I was having a discussion with a colleague today who wants to do a PhD with the OU. They've asked her to provide transcripts of her previous degrees, one from 15 years ago and one from 5 years ago.
She can't find her first one, and phoned the uni to arrange getting a copy - they want to charge £50 for it! Apparently other unis charge somewhere between 15 and 30 quid.

Persnally I think this is extortionate. I can understand charging for a degree transcript from several years ago, before computer records and involving manualy checking paper files, but for a record that can easily be found and just printed off? I think something like £5 would be more reasonable.

What do you all think? Anyone had similar experiences?

I have heard of this and I know that my uni also charges approx. £30 for an official copy of a transcript. Does she need an official one? - I applied to Cambridge with a photocopy of my BSc transcript and they said nothing!? I understand that if you have lost one then you are going to have to get a copy from the university.

I think a photocopy suffices - it's just having something to photocopy it from!

my old uni charges £100!

£100?! Shelly, that's appalling!

I wonder if the uni's can legally charge such prices? There's been such a hoo-haa about bank charges lately, I find it really incomprehensible that universities can charge so much for what is essentially YOUR personal information.

I appreciate that a small charge is reasonable, but £100? No way!

i know its crazy.. clearly they ned to top up their entertainment.. sorry 'expenses' budgets some way

I had to do this too. I think one cost £30 and the other cost £50, I was not happy! This was for the British Psychological Society and it had to be originals or authenticated copies.

My old uni charges 20 quid for the first copy of a certificate, and a quid for each one after that, and 25 quid plus one quid for further copies for transcripts. Criminal if you ask me, but they have a monopoly, so you can't really do anything about it.

£10 and it takes 6 weeks to be prepared!

My uni charges about $20 Aussie and there is no wait. 6 weeks?? That is ridiculous. Surely all it takes is 'click click' with a mouse a couple of times?

You'd have thought so Piglet, but I guess the people who do these things have to make it look as though they're busy...

Are you guys seriously annoyed by all this?

Since you ask Adem, I was simply gobsmacked at how much my friend told me she would have to pay and wondered if it was the "norm".
Looking at the responses, I'm further surprised by the variability of these charges - ranging from 10 to 100 quid. I'm intrigued to know exactly how the institutions can justify them? As I said before, it's understandable if it's from a long time ago and involves someone trawling through lots of paper records - that's time consuming and disruptive. I appreciate that a *small* admin charge is reasonable in all cases, otherwise there would be more requests that unis could deal with. But if it's an excessive amount for simply accessing a computer record, it's daylight robbery.

£5 for an official transcript, or you can access an unofficial one online (post-1996). I think I did this once, can't really remember, but wouldn't getting something (copy of original - if you have it) stamped by the uni suffice? (or is this essentially what they charge for?)

It makes you think though - on my certificate, as far as I know, the only difference between an authenticated (£20) and non-authenticated (cost of a photocopy) copy is that the authenticated one has a sticker on it, signed by a registrar. If someone is keen enough to bother forging a degree certificate, I'm sure they'd have no problem forging a "sticker of authentication". I wonder if it's a mutual, unspoken, agreement between universities to ask for certified copies all the time, so that they can rake in these ridiculous amounts of money.