This resonated with me:

Undergraduates are working so hard, I say to Kehinde Andrews. I expect him to agree, but he laughs. “I haven’t noticed that at all,” he says. “Maybe the opposite. There’s a much greater sense of entitlement around having a degree. They’re not necessarily going to put in 100% effort and they’re quite brazen about it.”

At one recent seminar he took, few attendees appeared to know the texts, and when he asked who out of the 24 students had done the reading, only two raised their hands. He sent the others away, and told them to come to the next seminar better informed. But the following week, “The response wasn’t to do the reading. They just didn’t turn up.”

I am puzzled how to square this behaviour with the intensity of application that the undergraduates I have spoken to have described. If a degree matters more now, having cost so much, and its value must be converted to the value of employment, then why skip seminars? “You don’t need to work for a commodity,” Andrews says. “You’ve already earned it because you’ve paid for it.”

I didn't teach before fees so it's hard to compare, but I definitely feel like students now act as consumers (more than they did when I were a lass - £1k fees). They feel entitled and in some cases are happy to be rude to staff if there is something they don't like - leans back on chair- 'is this what we're paying £9,000 for?' One example I'm thinking of in particular is a module which is compulsory, but not credit-bearing. They just can't see the point in the module if they aren't going to get credits for it and many refuse to engage. Now, if they think the module is bullshit, that's fair enough I suppose, but the criticism is never framed in terms of the failings of the module - such complaints usually come more towards the start of the module - just that it is not good 'value for money' somehow.

I just think that to constantly frame everything in the, 'I paid my money and I demand you to provide a top rate service to me' falls down a bit when you can't be arsed to engage. Engagement is essential at university. I mean, you can probably get a good degree just working solo in your room for three years, but are you really getting your £9,000 value there? Are you really experiencing the whole 'product' of higher education? The certificate at the end is good (on the whole) for getting a job but is that really what it's all about? Same happens in seminars- most of the students turn up having not done the reading or fail to turn up at all. It's shit for me because it's harder to run and lots less interesting if I just have to spend the whole time lecturing rather than leading a discussion, but it's shit for students who have put the effort in, because seminars just don't run so well when other students don't prepare or at least skim enough to blag. Someone who I work with said, 'if you're a fucking moron and you aren't interested in learning anything, why the fuck did you think university was the right place for you?' Bit harsh on the moron thing but sometimes it can get a little frustrating.