I’ve blogged about the huge increase in Open University fees before. At the time of writing that blog post, only the fees for students in England had been announced. The fees for students based in Scotland were expected to be unchanged and Wales and Northern Ireland had yet to make a decision.
To recap, a 60-point course that used to cost around £600 will cost £2500 from September 2012 for new students (existing students get the cheaper prices until 2017). £600 to £2500 is quite an increase. It’s due to the government slashing education budgets across all universities and, I assume, this is the only option the Open University has – they have to get their funding shortfall from students.
I thought I’d take a look at a course registration page to see what has changed. Let’s look at registration fees for the excellent S104 – Exploring Science course. I did this course in 2008 and thoroughly enjoyed it. It cost me about £560.
When you visit the course page, in the “Register for the course” section you are now asked to pick your country. You don’t see a price until you do:
Picking England gives the previously announced £2500:
Choosing Scotland gives you a “slightly” better deal:
£2500 vs. £735. For the exact same course. The exact same materials, the same website, the same tutor support.
Incidentally, you get the £735 course price if you select Wales or Northern Ireland too.
Any student living in England and thinking about studying with the Open University would visit this page and, obviously, take a look at how much it costs if you live in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
I hasten to add, this isn’t the Open University’s fault. They aren’t discriminating against students from England! Basically, the governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have decided to subsidise education. England has decided to remove the equivalent funding. I repeat: this is not the Open University’s fault. It is the English government deciding they do not want to fund university education any more. The fault lies with the government, not with the Open University.
You can, from September onwards, apply for a student loan for part-time courses, as you already can for traditional brick university degree courses*. But I suspect that these fee differences between England and the other home nations would put off any England-based students from applying in the first place. Perhaps it would even provide an incentive for them to move to Scotland/Wales/Northern Ireland and distance study from there. If I was planning to study with the Open University to try and get out of a “dead end job”, I may as well be doing a dead end job in Scotland and paying only a third of the price for the same degree.
Either way, I assume the Open University isn’t expecting many applicants from England…
So it is The End of the Open University As We Know It - but only for students that live in England.
How about if I study from Honduras?!
I thought I’d see what happens if I pick a random country:
Yes, it costs the same to study an OU course if you live in Honduras as it does if you live in England. It costs the same to study from…picking another country at random from the drop down list…Japan. Students that live in England who are studying at the Open University (Milton Keynes, England) are paying the same as an overseas student!
Now that did surprise me.
Though, perhaps, location is irrelevant for a distance learning university. Perhaps the only difference it makes to The Open University is if your country of residence is subsidising your education or not.
*You can only apply for a loan if you haven’t already got a degree. So, if at 18 years old you chose badly for your first degree, and then when you are, say, 24 years old you realise that you need to start again, you can’t get loan. (Thanks Sarah for reminding me about this condition – see comments). Again, this is a government rule and has nothing to do with the Open University (or any university).
Related posts
No longer possible for disabled and disadvantaged people to receive funding support except via loans like everyone else now. Is that also true only for England?
By: Davies, G J on May 27, 2012
at 19:33
‘from September onwards, apply for a student loan for part-time courses’
Only if it’s your first degree course, which means that English students who wish to change career or who study as a hobby are priced out. The OU has effectively become an English institution that no longer serves the English people. And that, in a nation that values lifelong learning and the acquisition of new skills. Such a pity.
By: Sarah on May 27, 2012
at 20:09
Used to value lifelong learning and the acquisition of new skills.
By: Geoff, England (not Britain or 'United' KIngdom) on May 27, 2012
at 22:40
Write to your MP and tell them you are disgusted with this further example of anti-English discrimination.
By: Daggs on May 27, 2012
at 20:18
Yes, I totally agree that it is unjust to discriminate against the English. I think such high fees will put off students in England – they are prohibitive.
Meanwhile who is paying for the mismanagement of the Royal Bank of SCOTLAND? And for the mistakes of a series of SCOTTISH Chancellors and Prime Ministers? Blair, Brown, Darling… The English tax-payer is. And will be for generations.
By: Julia Gasper on May 27, 2012
at 22:10
Ha, in that case then we the Scottish apologise for Brown etc. Glad there’s a decent English prime minister now
I can’t believe the difference between English and Scottish fees. Also, the condition that only first-time students can receive a loan isn’t the case in Scotland. ILA Scotland would cover most of the fee as well (I think they’d give about £500 for that £700+ fee).
Wow. Might be cheaper moving to Scotland
By: Peter Harrison on May 28, 2012
at 11:06
Well, it’s still less than 1/3 of the cost of most other universities!
By: Paul Matthews on May 28, 2012
at 13:41
It might be worth pointing out that a 60 point course is not equivalent to a year in full time, but more like half a year (360 points required for a full degree).
Also, it’s not discrimination against the English, it’s simply that the funding from the state for students living in England is no longer available so needs to be picked up from somewhere, just as it is for all other Universities.
By: Darran on May 28, 2012
at 14:26
Peter Harrison:
A decent English Prime Minister? But Mr Cameron boasts of his Scottish “blood”!
By: Maria on May 29, 2012
at 23:04
Write to your MP. They are responsible for the Westminster government’s decision to change the way funding of universities works in England. Education is a devolved responsibility. They won’t save any money either- it will be years before loans are paid back and some students won’t pay back at all and there are huge admin costs organising loans, collecting them and chasing debtors, with the government having to pay the money upfront.
By: Maria on May 30, 2012
at 05:55
Utterly gobsmacked. So a postal address over the border will save you ~£1800?
Wales (with their free NHS prescriptions) is looking more and more attractive.
By: xtaldave on May 30, 2012
at 07:13
It’s not just the Open University – the cuts are impacting further education for those over 24 too. http://adragonsbestfriend.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/student-loans-to-replace-government-funding-for-adult-education/
By: adragonsbestfriend on May 30, 2012
at 18:45
So far I have funded all my studies myself, however looking at courses the new fees – even with transitional fees are beyond my budget. Now I am looking at other options that don’t include Open University
By: Ian on May 31, 2012
at 11:28
This has surely got to be the death of the short courses? I couldn’t believe it when I looked at saw that it now costs around 700 for a 10 credit course, unbelievable.
By: Lois Exell on August 16, 2012
at 00:17
Does anyone know of a cheap online university equivalent of ‘The Open University’. There must be one, even if it is in a different country there must be a cheaper alternative.
By: David Blunkin on September 30, 2012
at 15:43
Thanks for this blog (which I found because I had to search on Google to see if it was me going mad or if the OU fees really had been hiked that much).
Just now logged into my OU account for the first time in four years.
Looking to pick up a course which I’d left dormant due to new job (at the time) and starting a family.
I’m devastated to see the new fees. Totally unaffordable to me now.
I was umming and aahing about choosing a course for Feb start. Well, my mind is made up for me. Gutted.
By: BenM on October 30, 2012
at 21:07
Rules for spreading payments have also been tightened so higher fees are not only problem
By: Houseygirl (@Houseygirl) on November 2, 2012
at 14:15
This actually has me in tears today.
As someone who had not been able to go to university after school, I started studying with the OU more than ten years ago while pregnant with my first child and not wanting my brain to go to mush. I started with the fantastic S103 Introduction to Science course. It opened my eyes, and I fell in love with Earth Sciences. I completed my honours degree after 7 difficult but rewarding years of study, and receiving it from Betty Boothroyd was an amazing moment in my life that I always remember with pride.
Since then I have brought up our children and worked part-time, and hoped that our financial situation would improve enough for me to be able to afford to do my Masters in Earth Sciences (I was so chuffed when the OU announced they were finally doing that course…). Sadly since last year I am now struggling with disability, and have recently lost my job. It is the first time in my life that I have not been working at least part time. I am earning a little being self-employed, have never claimed a benefit, and am still not. Being at home so much I am desperate to do something with my brain again and thought with fondness of the OU. I thought I might start my Masters, or do a new degree in History. Foolish of me.
The old OU that I loved and knew well has gone. I studied for the last time a few years back doing a random science course to keep my skills alive while waiting to do my masters, and was taken aback at how impersonal the whole thing is now. My tutor was lovely, it was the heart of the OU that had gone. The days of being able to ring up and speak to someone human who approached your situation as an individual was gone. Official rules override everything now and to hell with the inidividual. I remember years ago starting a course after the official closing of registration – I had missed the deadline but desperately wanted to do it, and given my previous study, the nice lady thought it would be ok and let me on. I promised to catch up the time (only a couple of weeks) and my books arrived three days later in that lovely cardboard parcel. I loved the OU back then with a passion, and recommended it to everyone.
I can’t believe these fees. I had known that the fees were increasing and was bracing myself for fees of about £1,000 for a 60 point course, and was thinking of slamming my credit card with it and paying it off in bits. Ha! No way can I justify £2,500 when I have no real job, two children in school, and a husband run ragged working full time and covering too many of the things I used to do…
I feel bereft. This is so so sad. I suppose I will could get out my old textbooks and restudy the old courses. But it’s not the same. I won’t have that buzz of learning something new, the panic point of the TMA deadline only two days away, the frantic revision for exams…so I probably won’t.
What is there for someone like me? I want to learn from people who know their subject, care that it is delivered as well as possible, and care about their students. The OU was the only place that did that job really well.
The England/Scotland/Wales fee thing is baffling and tortuous to someone like me here in England. Wales is just a short hop away, they have free prescriptions (could do with those too) and I could still study…. But I don’t live there, I live here, and Parliament gives Wales a rather large pile of cash every year which they can then choose to allocate to certain places. They have chosen to subsidise….good for them. England seem to lose out every time when it comes to such things because we don’t seem to have a choice of how to spend on things like this. (I’m not an economist. Clearly
I can’t believe I am mourning for something I thought would last forever. As others have said, Harold Wilson would be incensed and depressed in equal measure. Sod the current thinking – the OU was indeed for us, the slightly older (‘more mature’ lol) person who wished to learn something new, for pleasure alone or for a future career change. Surely learning for its own sake has a value beyond pounds sterling? And for people like me who are very unlikely to get a job in the current climate, we will never afford these fees.
The OU should never have tried to compete with the mainstream universities, because it is not the same. It is not redbrick, you can’t spend hours in the lab or sit in the refectory chatting with your peers. You can’t immerse yourself in a life of nothing but study and fun for three years. The OU was built for people who couldn’t do those things, those who worked full time, had children, we’re disabled or had just left it too late. It was a bit behind-the-times when it came to fashion and the latest tech, but it had the things that make a great learning institution – fantastic teachers (who were world leaders in their field) still teaching normal students, excellent resources, a reputation for hard graft, and quality students whose degrees meant something. Now it has fancy TV programmes (amazing in their own right, but have they prospered at the expense of the courses?), sharp suits, a fancy website, and call-centre staff to kill any remnant of personal warmth. And course fees that make you wince. And how are on-line resources that can only be accessed via a computer better than courses-books?! I used to carry my books everywhere and study everywhere. Highlighter pens and sticky tab page-markers were requisite. Staring at a computer screen for hours at a time, even on an iPad or somesuch device, is just not the same. And gives you a headache.
There is no such thing as studying for fun. You can study for pleasure, for fulfilment, for the realisation of a dream…. Fun is an empty thing, it passes the time happily. Study is something so much more, that OU students (at least the old kind) loved and have lost.
So I weep for old ways. I am 41, and nostalgic as a pensioner.
By: Brambledog on November 28, 2012
at 12:15
Sorry to hear that you’ve just learnt about all of this.
Take a look at the “Learning For Free” resources that I have found – you might find something random to get stuck into.
By: Kash Farooq on November 28, 2012
at 13:28
Thank you so much! I’m going to have a look at the OpenLearn short courses for now. It’s not the same, but better than nothing
By: Brambledog on November 28, 2012
at 14:30
I was under the impression that existing fees only applied to current students until 2017 if they study a course each year, without missing a year. The English have clearly been betrayed by an establishment they created. I used to love the OU and did some courses with them, but now I consider it to be irrelevant.
By: CAS on December 29, 2012
at 22:59
Though to be fair they still publish good books, but as an educational provider I now prefer to dismiss them.
By: CAS on December 29, 2012
at 23:03
Is all you need an address in Scotland?
If so could I use a relatives/friends address in scotland with my name and get them to send/forward me all the course info?
Thanks
Mathh
By: MattC on March 23, 2013
at 10:58
Yep, not so “Open” anymore.
By: EA on May 23, 2013
at 18:01
So… I was wondering, because I was looking at the exact same thing this morning… I’m in England but I have friends in Scotland. Do you think a loophole would work by using a friends address in Scotland? Or is that too devious? It would be a huge saving!!!!!!!!
By: Davey on June 11, 2013
at 18:45