10th January 2013 9:00
By Blue Tutors
There was a drop of 54,000 students attending university this year, and universities have also began to offer online courses which can be studied from your own bedroom. While many people may see this as a streamlining of our higher education system, and maybe an extremely positive thing, that view overlooks a crucial aspect of what university is, and how it benefits a fresh-faced 18 year old undergraduate.
It’s probably a very difficult thing for many of our politicians to remember, but that first week at university is obviously very exciting, but also extremely intimidating. For the vast majority they have never had so much freedom and responsibility before. Fair enough, one could argue that it is the freedom which is the motivating factor in the first couple of weeks, when, let’s be honest, very little actual academic work gets done, but freshers quickly identify that they are much more alone than ever before. Obviously most universities are still slightly sheltered environments – we’re not saying it’s equivalent to an SAS survival course – but a new student still has to become responsible for many things that he or she hasn’t been before.
Why is all this important? Well university doesn’t only teach our students some very valuable academic skills, it also matures them incredibly quickly, and prepares them for an adult life. Students generally still have the safety net of a pastoral tutor and their parents should they make mistakes, but for the first time they don’t have everything done for them.
If the trend of university applications continues then we may see the number of resident university students drop massively in the next few years. Whether that’s because young people decide to take online courses, or because they opt for another path, the result is likely to be more young people staying in their family home for longer. I’m not sure whether this is a bad thing economically, presumably not, but before we dismiss the 9,000 in tuition fees as offering only the value accrued from what’s learnt in lectures, we should think about everything else that a young person learns in those three years.