Lecturers and loss of money: What do we pay per contact hour?

The 2025-2026 academic year has seen tuition fees for domestic undergraduate students rise by £285, now totalling £9,535, a 3.1% increase from last year’s £9,250. Chief executive of UK Universities Vivienne Stern argues in a recent statement that fee rises will “help to halt the long-term erosion of universities’ financial sustainability” and that universities need to be “in great shape if we want national renewal”.

In the last decade, technological advances like lecture capture have hampered in-person teaching, with students failing to attend early 9am lectures or preferring to take notes from the comfort of their student accommodation.

The University of Warwick has 30 academic weeks of active seminars, lectures, and workshops; therefore, students are paying approximately £317.84 per week for university services they may or may not be taking advantage of. We must consider the average cost per lecture by department. English students, for example, typically have eight contact hours per week, with two reading weeks, while STEM degrees, such as chemistry, average 10 hours of lectures in addition to laboratory work and tutorials. Different numbers of lectures across degrees create the illusion that some degrees are more cost-effective than others, as they will have more timetabled activities and therefore a lower cost per lecture.

On average, 1/6 of UK universities generate a third of their income from international students

Student concerns about this rising cost involve the quality of education being provided and student debt post-graduation. Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, echoes Stern’s concerns and argues this inflationary increase in fees “will ensure value for money” alongside “higher standards across our universities and colleges”, focusing on skills the economy needs and higher-quality education to boost student satisfaction rates.

However, in the 2024 National Student Survey, 87.8% of students reported satisfaction with academic support, and 86.9% were satisfied with engagement in subject courses. Questions must also be raised about Phillipson’s argument for increased tuition fees, since, in previous academic years, such as 2023/2024, universities had a total income of £44.6 billion.

In 2022, the University of Warwick’s intake comprised 37.7% international students studying for a minimum of three-year courses. Depending on the university course, international undergraduate students in the UK can pay fees between £11,400 and £38,000, substantially more than domestic undergraduate fees. On average, 1/6 of UK universities generate a third of their income from international students. Do universities need this surplus investment? In the 2023/24 academic year, before the rise in tuition fees, the University of Warwick’s total income grew by £20.6 million to a total of £860.0 million, leaving a surplus of £46.8 million at the end of the year.

Investment is beneficial as it maintains the reputation of Britain’s universities on the global stage

Although this is not necessarily indicative of all UK universities, the argument can still be made that these institutions were making a considerable profit while fees were capped at £9,250, and therefore the decision to raise them was unnecessary and limits a wider demographic of people from attending university due to financial strain.

On the other hand, the justification can be made that universities are increasingly investing in improving the quality of education to keep up with the latest publications, events, and resources. In the 2019/20 academic year, it is estimated that UK universities invested £17.5 billion of their profit back into teaching and research, alongside maintaining campus facilities. This investment is beneficial as it maintains the reputation of Britain’s universities on the global stage. Universities are also victims of the UK’s annual inflation rate of 3.8%, which leaves higher education institutions with no choice but to adapt to the state of the economy and raise prices to maintain facilities and the quality of education.

Regardless, this does not ease the financial burden placed on students. Some students skip lectures for productivity reasons, such as working on assignments, attending speaker events, and participating in activities that aid in their long-term career prospects. In this economy, it is also more common for students to skip university for work: a 2023 survey found that 49% of undergraduate students have missed lectures to take paid work, with 6% skipping lectures to work regularly.

The fact that 56% of students feel their student loans are not enough to afford the rising prices of basic necessities shows that students are suffering the impacts of inflation and the cost-of-living crisis. The stress of rising tuition fees is detrimental to students’ well-being, as it increases the pressure to find a job to support themselves while in full-time education, leaving many students missing out on vital aspects of their university experience.

Increasing tuition fees, in turn, means larger student debt and greater interest rates. Post-university debt plays a psychological role in lecture attendance. The competitive job market sees roughly 140 applicants per graduate job, and the ISE recorded 1.2 million applications for 17,000 positions.

The financial burden of debt and poor graduate prospects placed upon students impacts attendance as more feel discouraged and unmotivated by their degrees

This has left students disheartened by the seemingly real possibility that they will burden themselves with interest-collecting debt that will fail to provide them a career of their choosing. This likely impacts lecture attendance, as students no longer see the value in their degree. With the job market as ruthless and experience-driven as it is, many are questioning whether the debt is worth it.

The 21st-century university experience encapsulates the idea that although lectures may be useful for your degree, they are not mandatory, and universities’ implementation of lecture capture encourages this, despite that not being its intention.

The epidemic of convenience and online learning tools, paired with a graduate job crisis, means that more undergraduates are losing the drive for their degree. The financial pressures of university undermine the fundamental aims of lectures: to teach passion and skill in an academic field. The commercialisation of education means that the UK is facing a potential national education crisis, with the student numbers decreasing by 1.1% in 2023/2024.

The financial burden of debt and poor graduate prospects impacts student attendance as more feel discouraged and unmotivated by their degrees. Moreover, the inherently modern phenomenon of technological learning and the disregard for in-person lectures mean that students are losing money in the long run due to poor attendance.

Though this is not the complete story for all undergraduate students in the UK, a common worry for all surrounds the impact of finances on their degree and the debt they are taking on. Ultimately, it makes university look like a scam and discourages students from pursuing their degree.