I spent a morning talking to students at Plumpton College this morning and since then have had a few hours to reflect upon the points raised by students studying there, especially in relation to the new fee regime from next year.
Some of the stories I heard today:
"a sense of identity is important to HE students, and space away from FE students allows this"
"we have space for 8 spaces for working on laptops in our computer, however these spaces don't have plugs for connecting the laptop to power"
"I'm not allowed to have female company in my room, or drink alcohol and in fact both cleaners and halls managers will confiscate and dispose of alcohol if found, yet I'm over 18!"
"there are not many things to do around in between lectures and our common room is too small for the amount of students that need it"
"the staff are good and don't treat us like children"
"transport to plump ton is impossible, we rely on friends to give us lifts, just to get to lectures"
Now, this is a quick cross section of views, and it stokes me as worrying, as what we see as good today, will inevitably not be good enough under a new fees regime, even when partner colleges of brighton will be charging less than the main university campuses.
I guess the question is under a new scheme, looking at current HE in FE settings standards, will it ever be able to deliver am experience worth the higher cost? Or in a similar way is it wrong to compare the experiences and should we be looking to move away from this and rank it on a new set of criteria? What would this look like?
Any views would be very much welcome :)
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