Useless degrees

Not so, actually.

At least not in UAL. Tutors are treated like students, and the students are just the people who provide the money. We are definitely not treated like customers.

We are treated as an unfortunate side-effect of the degree, rather than it's raison d'être, by the administration at least.

The publication treadmill is the source of that. It's inevitable that academics see students as an annoying addition to their work-load when the need to publish is constantly impressed upon them as their 'real work'. I'm not excusing it; but it is part of the same culture you describe. A sort of institutional disorder.

From their perspective, though, the advent of tuition fees are scary for the reasons I outline. There is a power shift happening in favour of the students. We'll see the full extent of it when we end up with the US system of sky-high fees, I imagine.