Almost 1,000 students at UK universities have had their tuition fees refunded over a two-year period, complaining of a ‘huge scandal’ of poor-quality courses which don’t improve job prospects. This revelation comes after Universities UK urged higher education institutions to provide students with information on how their tuition fees are being spent amidst concerns that courses are not providing value for money.

These refunds have cost universities almost £750,000 in the past two years. Significant cases include Teeside University, which paid £56,650 to 23 students who complained about their MSc courses, and Brunel University, which paid out £22,250 to 17 students. Complaints about a Geology course at Kingston University led to pay-outs of around £14,000.

Almost 1,000 students at UK universities have had their tuition fees refunded

Many of these complaints centre around the quality of teaching and support at university, which some students feel is inadequate in comparison to the price of tuition fees. In 2012, tuition fees rose from around £3,000 to £9,000 per year, and this dramatic price increase has led to mounting anxiety from students that their money isn’t being spent appropriately. Indeed, a student at Oxford University was granted £15,252 and a student at the Royal Veterinary College was paid £3,450 after they complained about the quality of teaching and supervision on their courses.

A Universities UK spokesman said it was ‘right that students are compensated if it is found that the quality of their course does not meet the high standards which universities rightly aim for.’

Universities UK has also urged universities to give detailed breakdowns of how they spend students’ tuition fees in their prospectuses and on their websites. 76 per cent of students in England believe that their university does not disclose enough information about how it spends its income, and this is reflected in the fact that roughly four out of five university websites do not provide adequate information on this spending.

This new UUK guidance, which is soon to be published, states: ‘The lack of accessible information on university spending has led to a misperception that fees are solely spent on the direct costs of teaching.’

It goes on to suggest that universities should describe ‘how non-teaching spending benefits and adds value for students.’

Joshua Latham-Phillips, a first-year student at the University of Birmingham, told Redbrick that since universities are in the public sector, ‘the money generated from government funding should be broken down for public access. This should include average salaries and gender breakdowns, and a breakdown should also be applied on services within the university such as halls rent to see how much of a % profit is being made off students without other options.’

Latham-Phillips also commented on the perceived lack of value for money on some university courses, saying that ‘some courses are valued more highly within society and, since the government’s aims are to create a future of workers and not people with worthless degrees, more funding should be focused around the degrees in higher demand.’