I remember how it was -- JR
Three British universities investigated after ‘sharp increase in top grades’
It is believed to be the first time the Office for Students (OfS) has officially probed institutions over grade inflation since gaining new powers earlier this year.
The regulator refused to name the universities under investigation on Friday. “We expect to publish further details in due course, as our investigations progress,” it said.
The OfS said it had “identified potential concerns that require further scrutiny” at the institutions. But it stressed this was not to be interpreted as wrongdoing at this stage.
The higher education regulator has vowed to clamp down on grade inflation at UK universities, warning this risked undermining public confidence in the value of degrees.
It released figures last month showing the proportion of first class degrees more than doubled in just a decade – up from just under 16 per cent to 37 per cent in the 2020-2021 academic year.
The OfS gained new powers to clamp down on grade inflation earlier this year.
It introduced a new regulatory condition earlier this year, which requires universities to “assess students effectively and award qualifications that are credible and stand the test of time”.
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UK: Is university good value for money?
Opinion polls these days don’t normally raise more then passing interest. But there are always exceptions worth a second look. One such was a YouGov survey out on Wednesday on what people thought about university finance. The big question was whether they believed nearly £30,000 for three years at college was good value for money. Among graduates, many of whom will have paid these fees, the answer (by a margin of well over two to one) was clear. They didn’t. For good measure, nearly half of the graduates polled thought most degrees actually left them worse off overall, against just over a third who thought they led to financial benefits.
Many, no doubt, will draw a predictable conclusion. The government must be shamed or bullied into disowning the decision by the coalition ten years ago to set the present fee (which was about three times the previous one). England should be manoeuvred into following Scotland and Wales, eliminating or greatly cutting tuition fees, and correspondingly increasing its direct subsidy to students and universities.
For the more thoughtful, however, there may be some rather more radical, and indeed hopeful, inferences to be drawn. Whoever has the higher education portfolio next week could do worse than read this survey quite carefully.
First, despite the comments on value for money, a clear majority actually liked the present system of fees plus loans, more than support through general or (hypothecated graduate) taxation. This is a relief for the government, which would otherwise face enormous cash demands. But it is also good for independent-minded students and academics: universities entirely, or nearly entirely, dependent on taxation are in danger of becoming politically subservient, as has been occasionally pointed out in the case of Scotland.
Secondly, if YouGov is right an intelligent government could, with apparent public approval, not only accept but actually run with the finding that university is not ‘value for money’. Why not quietly take this opportunity to drop talk of scholarship as a commodity and students as consumers of it?
This will admittedly come hard, especially to free-marketers. Indeed, it was one such, David Willetts, who airily but foolishly justified the 2012 fee hike by telling students that their vastly pricier degree remained a good buy because it was ‘an excellent investment in your future.’ The case is nevertheless becoming ever stronger for abandoning the make-believe that seats of learning are just a different kind of service provider that could use some private sector management, and students canny consumers raring to stimulate some healthy competition.
For make-believe it is. Universities are expensive to run and many of their benefits intangible. Fees, at almost any figure in reach of the non-plutocratic, cannot support them. It would be far more honest for government to see colleges not as sellers of a commodity but for what they really are, or at least should be: charitable institutions serving a social purpose and requiring subscriptions from those wanting to use their facilities, and as such deserving both top-up assistance from the state and the provision of help for those who cannot otherwise pay their dues. Seeing students not as consumers but as users would also reduce the pressure on universities to promote specious and distracting measures of quality such as ‘student satisfaction’, and concentrate instead on their core function: providing learning to those who really want it.
Thirdly, last week’s findings leave room for some serious thought about university numbers. From the figures given, it seems a fair inference that a goodly number of graduates believe – some no doubt as a result of personal experience – that a degree is neither a good bargain at the time nor very beneficial in later life. This is significant. If we are encouraging people to go to university when they think they get neither good value there nor later advantage elsewhere we should be worried; all the more so if we are subsidising them to do it with public money. The government may now find it increasingly easy to say what it has only hinted at obliquely before: that a fair number of people who currently go to our universities should not have gone there, but should have been encouraged to seek other, probably more beneficial, options.
Indeed, this last point gains force from a further number buried in the YouGov report. Just before Christmas last year, the government tentatively mooted an idea to deny student support from those without minimal GCSE qualifications, and encourage them instead to look elsewhere. Then howls of anguish followed from the academic blob at this squeezing of its power. In this week’s polling, by contrast, the respondents actually backed these proposals by something like three to one.
Whether the government will choose to take a cue from of all this and begin to think seriously about how many students (or universities, for that matter) it should support is not certain. But one thing is clear. Whatever the academic establishment says (and its spokesman was quick with a soothing assurance that high prices had not dampened demand for places), there is noticeable public unease at what has happened to universities, a surprising willingness to accept change, and a chance for an enterprising government to initiate it. Before university life became a middle-class rite of passage in the 1960s and an investment in earning power in this century, universities were genuine havens for those seriously interested in scholarship, without too much regard to their own future wealth. What about some serious planning to return to that situation?
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/09/is-university-good-value-for-money/
*******************************************************Trump-Obsessed Crazy Korean Out of a Job
A leftist Yale psychiatrist who has fallen from grace will not be receiving her position at the prestigious university back, a judge has ruled.
Dr. Brandy Lee’s lawsuit against Yale University was dismissed by a federal judge on Tuesday, the Hartford Courant reported.
The university refused to reappoint Lee after the psychiatrist began an apparent crusade against then-President Donald Trump in 2019. Lee publicly commented on the mental health of Trump and his close associates despite never having examined any of them.
Lee used her clout and credentials to author a book, accept interviews and even form a group dedicated to advising lawmakers on the president’s mental fitness.
The group, calling itself the “Independent Expert Panel for Presidential Fitness,” involved Lee, several other psychiatrists, and other neurological experts.
Amid this blitz against Trump, Lee came under serious scrutiny from colleagues and leaders at Yale. Dr. John Krystal, chair of the university’s psychiatry department, blasted the political activity happening under the guise of professional conduct.
“I want to emphasize that you did not make these statements as a layperson offering a political judgment,” Krystal wrote in a 2020 letter to Lee. “You made them explicitly in your professional capacity as a psychiatrist and on the basis of your psychiatric knowledge and judgment.”
“For that reason,” he continued, “the committee decided it was appropriate to consider how these statements reflected your ability to teach trainees.”
One major factor in Krystal’s reaction to Lee’s political action is likely the “Goldwater Rule,” a professional standard from the American Psychiatric Association that warns against diagnosing someone without an evaluation.
While it seems like an obvious step in diagnosis, Lee, who is not a member of the APA, argued that the danger from Trump outweighed the need for clinical evidence.
Citing a supposed “duty to warn” the public about Trump’s mental state, Lee filed a lawsuit arguing that her own unhinged assault against the president wasn’t partisan slander but a professional obligation.
While battling allegations of mental unfitness and a possible invocation of the 25th Amendment, Trump took a cognitive test that indicated no decline in his faculties.
Thankfully, it looks like common sense has prevailed in the court of law.
District Judge Sarah A.L. Merriman didn’t quite see things the same way as Lee and completely dismissed her suit against Yale.
Without a position at Yale, Lee’s prospects in the anti-Trump racket appear to be growing bleaker by the day.
Over at CNN, where she may have been able to land a gig years ago for her opinions on Trump, the departure of two prominent leftists and a general shifting of the network signal that those days are over.
Fortunately for Lee and other experts in her group dedicated to advising lawmakers on the mental fitness of the president, there appears to be plenty of material for their “professional” consideration when it comes to President Joe Biden.
https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/trump-obsessed-psychiatrist-diagnosed-45-gets-bad-news-court
***********************************My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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