Comparing university tuition fees with PBRF performance

Method

Because fees in different subject areas are likely to vary based on different cost structures, there is a need to normalise the tuition fee data to be able to compares fees between different subject areas. This is done by dividing the median tuition fee charged by a university within a specific subject area by the average of the median tuition fees of all universities in that subject area. This means that a value of 1 indicates that the tuition fees charged by a university are at the average in that subject area, a value above 1 indicates the fees are greater than the average in that subject area and a value less than 1 indicates the fees are below the average for that subject area. In other words, the fees are normalised to the average of all universities in that particular subject area.

A similar approach was taken with the average quality score. It represents the relative performance of a university in each PBRF subject area. A value greater than 1 indicates that the average quality score of a university was above the university average in that subject area, while a value of less than 1 indicates that the average quality score was below the university average in that specific PBRF subject area.

The framework for analysing the results is presented in Figure 2. The relative price of a subject area at a university is compared to the relative quality of research in that subject area. Figure 2 is divided up into four quadrants: Lower price/Higher quality, Higher price/Higher quality, Lower price/Lower quality and Higher price/Lower quality.

Figure 2 Framework for displaying relative quality and price

If students are reliant on price as a proxy for quality, then for the assumption to hold true the observations should fall in the bottom left and top right quadrants, where the levels of price and quality are in alignment.