Open University reasons to charge differently

Here is some official reasoning from last year's financial report available by hunting around on www.open.ac.uk/foi



Whereas other UK universities charge very high fees to overseas students choosing to study in the UK, The Open University provides its teaching to overseas students in the countries in which they are resident, either directly or in partnership with a range of educational and commercial organisations, at fee levels that are acceptable in each market.


This is interesting as (1) it is a change in tack from the usual reason given (lack of government funding) and (2) it is against OUSA policy.

Comparison of fees

http://hubpages.com/hub/Comparison-of-cost-of-higher-education-around-the-world

http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/story/6986

The above links are good not necessarily because they are up-to-date or comprehensive but because they show unwitting evidence of how people outside a particular country see that country's universities.

Just a rough guess, but it looks as if the OU is about as expensive (for overseas students) as a US university would be (for residential students).

Plus ça change....

....the more clichés we get.

Given the way OUSA is reviewing stuff, I thought I would review some of the stuff written by John Daniels, probably one of the most-overseas friendly Vice Chancellors the Open University has had.

This speech to the OUSA Conference in 1998 is interesting http://www.open.ac.uk/johndanielspeeches/ousa98.html as is this 'follow-up' speech http://www.open.ac.uk/johndanielspeeches/postuma.htm about whether the O U has been true to its particular vision. From an overseas student point of view there are several lessons to be learnt (for one, how 'conservative' and 'clunky' yet idealistic both the OU and OUSA of then seem now - my personal view)but I found these two quotes interesting:

On the one hand we are a very international people. We are a trading nation at the centre of the land hemisphere and we put together the largest empire the world has known. Pro rata to population the British diaspora in the rest of the world must, in its extent, diversity and influence, have few rivals. Yet knee jerk insularity is never far from the surface. Ever since the war we have made a mess of our relations with the rest of Europe and xenophobia is a staple of both our tabloids and our broadsheets.
That’s rather like the OU. OUSA has tended to first oppose and then embrace the expansion of the University overseas. Some staff clapped when Sir William Stubbs, at this year’s Council lecture, implied that the OU should stay at home. Yet these same staff respond with enthusiasm to requests from foreign institutions to offer OU courses.


The OU's expansion overseas has often occasioned lively debate at OUSA conferences. The Executive has usually begun by opposing each new extension abroad but then given enthusiastic support as a new student constituency emerged.

This seems to me to be particularly relevant to the situation facing overseas students today - we need to smartly manage the Little Britain stuff and convert it into enthusiasm for internationalism.

Cross border education checklist

The UNESCO site contains a lot of information about the internationalization of higher education (and also has information on the whole international higher education 'industry' such as this example http://www.unesco.org/iau/conferences/Mexico2009/pdf/list.pdf).

In 2006, the International Association of Universities (and others) drew up a checklist concerning the delivery of higher education across borders http://www.unesco.org/iau/internationalization/pdf/cross_border_checklist.pdf

The bit on fees is interesting:

Cross-border higher education
should be accessible not only to
students who can afford to pay,
but also to qualified students with
financial need.

Seminar on regional activities in England

Although of not direct relevance to overseas students a recent seminar http://stadium.open.ac.uk/stadia/preview.php?s=31&whichevent=1321 (only available within the OU) on the above is noteworthy because it:

• confirmed the appeal within some areas of OU opinion for a global international strategy
• did not go into detail on the possible situation for Continental European students
• confirmed the importance of 'enterprise' and partnerships with local businesses (possibly seeing them as income generators separate from government), using examples in Finland and the Netherlands as possible models.
• (personal view) demonstrated the need for OUSA to review its role in this type of exercise (ie amount of representation, how OUSA reps feedback to students)

The seminar was very much an internal brainstorming session, so what actually happens next may well be different to anything suggested by the points I've highlighted above.