University of London is *Very Frustrating*!!!

Mate, just apply to an Australian university!

I have had experience with 6 Australian universities which offer excellent distance learning degrees and their service is EXCELLENT!

If a university can't process a customer promptly- and that is what you are- then there is something wrong with their priorities.

If you were trying to buy a TV set, for example, and had the same experience, I am sure you won't be hanging around.

 

The University of London is a well-respected school. I hope that you can get things worked out. I know that you have been very patient, but sometimes I've found that being patient has it's rewards. I know that this may be easier said than done, but sometimes we get worked up and sometimes things work out in the end and aren't as bad as we first thought. Good luck.

 

The problems are a function of the size and history of the Unversity.

It is composed of a number of well known and respected colleges, each of them with it's own sense of history.

In terms of catchment area, quite apart from the wide spread distance learning functions, it is covering the whole of London, an area with a population larger than 75% of US states.

 

It amazing how we can excuse lousy service from a university - and they are the ones 'accredited' to teach doctorates in business administration!

 

What rubbish is this - 'size and history'!

These people are suppose to teach us how to give excellent customer service!

 

Many of the larger and older universities, especially the public ones tend to view students as students, rather than customers (ever tried applying "The customer is always right" to an exam paper?).

Another thing, it may not be the same everywhere, but the people doing the teaching are often not the people running the university and setting policy, especially with the University of London and the external program (Imperial might teach the MBA, but it is the University of London proper that actually admits and administers external students). It may be a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, or it could well be that the left hand does not permit the right hand to do anything that the left hand does!

 

I think British Airways is having a special...

You could just go over there and give those brits a piece of your mind!

Cheers mate!

 

I disagree. Let us say the average student's tuition for a degree at UOL is $10,000. Let's approximate the number of students attending the UOL's distance education programs at a given time is approximately forty thousand. This translates into approximately $400,000,000! In short, this is a BIG business and BIG BUCKS.

The problem is that many students are apprehensive of asserting their expectations and needs when confronted with ineffectual or unacceptable student/customer service provided by their schools. They feel that by speaking up that they may somehow be penalized and that their degree programs may be jeopardized. In turn and unfortunately this reinforces academia's perception of students as having limited rights to outstanding customer services that any of us would expect and demand from other businesses and service vendors.

 

According to the UoL External website the number is presently over 34,000 students. Even at an average of $2,000 per student per year that comes out to a not so paltry $68,000,000.

 

According to a friend who is attending UOL's distance academic program, the number is currently closer to 40,000.

BTW, the average graduate student is actually paying closer to $5,000 tuition per year. This amounts to big, big money. Without question, students who are attending this school should be receiving outstanding student/customer service assistance. If not they should voice their concerns to senior administration within the school. If the response is not satisfactory students should explore other schools where their "business" is valued. Let us not negate the buying power of hundreds of millions of dollars of income. UOL wants this business big time just as does other schools. Therefore, they need to offer outstanding customer service that is commensurate with their excellent academic reputation.

 

I'll defer to you on this, I'm not going to argue over a mere $132,000,000!

I have to admit that the year I studied with UoL (externally) the few times I had to contact them replies were quick and relevant. Dispatch of study materials was slow. Exam results I found slow, but I think may be more or less typical of UK instiitutions (exams in May/June, results in late August/early September).

 

I think we all agree that there is no excuse for bad service, regardless of the size of a business unit (and that's what the UoL is, nomatter what they think about it).

I also think that they have a very good customer service, as most forum members, including myself, are pretty happy with the quality of service they've received from the External Programme.

Now, back to the revenues issue, they have 34,000 students at the moment, paying an average of GBP 1000 per year (the immense majority of students are completing DL Bachelors degrees, which are quite inexpensive, so that's GBP 34,000,000. That amounts to little more than 1,6% of their GBP 1,9 billion annual budget.

This is not such a big business for them. The other 100,000 students the UoL has account for most of their revenue.

Prof. Keneddy once posted on the extremely optimist business calculations of people outside a business, and I agree. USA 400 million, or even half that amount, is totally unrealistic.

Joi

 

JOI:I think we all agree that there is no excuse for bad service, regardless of the size of a business unit (and that's what the UoL is, nomatter what they think about it).

SIMON: Agreed.

JOI:I also think that they have a very good customer service, as most forum members, including myself, are pretty happy with the quality of service they've received from the External Programme.

SIMON: However, your experience and others have nothing to do with the original posters unfortunate situation; a very unsatisfactory level of response by this school in providing THIS poster, not YOU or anyone else, with the timely feedback he expected and was entitled to recieve. So I am delighted that you had a fortunate experience with this school but we are addressing BO79's experience, not yours!

JOI:Now, back to the revenues issue, they have 34,000 students at the moment, paying an average of GBP 1000 per year (the immense majority of students are completing DL Bachelors degrees, which are quite inexpensive, so that's GBP 34,000,000. That amounts to little more than 1,6% of their GBP 1,9 billion annual budget.

This is not such a big business for them. The other 100,000 students the UoL has account for most of their revenue.

SIMON: We were discussing the fact that UOL like other universities, in addition to obviously being academic institutions, are also businesses and operate as such. WIth this in mind, we agreed that there are no excuses for the provision of unacceptable levels of student services such as in the case of BO79.

Furthermore, income generated by distance learning students, even using your reductionistic formula, which is obviously theoretical, not fact, indicates that over a period of ten years this school is gaining $340,000,000. This is not small change and I am certain that UOL as well as any other school would very much like to have this "inconsequential" amount of money in their coffers.

JOI: Prof. Keneddy once posted on the extremely optimist business calculations of people outside a business, and I agree. USA 400 million, or even half that amount, is totally unrealistic.

SIMON: And Carl Rogers indicated the necessity of having empathy with others who are confronted with a difficult situation. In other words, when BO79 related his problem with this school it does not help this poster to hear others state their antithetical "wonderful" experiences as if this is a contest of who is right or wrong. It is about BO79's specific problem not others great experiences. In fact, we should "sit back" listen carefully to BO79's experiences with this school and discern whether we can assist him, not compete with him, in dealing successfully with this matter. End of story.

 

It's about time Teddy. I knew that you would see things my way.

 

Simon:

Your concept of empathy seems to be nothing more than stating poor service is inexcusable, and in this point we have agreed from the beginning.

I provided not only empathy, but very specific advice to Simon in the form of the name and email address of the External Programme official who has always addressed my concern quicly and politely ( please see first page of this discussion, specifically the 12th and 16th posts).

I also told bo79 that LSE doesn't handle the admissions process directly, and that he should take into consideration the quality of LSE when taking a decision on this issue, and not only his initial bad experience with admissions. LSE is the equivalent of an Ivy League university in the USA, and at the same time has one of the least expensive DL bachelors' programs in the world.

In addition, I told bo79 that the fact that his letter was going to arrive after the deadline should not pose any problems, as the University has an established procedure to grant extensions when its employees have caused the delay. This I know from experience, as I detailed to bo79 in one of my posts. Furthermore, the fact that all other UoL students indicated they've had no problems with the university indicates this is quite unusual, and this is useful advice to bo79 too.

It's your formula for calculating UoL revenue the totally unrealistic one. I'm a registered student with them for a BSc., and pay a GBP 340 (approx.) annual fee, plus GBP 137 for each exam I take (max. 4 exams per year). All of us were discussing the revenue issue as part of this thread, including you.

So it's you who must learn to provide real empathy, and also learn to respect other posters' opinions.

Joi

 

JOI, in your previous post you spoke about the very good student services you and several other board members received from UOL. This is the basis for my retort because your wonderful experiences with UOL student services has absolutely nothing to do with Bo79's presenting issue with this school and it is too bad that you cannot see the point I am making other than being an "attack".

A hypothetical example is in order. It is as if you and I had an operation on our leg at the same hospital. My operation comes out well and I am able to walk again with no problems. However, the results of your operation are not good and you can't walk. You post your unfavorable experiences on this forum as well as your not so great experiences with the hospital on this board. However I respond that I had a very good surgical outcome as well as those of several other posters. So my friend where does that leave you with your inability to walk when me and several other postes had excellent surgical outcomes with the same hospital? Does it help you to walk again or does it merely isolate you and make you feel that you are complaining too much?

Perhaps you did not realize that you came across in such a manner but BO79 addressed this forum with a specific problem not to learn of your great experiences but to vent his annoyance and to possibly problem solve. In other words your great experiences are totally irrlevevant to the thread that BO79 initiated and does not due to a darn thing in terms of remedying them.

Now in regard to your Einsteinian approach to determining the per annum income that UOL earns from distance learning students both you and I have absolutely no idea what the actual figures are, do not have access to this data and are merely engaging in speculation. I am sorry to disappoint you but although I am not the master mathematician you are, you do not have the faintest idea how much UOL is actually earning from this income source or from any other source so please refrain from presenting yourself as having more knoweledge regarding this issue than me or anyone else. In fact, you don't.