Mon 3rd October, 2011
“I am delighted to be on a joint million+ / NUS platform not only with Liam (Burns, NUS President) but also with John and what you said yesterday John about universities being tasked with driving innovation, working with business and being key to the economic recovery certainly has our endorsement.
“For our part million+ has always been clear that the 80 per cent cut in funding for teaching which comes into play in 2012 was a choice that the Coalition Government did not have to make.
“This cut is the reason why fees will increase significantly in 2012 as universities seek to balance the funding of outreach work, bursaries, the National Scholarship Programme – which incidentally is neither national nor a scholarship – together with the need to replace funding for the teaching of undergraduate and postgraduate taught courses and of course, fund the long-term investment to support the student experience.
“So let’s be clear, higher fees were a choice but it was not a choice that the Coalition had to make because although the Government says that the changes will generate £3 billion in savings annually and reduce the deficit, what Ministers do not say is that the new funding system will lead to a rapid increase in the balance of student loans rising to almost £70 billion in real terms by 2017-18.
“And what Ministers do not say either is that the independent Office for Budget Responsibility estimated that even if the average tuition fee had come in at £7500, the Government would have to borrow £10.7 billion to fund student loans in 2015-16 compared to £4.1bn in 2010/11. Cumulatively at least £13bn will be added to Public Sector Net Debt by 2015-16 as a result of the choices that the Coalition has made.
“So I welcome the statement by Labour that they would restore at least enough teaching funding to pull fees below £6000 as well as the proposal to look to business – in this case the banks – to contribute to higher education funding. This also fits full square with the 1997 Dearing Report which put the case for graduates to pay a contribution but was crystal clear that there was a significant role for the state but also for business as well.
“But John I really do question why Labour keeps banging on about getting a very small number of students from schools to study at a very small number of selective universities – which by the way are not in many cases quite so selective across all of their courses. This is the Government’s agenda and it is really missing a trick for Labour not to move on from this narrow and restrictive view of social mobility.
So while I very much welcome the fact that Labour has opened the book on its thinking but I hope that it’s not the end of the story because there is an immediate challenge posed by the Higher Education White Paper.
“This was launched by BIS in late June but not much noticed by the press or indeed by many Parliamentarians – after all there was Libya, News International and the riots – but it was certainly noticed by universities and the NUS for 3 reasons:
First it proposes that in the next academic year universities should be able to recruit unlimited numbers of ‘high achieving’ students – defined by Ministers as those students achieving at least AAB+ at A-level. This will perversely advantage a sub-section of students, in particular younger students and those who have studied at independent schools.
“Second 20,000 student places will be removed in particular from universities like mine and re-offered to lower cost providers charging less than £7500 providers which may not all be universities.
“And third, the White Paper makes clear that the Coalition wants to lower the criteria for degree-awarding powers, opening the way for for-profit providers and organisations like Pearsons which neither teach nor undertake research to apply to be given university title.
“Now David Cameron and Nick Clegg have made it clear that they have no ideological presumption that only one sector should run services so it is not really surprising that the Government’s plans for the NHS and the Government’s plans for universities now look very similar: any provider will apparently do whether or not they operate in the public interest or the shareholder interest and it appears not to matter whether taxpayer backed investment ends up in universities like mine or whether it end up in the pockets of for- profit providers.
“So the university challenge for Labour is not just about setting its policy for funding prior to the election, the challenge for Labour is here and now.
“What kind of future do you want for universities and students? Does Labour mind that price constraint and a transfer of student numbers may be used by Ministers to incentivise the student market in 2012? When it comes to the 64,000 $ question of lowering the criteria for university title, which side is Labour on now and will there really be no turning back under a Labour Government?”
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