Wow. £2500 for a 60 point Open University course!
July 20th, 2011 | 
Author: I’d been blissfully sailing along assuming that the 2012 OU courses would, at most, move to the non-subsidised European rate ie from around £700 for a 60 point course to around £1500. To have it move to £2500 is quite a shock albeit, so far, only for those studying in England.
The snag is that the end result could be little better for the rest of us as English students make up the bulk of the student population. No, we may not be paying quite so much but it could easily be the case the the OU will fold thanks to the combination of a massive drop out rate and a drastic slowing down of the pace at which degrees are done.
For existing students there are transitional arrangements which basically amount to you continuing to pay the same amount for courses up to 2017 in most cases. To maintain eligibility for those transitional arrangements you need to be taking at least one course per year towards your qualification. It’s best to check the small print if you’re doing anything other than a normal study pattern and there does appear to be scope to do multiple qualifications under the one banner so to speak (eg I should be able to manage both the Life Sciences and Psychology with a bit of care along the way). It may be prudent to mark your courses against an open degree as well as whatever you’re currently doing to keep your options open.
Sadly, it may be that this will mark the end of the OU. At present only 25% of their existing students are straight from A-levels and, apparently, a similar amount who don’t have a previous degree (and thereby eligible for student loans). Which leaves quite a lot of potential students who’d be looking at £1200 for even a 30 point course (vs £400 or so now). For that matter, would many people do a 10 pointer if it cost £400?
For me, it shouldn’t really matter short term as I’ll have finished the Life Sciences by 2014 and should be able to scrape home with the Psychology in 2017 after which, all being well, it’ll be on to the masters. It’s very sad though that in practical terms the OU will cease to be an option for many.
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I can only agree with the points made here. As a 40 something long term private sector employee who didn’t go to University at 18 the OU has been an excellent way to bring my education up to the standard of my younger colleagues (and I have paid for myself). However, the move to charging £2.5k for a 60 point course will simply price me out of the OU education market. I had planned to complete additional modules in areas such as accountancy and economics thereby allowing me to keep up to date and therefore dare I say it employable into my 50s and 60s. What happens now? With a family and four mouths to feed £2.5k pa is out of the question. I seems the OU has given up on people like me for the youth market which does not make sense when they are more than adequately serviced by the vast swathe of Universities dotted across the country. So, I will look elsewhere to continue my education. The University of London International programme has a number of Distance Learning finance undergraduate degree courses available to existing graduates and the costs, so I am told by its helpdesk, are not being increased in the same way as the OU. Bye bye OU, thanks for the memories.
I’m gutted ! finished my degree years ago, but have done French Dip & Classics Dip & am just gonna do level 3 Classics course. Thought I wd always do OU courses, but now realize that my time with OU has come to an end. Makes me feel even more decrepit than I am !!!
Transitional arrangements will keep both of you going on the existing fees until 2017 so long as you assign your current and future courses to a degree that you don’t collect ’til December 2017 or later. For flexibility, it’s probably best to go for the open (code BD) degree.
When you pass 2017, the way to go appears to be either an OU masters (where there will be a price increase but probably not such a large one) or, as you say David, elsewhere. The Univ of London programmes are excellent from what I’ve heard and there are a growing number of online degree courses in the UK and also in the US (the US prices would mainly be comparable to the new OU fees). There’s also the OU’s sister university, the Open College of the Arts (www.oca-uk.com) which appears to be retaining prices comparable to the old OU prices.
Many thanks Arnold, much appreciated. I hadn’t heard of the Open College of the Arts before and having a quick peak it would seems to provide interesting courses in that area (which I am interested in for further personal education not work related). Best regards, David.
They look fantastic, same origins as the OU itself but different funding so, for example, they aren’t affected by the ELQ thing nor, hopefully, the latest funding nonsense.
I’ve been keeping an eye on them for a few years and they’ve been expanding their programmes steadily over that time. Originally they only offered a BA Creative Arts but there’s a growing range these days.
Tutorials work out very differently. Basically you’re given an individual allowance of so many hours which you can top up or pool with other students. I was toying with doing a 40 pointer with them alongside the OU a while back and may get around to doing that next year when my OU schedule drops to a more sensible 30/60 points a year (from over 150/year at the moment).
Incidently, if you do find yourself doing courses from different unis, don’t forget the credit transfer system which would let you transfer your existing study elsewhere. With this, there are few downsides in doing part of your degree with the OU (ie until the 2017 price hike kicks in) and finishing off with, say, the Uni of London. The only restrictions are that you usually (always?) need to do the level 3 study in the uni that you’re getting the degree from.
Also worth looking at are SUNY (State University of New York) which has a massive and, relatively, cheap programme (you need to buy course books though) and Harvard Extension College (yup, that Harvard) which is more expensive but does come with a seriously impressive degree certificate, all in Latin (you need a small amount of residence in Harvard at some point).