Econ) and like Barty I am a questionable economist. Scientific rigour is certainly missing. Although in my favour (and not Barty's) I think the Laffer Curve is nonsense.
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Economics if you class the quantitative side as STEM, that's what I studied my BSc in and it was predominantly lecture based.
As far as I understand it most mathematics/statistical courses, theoretical physics, computer science, quantitative economics etc are still predominantly lecture based at an undergraduate level.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Economics is not a science. And you are missing the small group teaching element - did you never have tutorials, workshops etc?
Have you never heard of BSc (Econ)?
I have a BA, an MSc and a PhD in economics. It is not a science even if it adopts the language and occasionally the methodology of science.
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Given that non-lecture based STEM courses are less than twenty years old, they could all be reset to lectures+essays+exams quickly, except for computing.
I have no idea what you mean? Chemistry, physics, biology? Chemical engineering? Mechanical engineering?
The bulk of my physics degree was lecture based. Labs was only about 10%
But the 10% was essential. You would not have an accredited physics degree without it. And it will have been expensive to provide.
It seems low compared to other courses - chemistry will be 1-2 days a week through the course, and then there will be research projects to complete.
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Probably because the lectures are the relatively cheap bit. The labs, seminars and marking are where the costs pile up.
If it were possible for an institution to deliver an attractive HE experience at meaningfully lower cost, I'd expect someone, somewhere to have done it. The obvious candidate being the University of Buckingham. Their Economics degree course costs £12k a year for two years.
Labs, lectures, seminars and marking should be doable for £2m in costs from a cohort of 200 students for all but the most extreme cases.
However high you set fees, people will find a way to expand costs to spend all that money and still claim to be short.
My Masters by Research with Buckingham was £10,300. It was a two year course. But, I probably spent almost as much again, travelling to do research, and buying research materials.
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Given that non-lecture based STEM courses are less than twenty years old, they could all be reset to lectures+essays+exams quickly, except for computing.
I have no idea what you mean? Chemistry, physics, biology? Chemical engineering? Mechanical engineering?
The bulk of my physics degree was lecture based. Labs was only about 10%
Obvs not counting the project
Why doesn't that count? Its part of the degree. Its like people who say that the car journey to work only costs the fuel they use, and don't factor in the cost of the car, servicing, tax, insurance etc.
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Given that non-lecture based STEM courses are less than twenty years old, they could all be reset to lectures+essays+exams quickly, except for computing.
I have no idea what you mean? Chemistry, physics, biology? Chemical engineering? Mechanical engineering?
The bulk of my physics degree was lecture based. Labs was only about 10%
Unless the labs magically disappeared between each week's practicals, they still needed to exist and be equipped.
I thought at the time it was a mistake to drop the age at which people could stand for election from 21 to 18.
"Council boss quits, leaving 18-year-old in charge
Reform UK councillor Rob Howard released a short statement in which he said he had made the decision with "much regret". George Finch, 18, will lead Warwickshire County Council"
"On the New Reformer website, he said his politics could be summed up as "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"."
Excellent. The council has a £3m deficit, how do we fill it? "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit" A crisis in education, with not enough teachers available to keep Southam primary open. ""Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"
I thought at the time it was a mistake to drop the age at which people could stand for election from 21 to 18.
"Council boss quits, leaving 18-year-old in charge
Reform UK councillor Rob Howard released a short statement in which he said he had made the decision with "much regret". George Finch, 18, will lead Warwickshire County Council"
"On the New Reformer website, he said his politics could be summed up as "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"."
Excellent. The council has a £3m deficit, how do we fill it? "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit" A crisis in education, with not enough teachers available to keep Southam primary open. ""Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"
I thought at the time it was a mistake to drop the age at which people could stand for election from 21 to 18.
"Council boss quits, leaving 18-year-old in charge
Reform UK councillor Rob Howard released a short statement in which he said he had made the decision with "much regret". George Finch, 18, will lead Warwickshire County Council"
"On the New Reformer website, he said his politics could be summed up as "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"."
Excellent. The council has a £3m deficit, how do we fill it? "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit" A crisis in education, with not enough teachers available to keep Southam primary open. ""Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
'A percentage' 1%? People want immigration reduced not exchanged
The Boats is more emotive. Swapping numbers there for numbers via a controlled route will be a win.
There are lots of arguments from different angles. Some genuinely don't have a problem with those arriving on boats to claim asylum but they don't want them to risk their lives to do it. Some think that they are not actually going to claim asylum but will disappear into the black economy. Some think that they should be shot or the boats sank. Some think all darkiespeople who are not pure bred gammon should be deported.
Its rather complicated.
Personally think we are fast approaching the end of the current asylum regime world-wide. The west will not accept the tide of economic migrants posing as asylum seekers forever. This move from Starmer is just tinkering at the edges.
I thought at the time it was a mistake to drop the age at which people could stand for election from 21 to 18.
"Council boss quits, leaving 18-year-old in charge
Reform UK councillor Rob Howard released a short statement in which he said he had made the decision with "much regret". George Finch, 18, will lead Warwickshire County Council"
"On the New Reformer website, he said his politics could be summed up as "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"."
Excellent. The council has a £3m deficit, how do we fill it? "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit" A crisis in education, with not enough teachers available to keep Southam primary open. ""Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"
etc
You can't govern by slogan.
Winning here ?
Build, back, better? Or as this is PB, should that be Build.Back.Better.
I thought at the time it was a mistake to drop the age at which people could stand for election from 21 to 18.
"Council boss quits, leaving 18-year-old in charge
Reform UK councillor Rob Howard released a short statement in which he said he had made the decision with "much regret". George Finch, 18, will lead Warwickshire County Council"
"On the New Reformer website, he said his politics could be summed up as "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"."
Excellent. The council has a £3m deficit, how do we fill it? "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit" A crisis in education, with not enough teachers available to keep Southam primary open. ""Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"
The new town is welcome, although 25,000 homes sounds more like a new housing estate.
But we need to do this somewhere else and not make the country even more reliant on London.
There's no point in building houses if no-one wants to live there though.
People want to live in and around London - hence the massive house price differential with the rest of the country. This is for powerful but poorly understood economic reasons (aggolmeration effect, productivity premium in large cities, etc.) and also probably because London has some of the best weather, best cultural attractions and other non-economic advantages.
There's no realistic way to reproduce London's advantages elsewhere in the country, and all the expensive attempts over the last century have failed completely.
So we need to play to our strengths, not our weaknesses, and enable more people to become more productive by moving where they want.
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
'A percentage' 1%? People want immigration reduced not exchanged
The Boats is more emotive. Swapping numbers there for numbers via a controlled route will be a win.
Not if it doesn't stop the boats. Still boats plus taking immigrants who didn't want to come here in the first place. 75% (say) of boat arrivals going to the govt owned 4 star hotels/HMOs is not a win
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Economics if you class the quantitative side as STEM, that's what I studied my BSc in and it was predominantly lecture based.
As far as I understand it most mathematics/statistical courses, theoretical physics, computer science, quantitative economics etc are still predominantly lecture based at an undergraduate level.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Economics is not a science. And you are missing the small group teaching element - did you never have tutorials, workshops etc?
Have you never heard of BSc (Econ)?
My degree is also titled as a BSc(Econ) and like Barty I am a questionable economist. Scientific rigour is certainly missing. Although in my favour (and not Barty's) I think the Laffer Curve is nonsense.
I'm not an economist so feel free to ignore this uneducated post. I think the Laffer curve exists, but its not a simple curve. And its different for different people. In fact its unbelievably complex. So the extremes of 100 % taxation or 0 % taxation are clear, but everything in the middle is impossible to really work out.
Covid showed us that people adapt to new situations in both predictable and unpredictable ways. Some people isolated themselves before lockdowns. Others had last flings of excess. How a lump of humanity will behave in relation to a change in tax law is not simple to predict.
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
'A percentage' 1%? People want immigration reduced not exchanged
The percentage has to be high enough, but if it is then it breaks the small boats model, because there's no point paying €€€ to cross the channel only to be sent back.
The exchange means that France will be willing to implement it, and there isn't the limit on volume that you would have with the Rwanda scheme.
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
The new town is welcome, although 25,000 homes sounds more like a new housing estate.
But we need to do this somewhere else and not make the country even more reliant on London.
There's no point in building houses if no-one wants to live there though.
People want to live in and around London - hence the massive house price differential with the rest of the country. This is for powerful but poorly understood economic reasons (aggolmeration effect, productivity premium in large cities, etc.) and also probably because London has some of the best weather, best cultural attractions and other non-economic advantages.
There's no realistic way to reproduce London's advantages elsewhere in the country, and all the expensive attempts over the last century have failed completely.
So we need to play to our strengths, not our weaknesses, and enable more people to become more productive by moving where they want.
Other way round. This was posted earlier today by viewcode.
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
I thought at the time it was a mistake to drop the age at which people could stand for election from 21 to 18.
"Council boss quits, leaving 18-year-old in charge
Reform UK councillor Rob Howard released a short statement in which he said he had made the decision with "much regret". George Finch, 18, will lead Warwickshire County Council"
"On the New Reformer website, he said his politics could be summed up as "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"."
Excellent. The council has a £3m deficit, how do we fill it? "Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit" A crisis in education, with not enough teachers available to keep Southam primary open. ""Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"
etc
You can't govern by slogan.
I doubt if he was pitching for the Council leader role. I only hope he isn't so daunted that he gives up without trying. Often the best leaders are those who didn't want to. I hope the Council staff can help him along.
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
For PBers who want more information on Covid vaccination and immunity, with graphs and videos and such, Keir Starmer has personally typed this into their website:-
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
If all landings are immediately sent back to France then it could work but lets wait the details
What’s to stop them just trying again? Once returned to France?
And if its a percentage of those that land flown back to CDG then are we selecting randomly? Courts involved? Are they all going to the sauna at the hotel until, we decide?
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
'A percentage' 1%? People want immigration reduced not exchanged
The percentage has to be high enough, but if it is then it breaks the small boats model, because there's no point paying €€€ to cross the channel only to be sent back.
The exchange means that France will be willing to implement it, and there isn't the limit on volume that you would have with the Rwanda scheme.
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Economics if you class the quantitative side as STEM, that's what I studied my BSc in and it was predominantly lecture based.
As far as I understand it most mathematics/statistical courses, theoretical physics, computer science, quantitative economics etc are still predominantly lecture based at an undergraduate level.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Economics is not a science. And you are missing the small group teaching element - did you never have tutorials, workshops etc?
Have you never heard of BSc (Econ)?
My degree is also titled as a BSc(Econ) and like Barty I am a questionable economist. Scientific rigour is certainly missing. Although in my favour (and not Barty's) I think the Laffer Curve is nonsense.
I'm not an economist so feel free to ignore this uneducated post. I think the Laffer curve exists, but its not a simple curve. And its different for different people. In fact its unbelievably complex. So the extremes of 100 % taxation or 0 % taxation are clear, but everything in the middle is impossible to really work out.
Covid showed us that people adapt to new situations in both predictable and unpredictable ways. Some people isolated themselves before lockdowns. Others had last flings of excess. How a lump of humanity will behave in relation to a change in tax law is not simple to predict.
When I read Economics fifty years ago I came to the conclusion it was just a subset of mass psychology. Come exam time this did not earn me the recognition I deserved.
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Economics if you class the quantitative side as STEM, that's what I studied my BSc in and it was predominantly lecture based.
As far as I understand it most mathematics/statistical courses, theoretical physics, computer science, quantitative economics etc are still predominantly lecture based at an undergraduate level.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Economics is not a science. And you are missing the small group teaching element - did you never have tutorials, workshops etc?
Have you never heard of BSc (Econ)?
My degree is also titled as a BSc(Econ) and like Barty I am a questionable economist. Scientific rigour is certainly missing. Although in my favour (and not Barty's) I think the Laffer Curve is nonsense.
I'm not an economist so feel free to ignore this uneducated post. I think the Laffer curve exists, but its not a simple curve. And its different for different people. In fact its unbelievably complex. So the extremes of 100 % taxation or 0 % taxation are clear, but everything in the middle is impossible to really work out.
Covid showed us that people adapt to new situations in both predictable and unpredictable ways. Some people isolated themselves before lockdowns. Others had last flings of excess. How a lump of humanity will behave in relation to a change in tax law is not simple to predict.
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Economics if you class the quantitative side as STEM, that's what I studied my BSc in and it was predominantly lecture based.
As far as I understand it most mathematics/statistical courses, theoretical physics, computer science, quantitative economics etc are still predominantly lecture based at an undergraduate level.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Economics is not a science. And you are missing the small group teaching element - did you never have tutorials, workshops etc?
Have you never heard of BSc (Econ)?
My degree is also titled as a BSc(Econ) and like Barty I am a questionable economist. Scientific rigour is certainly missing. Although in my favour (and not Barty's) I think the Laffer Curve is nonsense.
I'm not an economist so feel free to ignore this uneducated post. I think the Laffer curve exists, but its not a simple curve. And its different for different people. In fact its unbelievably complex. So the extremes of 100 % taxation or 0 % taxation are clear, but everything in the middle is impossible to really work out.
Covid showed us that people adapt to new situations in both predictable and unpredictable ways. Some people isolated themselves before lockdowns. Others had last flings of excess. How a lump of humanity will behave in relation to a change in tax law is not simple to predict.
When I read Economics fifty years ago I came to the conclusion it was just a subset of mass psychology. Come exam time this did not earn me the recognition I deserved.
I don't believe that is an enormously original observation.
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
'A percentage' 1%? People want immigration reduced not exchanged
The percentage has to be high enough, but if it is then it breaks the small boats model, because there's no point paying €€€ to cross the channel only to be sent back.
The exchange means that France will be willing to implement it, and there isn't the limit on volume that you would have with the Rwanda scheme.
Who decides what in Paris. That's the key.
Oh yes. That's a way it could fail.
"The British will take you willingly from Paris if you first cross the channel in a dinghy and get sent back."
You'd have to ensure no-one who's crossed the channel was eligible to be sent from Paris.
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
If all landings are immediately sent back to France then it could work but lets wait the details
What’s to stop them just trying again? Once returned to France?
And if its a percentage of those that land flown back to CDG then are we selecting randomly? Courts involved? Are they all going to the sauna at the hotel until, we decide?
What happens if it works and the number drops close to zero? What incentive would the French then have to continue the agreement?
I presume we will swiftly see legal action trying to stop people immediately being sent back to France due to the terrible conditions they face there....constant civil unrest, racist society, terrible food....
Fundamental thing being missed about the welfare rebellion. The legislation itself is wrong. 100% wrong. The welfare bill does need to be reduced. But targeting people with genuine disabilities, like MS and Parkinson, via their PIP payments is not the way to do it.
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
If all landings are immediately sent back to France then it could work but lets wait the details
What’s to stop them just trying again? Once returned to France?
And if its a percentage of those that land flown back to CDG then are we selecting randomly? Courts involved? Are they all going to the sauna at the hotel until, we decide?
What happens if it works and the number drops close to zero? What incentive would the French then have to continue the agreement?
If the number crossing drops to near-zero then the French don't have to accept many returnees, and the net flow across the channel from them doing so is zero anyway.
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Economics if you class the quantitative side as STEM, that's what I studied my BSc in and it was predominantly lecture based.
As far as I understand it most mathematics/statistical courses, theoretical physics, computer science, quantitative economics etc are still predominantly lecture based at an undergraduate level.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Economics is not a science. And you are missing the small group teaching element - did you never have tutorials, workshops etc?
Have you never heard of BSc (Econ)?
We require two science A levels to get on our course, one of which must be chemistry. We are currently phasing out A level economics as it is no longer regarded as scientific. Granted that's at A level, but the performance of most economics graduates strongly suggests that they don't actually learn any scientific skills in their courses.
Yeah, but those ones might have BAs in economics.
Many universities offer both a BA in Economics and a BSc.
The former involves descriptions of the world works, that are not born out by experiment. While the latter offers equations that describe how the world worls, which are also not born out by experiment.
Economists are among the most highly paid of academics, especially if they are smart enough to end up working for a business school.
I presume we will swiftly see legal action trying to stop people immediately being sent back to France due to the terrible conditions they face there....constant civil unrest, racist society, terrible food....
The Elon Musk effect continues as Europe’s Tesla sales drop for fifth month in a row
Tesla's sales in Europe have plummeted for the fifth consecutive month, with new figures revealing a significant 28 per cent drop in May.
So? What will be the story in June when they top the sales chart again?
That Elon Musk has shut up about politics? That's the problem, not the cars.
No, the problem is maths. They are lapping 2025 figures vs 2024 figures. 2024 includes sales of the best selling car globally in 2024. Vs no sales in 2025. Deliveries only started properly in June.
The narrative is "nobody wants to buy a Tesla". Which is about to get demolished by like for like sales numbers in June.
Fundamental thing being missed about the welfare rebellion. The legislation itself is wrong. 100% wrong. The welfare bill does need to be reduced. But targeting people with genuine disabilities, like MS and Parkinson, via their PIP payments is not the way to do it.
I thought the whole point was that PIP started off with that, but now there are large numbers of claimants on it for things like anxiety and mental health and that later group is the one being targeted by this welfare reform bill?
The Elon Musk effect continues as Europe’s Tesla sales drop for fifth month in a row
Tesla's sales in Europe have plummeted for the fifth consecutive month, with new figures revealing a significant 28 per cent drop in May.
So? What will be the story in June when they top the sales chart again?
Surprise that Tesla have actually sold some cars - personally I don’t see any reason why sales will improve. The new car looks little different from the old one
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Economics if you class the quantitative side as STEM, that's what I studied my BSc in and it was predominantly lecture based.
As far as I understand it most mathematics/statistical courses, theoretical physics, computer science, quantitative economics etc are still predominantly lecture based at an undergraduate level.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Economics is not a science. And you are missing the small group teaching element - did you never have tutorials, workshops etc?
Economics can be a BSc or a BA depending upon the course. For my course it depended upon which modules you took, you needed enough mathematical ones, which I preferred anyway, to get awarded the BSc.
Yes there were tutorials but that was only a few hours per week and led by postgrad students.
Fundamental thing being missed about the welfare rebellion. The legislation itself is wrong. 100% wrong. The welfare bill does need to be reduced. But targeting people with genuine disabilities, like MS and Parkinson, via their PIP payments is not the way to do it.
They appear to be trying to buy off rebels with a fig leaf of compromises then ram it through all stages in a week. Disgraceful neglect of the disabled and vulnerable
I presume we will swiftly see legal action trying to stop people immediately being sent back to France due to the terrible conditions they face there....constant civil unrest, racist society, terrible food....
Starmer to go full-on Trumpist about "them damn librul judges...."?
Is there anyone who doesn't think the government should give them more money?
Why ?
A lot of this is down to a fall in demand for courses. Giving them more money won’t change that.
Is it? Universities lose money on every home student they teach, because the government caps the fees at below-cost. For a while, the plan was to shimmy round that by bringing in lots of foreign students paying shedloads. For various reasons (including, but not restricted to, fear of numbers of people coming to the UK) that model has blown up.
Suspect that puts universities in the same basket as a lot of other institutions. Yes they need more funding, yes that probably has to come from the taxpayer, no people won't be happy if the University of Theirtown closes down...
... but God forbid that taxes go up to pay for it.
Do they?
Thinking back to my own University days there were about 200 students in the lecture hall. Each student is paying close to £8000 in fees per annum.
That cohort then is paying between them £1.6mn in fees, even if they're all home students.
If the universities aren't able to make money on that, then maybe their costs are too high, rather than fees too low.
Some subjects they absolutely don't get close to covering the cost. Basically, most STEM subjects. Also, students are way more demanding now in what they expect the university to provide and since the government made it a market, they all have to provide these things.
For STEM subjects that are lecture theatre based I don't see why they can't make money, if ran efficiently. The latter part is an issue though.
For medicine/engineering etc there's more involved but compare the class sizes in lecture theatres to the class sizes in primary/high schools and there's little reason why lecture theatre-based courses aren't making money from home students.
Especially when students maybe have about 12-15 hours of lectures a week, not full time.
Other than maths, no STEM subject is just lecture thearte based, they all need labs and they are very expensive to run. Also, they aren't part-time, STEM subjects often are basically in either lectures or labs closer to 20-30hrs a week.
I definitely think in general universities aren't run very efficiently, but it is widely acknowledged that things like Chemistry, easily cost £15k / year / student to run due to all the extras that are required to be provided.
Actually even maths now isn't just sit in the lecture theatre and write down all this crazy stuff off the blackboard. There is a lot of interest in theory of ML, application of ML to solving really hard problems, and then you need PC labs with GPU clusters.
The cap on fees is ridiculous. The demand is there from the students but universities are suffering from inflation just as the wider economy is too. And add in the NI changes. Plus Uni academics have had the same pay deflation as medics over the same time.
It also a nonsense as some (well one) on here seem to believe a STEM course can be entirely lecture based. What world is he/she living on?
And lastly - the cap on fees is disadvantaging UK citizens. I'm admissions tutor for my course and I have been told that we will likely be in clearing for overseas students, but NOT for home. The uni sees overseas as more attractive because they pay more.
I have no doubt that universities could be better run. We employ a lot of staff that never teach students or do research. Bath has a very well resourced widening access team, aiming to get students from poorer, disadvantaged backgrounds to uni. Its a laudable aim but we pour money into it for relatively few bums on seats. Academics are constantly wasting time on admin tasks that aren't really important. And DEI plays a role here as we have to be hitting all our DEI targets etc.
But frankly the big one is the fees. Let unis charge more and let it become a proper market.
I never said all courses are entirely lecture based, however many courses are yet still face the same close to £10k in fees so swings and roundabouts.
For STEM subjects that are lecture based... Which ones are those then?
Economics if you class the quantitative side as STEM, that's what I studied my BSc in and it was predominantly lecture based.
As far as I understand it most mathematics/statistical courses, theoretical physics, computer science, quantitative economics etc are still predominantly lecture based at an undergraduate level.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Economics is not a science. And you are missing the small group teaching element - did you never have tutorials, workshops etc?
Have you never heard of BSc (Econ)?
My degree is also titled as a BSc(Econ) and like Barty I am a questionable economist. Scientific rigour is certainly missing. Although in my favour (and not Barty's) I think the Laffer Curve is nonsense.
I'm not an economist so feel free to ignore this uneducated post. I think the Laffer curve exists, but its not a simple curve. And its different for different people. In fact its unbelievably complex. So the extremes of 100 % taxation or 0 % taxation are clear, but everything in the middle is impossible to really work out.
Covid showed us that people adapt to new situations in both predictable and unpredictable ways. Some people isolated themselves before lockdowns. Others had last flings of excess. How a lump of humanity will behave in relation to a change in tax law is not simple to predict.
Kahneman, Tversky and Thaler wave....
Psychologists telling economists they're doing it wrong.
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
If all landings are immediately sent back to France then it could work but lets wait the details
What’s to stop them just trying again? Once returned to France?
And if its a percentage of those that land flown back to CDG then are we selecting randomly? Courts involved? Are they all going to the sauna at the hotel until, we decide?
What happens if it works and the number drops close to zero? What incentive would the French then have to continue the agreement?
If the number crossing drops to near-zero then the French don't have to accept many returnees, and the net flow across the channel from them doing so is zero anyway.
Right, but then Britain is accepting virtually no asylum seekers, because we have no safe routes, so France & Europe as a whole would be annoyed at us not pulling our weight.
The Elon Musk effect continues as Europe’s Tesla sales drop for fifth month in a row
Tesla's sales in Europe have plummeted for the fifth consecutive month, with new figures revealing a significant 28 per cent drop in May.
So? What will be the story in June when they top the sales chart again?
Surprise that Tesla have actually sold some cars - personally I don’t see any reason why sales will improve. The new car looks little different from the old one
Putting aside all the Musk stuff, in my humble opinion Tesla's are starting to look really dated now.
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
If all landings are immediately sent back to France then it could work but lets wait the details
What’s to stop them just trying again? Once returned to France?
And if its a percentage of those that land flown back to CDG then are we selecting randomly? Courts involved? Are they all going to the sauna at the hotel until, we decide?
What happens if it works and the number drops close to zero? What incentive would the French then have to continue the agreement?
In the event the policy works too well, we better not try it.
The Elon Musk effect continues as Europe’s Tesla sales drop for fifth month in a row
Tesla's sales in Europe have plummeted for the fifth consecutive month, with new figures revealing a significant 28 per cent drop in May.
So? What will be the story in June when they top the sales chart again?
That Elon Musk has shut up about politics? That's the problem, not the cars.
No, the problem is maths. They are lapping 2025 figures vs 2024 figures. 2024 includes sales of the best selling car globally in 2024. Vs no sales in 2025. Deliveries only started properly in June.
The narrative is "nobody wants to buy a Tesla". Which is about to get demolished by like for like sales numbers in June.
What does "They are lapping 2025 figures vs 2024 figures" mean?
The Elon Musk effect continues as Europe’s Tesla sales drop for fifth month in a row
Tesla's sales in Europe have plummeted for the fifth consecutive month, with new figures revealing a significant 28 per cent drop in May.
So? What will be the story in June when they top the sales chart again?
That Elon Musk has shut up about politics? That's the problem, not the cars.
No, the problem is maths. They are lapping 2025 figures vs 2024 figures. 2024 includes sales of the best selling car globally in 2024. Vs no sales in 2025. Deliveries only started properly in June.
The narrative is "nobody wants to buy a Tesla". Which is about to get demolished by like for like sales numbers in June.
In the US, the new "Juniper" Model Y helped slow the year-over-year decline in Tesla sales ("just" down 16% in April), but it hasn't reversed it.
"The Department of Defense (DoD) will stop processing and delivering the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) data no later than 30 June 2025. The SSMIS data are used as input for this NSIDC-produced data set, which will therefore stop processing no later than 30 June 2025."
If you don't look, then it isn't happening. Obviously.
The new town is welcome, although 25,000 homes sounds more like a new housing estate.
But we need to do this somewhere else and not make the country even more reliant on London.
Is calling it a 'new town' a way to tap into central government funding?
There's something screwy somewhere, perhaps. 50k people give or take on 70 acres does not quite add up.
That is 600-700 per acre. The Barbican is 228 per acre.
It can be done, but it would be a surprise there.
It can also be measured in bedrooms or dwellings per acre, but the numbers are still very high. I can see the need for high or very high density, but this would be exceptional.
The Elon Musk effect continues as Europe’s Tesla sales drop for fifth month in a row
Tesla's sales in Europe have plummeted for the fifth consecutive month, with new figures revealing a significant 28 per cent drop in May.
So? What will be the story in June when they top the sales chart again?
That Elon Musk has shut up about politics? That's the problem, not the cars.
No, the problem is maths. They are lapping 2025 figures vs 2024 figures. 2024 includes sales of the best selling car globally in 2024. Vs no sales in 2025. Deliveries only started properly in June.
The narrative is "nobody wants to buy a Tesla". Which is about to get demolished by like for like sales numbers in June.
What does "They are lapping 2025 figures vs 2024 figures" mean?
He means that they are comparing the numbers for May 2024 - when there were lots of sales of the Model Y - with May 2025, when there were very few because (it is hoped) buyers are waiting for the Juniper refresh.
And there's definitely *some* truth in that.
But in the US, after the new Y was released, Tesla sales are still down significantly year-over-year, just not as much as previously.
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
If all landings are immediately sent back to France then it could work but lets wait the details
What’s to stop them just trying again? Once returned to France?
And if its a percentage of those that land flown back to CDG then are we selecting randomly? Courts involved? Are they all going to the sauna at the hotel until, we decide?
What happens if it works and the number drops close to zero? What incentive would the French then have to continue the agreement?
I would just add there has been an increase in the use of private yachts ferrying immigrants well away from Dover, and these yachts can land unchallenged almost anywhere
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
If all landings are immediately sent back to France then it could work but lets wait the details
What’s to stop them just trying again? Once returned to France?
And if its a percentage of those that land flown back to CDG then are we selecting randomly? Courts involved? Are they all going to the sauna at the hotel until, we decide?
What happens if it works and the number drops close to zero? What incentive would the French then have to continue the agreement?
If the number crossing drops to near-zero then the French don't have to accept many returnees, and the net flow across the channel from them doing so is zero anyway.
Right, but then Britain is accepting virtually no asylum seekers, because we have no safe routes, so France & Europe as a whole would be annoyed at us not pulling our weight.
Yes. That would be a reason for France to sabotage the implementation of this plan in the first place, perhaps by only accepting 5% returnees, so that it doesn't work.
But, perhaps their hope is that, if it can be shown to work, it can be implemented further up the chain, and so cutting the number of arrivals into France.
Fundamental thing being missed about the welfare rebellion. The legislation itself is wrong. 100% wrong. The welfare bill does need to be reduced. But targeting people with genuine disabilities, like MS and Parkinson, via their PIP payments is not the way to do it.
I thought the whole point was that PIP started off with that, but now there are large numbers of claimants on it for things like anxiety and mental health and that later group is the one being targeted by this welfare reform bill?
No, its not. It would be get rare to get PIP for daily living activities because of 'anxiety' You get points tallied for the effect of your disability on the following sorts of daily activity
Going to the toilet Washing Dressing and undressing Communicating with others Making budgeting decisions Taking medication Understanding communication, verbal and otherwise Preparing a simple meal from scratch Etc
If your diagnosis is 'anxiety' you would need to demonstrate to the assessors how that impacts your ability to do the above, what help you need to do them and what happens if you do not have that help before any points would be awarded
For the mobility aspect of PIP the points are awarded for Making and planning a journey and Ability to move 50m and then 200m without assistance
The Elon Musk effect continues as Europe’s Tesla sales drop for fifth month in a row
Tesla's sales in Europe have plummeted for the fifth consecutive month, with new figures revealing a significant 28 per cent drop in May.
So? What will be the story in June when they top the sales chart again?
That Elon Musk has shut up about politics? That's the problem, not the cars.
No, the problem is maths. They are lapping 2025 figures vs 2024 figures. 2024 includes sales of the best selling car globally in 2024. Vs no sales in 2025. Deliveries only started properly in June.
The narrative is "nobody wants to buy a Tesla". Which is about to get demolished by like for like sales numbers in June.
What does "They are lapping 2025 figures vs 2024 figures" mean?
"Tesla’s UK car sales drop and took a major hit in May 2025, with a drop of over 45 percent compared to the same month last year. According to early data from various sources online suggest, Tesla registered only 1,758 cars, down sharply from 3,244 in May 2024. This decline happened even as the UK’s overall new car market grew by 4.3 percent year-on-year, with battery-electric vehicle (BEV) sales jumping by 28 percent. In short, more people are buying EVs — just not from Tesla."
A drop of 45%. Vs the same month in 2024.
In 2025 they were not selling the Model Y In 2024 they were selling the Model Y In 2024 the Model Y was the best selling car in the world
My point is simple - this news agenda is deliberately misleading.
Guido can exclusively reveal that in the background Labour has been busy negotiating a one in, one out asylum seeker deal with the French for revelation within days. It’s a big policy – intended to be unveiled for Starmer’s one-year anniversary as a rabbit…
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
If all landings are immediately sent back to France then it could work but lets wait the details
What’s to stop them just trying again? Once returned to France?
And if its a percentage of those that land flown back to CDG then are we selecting randomly? Courts involved? Are they all going to the sauna at the hotel until, we decide?
What happens if it works and the number drops close to zero? What incentive would the French then have to continue the agreement?
I would just add there has been an increase in the use of private yachts ferrying immigrants well away from Dover, and these yachts can land unchallenged almost anywhere
The reason inflatable dinghies were used is that they're hard to track to the launch points, and they're disposable, so you don't have to put a gang member on board to bring them back for another journey.
For a private yacht the launch points will be easier to track, there's the risk of arrest for the gang member who will be on board to bring it back for the next load, and there's the risk of losing the yacht which would be much more expensive.
It should be easy to block that method of crossing the channel.
The Elon Musk effect continues as Europe’s Tesla sales drop for fifth month in a row
Tesla's sales in Europe have plummeted for the fifth consecutive month, with new figures revealing a significant 28 per cent drop in May.
So? What will be the story in June when they top the sales chart again?
Surprise that Tesla have actually sold some cars - personally I don’t see any reason why sales will improve. The new car looks little different from the old one
Putting aside all the Musk stuff, in my humble opinion Tesla's are starting to look really dated now.
They are looking a bit dated.
For a long time, there was essentially no competition - and what there was was crap (see the Ford E-Mustang). And so Tesla got ... if not complacent, then at least comfortable. Their focus shifted to the Cybertruck, to the new Roadster and to the Semi truck. On the software side, self driving was all.
Now, Tesla has decent competition for the first time, and they haven't really refreshed their model lineup. And there's been this discontinuity caused by Elon pissing off his natural supporters.
It's a perfect storm for them to lose market share.
Here's an idea. Instead of simply claiming mental health conditions aren't real, how about exerting some effort to explain why the rates are soaring? And make plans to treat and prevent them? Just a thought.
Fundamental thing being missed about the welfare rebellion. The legislation itself is wrong. 100% wrong. The welfare bill does need to be reduced. But targeting people with genuine disabilities, like MS and Parkinson, via their PIP payments is not the way to do it.
I thought the whole point was that PIP started off with that, but now there are large numbers of claimants on it for things like anxiety and mental health and that later group is the one being targeted by this welfare reform bill?
No, its not. It would be get rare to get PIP for daily living activities because of 'anxiety' You get points tallied for the effect of your disability on the following sorts of daily activity
Going to the toilet Washing Dressing and undressing Communicating with others Making budgeting decisions Taking medication Understanding communication, verbal and otherwise Preparing a simple meal from scratch Etc
If your diagnosis is 'anxiety' you would need to demonstrate to the assessors how that impacts your ability to do the above, what help you need to do them and what happens if you do not have that help before any points would be awarded
For the mobility aspect of PIP the points are awarded for Making and planning a journey and Ability to move 50m and then 200m without assistance
The BBC really seem to have got the wrong end of the stick then as they constantly using case studies of people who claimed PIP with these conditions and talk about this is what the government reform intends to target.
Elspeth Oakley, 26, from Morpeth in Northumberland, has received Pip since 2021 for her long term mental health issues and uses it for things like taxis to increase her independence.
This is the BBC write up on government plans from last year,
"Mental health focus of PIP disability benefit overhaul"
Paul Harris, from Barnard Castle, gets £72.65 a week in PIP payments to help with extra costs associated with his anxiety and depression - such as for specialist therapy apps and counselling.
Youth mental illness drives rise in benefit claims, study suggests
In a new report, the IFS found that while physical disabilities are continuing to increase with age, for younger age groups disabilities due to mental health conditions are rising.
Meanwhile, the proportion of 30-year-olds claiming disability benefits has risen from around 2% in 2002 to around 4% in 2022, with most of the increase happening in the past decade. In contrast, the proportion of those 60 and over claiming disability benefits are almost the same as they were in 2002.
The main disability benefit for working-age adults is personal independence payment. Eligibility is unrelated to whether someone is able to work so many younger claimants may still be in employment.
Comments
The Elon Musk effect continues as Europe’s Tesla sales drop for fifth month in a row
Tesla's sales in Europe have plummeted for the fifth consecutive month, with new figures revealing a significant 28 per cent drop in May.
As far as I understand it most mathematics/statistical courses, theoretical physics, computer science, quantitative economics etc are still predominantly lecture based at an undergraduate level.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Although that doesn't mean the map is wrong. But I would have preferred a map of actual data, not a forecast from somebody with an axe to grind
Excellent. The council has a £3m deficit, how do we fill it?
"Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"
A crisis in education, with not enough teachers available to keep Southam primary open. ""Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit"
etc
You can't govern by slogan.
The policy is intended to break the small boats model – a percentage of asylum seekers will be returned to France on landing while the same number of applicants at the asylum processing centre in Paris will be accepted.
https://order-order.com/2025/06/26/exc-starmer-to-agree-one-in-one-out-asylum-exchange-with-france-for-labour-anniversary/
Spending on health-related benefits for working-age adults is expected to hit £61bn by the end of the decade, the analysts said, regardless of the Prime Minister’s planned cuts. This is up from £36bn in 2019-20, reflecting the surge in welfare claims post-Covid. Without the reforms, the IFS said the welfare bill would be on track to reach £66bn.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/06/26/british-chamber-of-commerce-starmer-ftse-100-markets/
Now I understand.
Skoda has overtaken Tesla for electric vehicle (EV) sales in Europe as motorists continue to shun Elon Musk’s carmaker in protest against his support for Donald Trump.
Tesla’s total sales across the Continent fell by 28pc to 14,055 in May, according to market research firm DataForce, which were lower than Skoda’s EV monthly tally of 14,920.
The shift was fuelled largely by the ongoing boycott against Tesla in Europe, although Skoda’s popularity also surged after the launch of its electric Elroq SUV model, which accounted for 9,250 sales in May.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/06/25/skoda-overtakes-teslas-ev-sales-in-europe-musk-backlash/
People want immigration reduced not exchanged
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/aberdeen-aberdeenshire/6791079/gillian-owen-quits-tories/
Tory Council leader now ousted by the Tories called them "fucking bastards" on a WhatsApp group. Has now quit the party after 45 years. Making her the second Tory council leader here in succession to (a) be removed by the Tory group and then (b) quit the party.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgnw90ve9vo
The new town is welcome, although 25,000 homes sounds more like a new housing estate.
But we need to do this somewhere else and not make the country even more reliant on London.
It seems low compared to other courses - chemistry will be 1-2 days a week through the course, and then there will be research projects to complete.
darkiespeople who are not pure bred gammon should be deported.Its rather complicated.
Personally think we are fast approaching the end of the current asylum regime world-wide. The west will not accept the tide of economic migrants posing as asylum seekers forever. This move from Starmer is just tinkering at the edges.
People want to live in and around London - hence the massive house price differential with the rest of the country. This is for powerful but poorly understood economic reasons (aggolmeration effect, productivity premium in large cities, etc.) and also probably because London has some of the best weather, best cultural attractions and other non-economic advantages.
There's no realistic way to reproduce London's advantages elsewhere in the country, and all the expensive attempts over the last century have failed completely.
So we need to play to our strengths, not our weaknesses, and enable more people to become more productive by moving where they want.
HS2. Even more toxic than H2S...
75% (say) of boat arrivals going to the govt owned 4 star hotels/HMOs is not a win
Covid showed us that people adapt to new situations in both predictable and unpredictable ways. Some people isolated themselves before lockdowns. Others had last flings of excess. How a lump of humanity will behave in relation to a change in tax law is not simple to predict.
The exchange means that France will be willing to implement it, and there isn't the limit on volume that you would have with the Rwanda scheme.
The plot against Mercia
Birmingham was a boom city after the war and might have come to rival London. So why did planners deliberately sabotage its economy?
https://unherd.com/2020/09/the-plot-against-mercia/
But you are right that there must be a reason for moving to any new town which is why employers must be encouraged too.
@SkyNews
BREAKING: Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has congratulated the Iranian people on their "victory over the US" on his X account
The question is what percentage will be enough, and will that percentage be reached?
SIREN study
The SIREN study has been investigating SARS-CoV-2 infections and acute respiratory illness in healthcare workers since 2020, and providing vital research into the immune response to infection and vaccination.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/siren-study#main-findings-from-siren-to-date
"The British will take you willingly from Paris if you first cross the channel in a dinghy and get sent back."
You'd have to ensure no-one who's crossed the channel was eligible to be sent from Paris.
@DPJHodges
Fundamental thing being missed about the welfare rebellion. The legislation itself is wrong. 100% wrong. The welfare bill does need to be reduced. But targeting people with genuine disabilities, like MS and Parkinson, via their PIP payments is not the way to do it.
Many universities offer both a BA in Economics and a BSc.
The former involves descriptions of the world works, that are not born out by experiment. While the latter offers equations that describe how the world worls, which are also not born out by experiment.
Economists are among the most highly paid of academics, especially if they are smart enough to end up working for a business school.
The narrative is "nobody wants to buy a Tesla". Which is about to get demolished by like for like sales numbers in June.
Yes there were tutorials but that was only a few hours per week and led by postgrad students.
https://nsidc.org/sea-ice-today
"The Department of Defense (DoD) will stop processing and delivering the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) data no later than 30 June 2025. The SSMIS data are used as input for this NSIDC-produced data set, which will therefore stop processing no later than 30 June 2025."
If you don't look, then it isn't happening. Obviously.
That is 600-700 per acre. The Barbican is 228 per acre.
It can be done, but it would be a surprise there.
It can also be measured in bedrooms or dwellings per acre, but the numbers are still very high. I can see the need for high or very high density, but this would be exceptional.
And there's definitely *some* truth in that.
But in the US, after the new Y was released, Tesla sales are still down significantly year-over-year, just not as much as previously.
But, perhaps their hope is that, if it can be shown to work, it can be implemented further up the chain, and so cutting the number of arrivals into France.
You get points tallied for the effect of your disability on the following sorts of daily activity
Going to the toilet
Washing
Dressing and undressing
Communicating with others
Making budgeting decisions
Taking medication
Understanding communication, verbal and otherwise
Preparing a simple meal from scratch
Etc
If your diagnosis is 'anxiety' you would need to demonstrate to the assessors how that impacts your ability to do the above, what help you need to do them and what happens if you do not have that help before any points would be awarded
For the mobility aspect of PIP the points are awarded for
Making and planning a journey and
Ability to move 50m and then 200m without assistance
https://carexamer.com/blog/teslas-uk-car-sales-drop-over-45-in-may-whats-going-on/
"Tesla’s UK car sales drop and took a major hit in May 2025, with a drop of over 45 percent compared to the same month last year. According to early data from various sources online suggest, Tesla registered only 1,758 cars, down sharply from 3,244 in May 2024. This decline happened even as the UK’s overall new car market grew by 4.3 percent year-on-year, with battery-electric vehicle (BEV) sales jumping by 28 percent. In short, more people are buying EVs — just not from Tesla."
A drop of 45%. Vs the same month in 2024.
In 2025 they were not selling the Model Y
In 2024 they were selling the Model Y
In 2024 the Model Y was the best selling car in the world
My point is simple - this news agenda is deliberately misleading.
Blue star double decker bus crashes into river at Eastleigh
3 people taken to hospital
For a private yacht the launch points will be easier to track, there's the risk of arrest for the gang member who will be on board to bring it back for the next load, and there's the risk of losing the yacht which would be much more expensive.
It should be easy to block that method of crossing the channel.
For a long time, there was essentially no competition - and what there was was crap (see the Ford E-Mustang). And so Tesla got ... if not complacent, then at least comfortable. Their focus shifted to the Cybertruck, to the new Roadster and to the Semi truck. On the software side, self driving was all.
Now, Tesla has decent competition for the first time, and they haven't really refreshed their model lineup. And there's been this discontinuity caused by Elon pissing off his natural supporters.
It's a perfect storm for them to lose market share.
Instead of simply claiming mental health conditions aren't real, how about exerting some effort to explain why the rates are soaring? And make plans to treat and prevent them?
Just a thought.
Elspeth Oakley, 26, from Morpeth in Northumberland, has received Pip since 2021 for her long term mental health issues and uses it for things like taxis to increase her independence.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdedk5ep7g9o
This is the BBC write up on government plans from last year,
"Mental health focus of PIP disability benefit overhaul"
Paul Harris, from Barnard Castle, gets £72.65 a week in PIP payments to help with extra costs associated with his anxiety and depression - such as for specialist therapy apps and counselling.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0ry09d50wo
Youth mental illness drives rise in benefit claims, study suggests
In a new report, the IFS found that while physical disabilities are continuing to increase with age, for younger age groups disabilities due to mental health conditions are rising.
Meanwhile, the proportion of 30-year-olds claiming disability benefits has risen from around 2% in 2002 to around 4% in 2022, with most of the increase happening in the past decade. In contrast, the proportion of those 60 and over claiming disability benefits are almost the same as they were in 2002.
The main disability benefit for working-age adults is personal independence payment. Eligibility is unrelated to whether someone is able to work so many younger claimants may still be in employment.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-66592814