Today the Con-Dem coalition government will vote on and likely pass their proposals for higher education funding, and rather than rehash the facts I will here discuss my opinions of the system.
Higher Education is in a funding crisis, too many students, too many universities and too many subjects forced the previous government to invest more money into HE while asking students to pay a single flat-fee for each year of study. They combined this with a relatively simple grant/bursary scheme to enable people from poorer backgrounds to be able to stomach the debt and better themselves through education. Again I emphasises the beauty of the single flat-fee regardless of person, class, subject or university.
Now the government is proposing a two tier system which would for the first time see better universities charge more than others. This is flatly wrong in my view. This begins the slippery slope to further increases and a future market in HE whereby people from richer families are more able to pay-back and stomach the burden of debt which will be forced upon them by going to a good university. Poorer students who would have aspired to an Oxbridge education would be put off and feel that it is better for them to get a degree from a worse university where they wont be saddled with as much debt. People don’t seem to realise that these numbers DO make a big difference to college students when considering which universities to apply to.
Now, the government is claiming that it is necessary to tripple the cap on tuition fees. Why? Because the Tory agenda of cuts has resulted in an 80% cut to HE teaching budgets. Students are now being asked to plug this massive gap. I don’t really have a problem to a rise in tuition fees to say 5k/year, if this money was going to increase the HE spend, alas it is not. Students are being screwed over to simply maintain the current level of spend. This is pathetic.
Another point to raise is that we are in a group of only two countries which are cutting investment in HE and research in real-terms. This again is pathetic and short-sighted. The US, Canada, Australia, Germany, France and almost every other country affected by the global financial crisis has invested massively in HE and research as they rightly see it as an investment in their post-industrial economy and in the future of their countries. It is ridiculous that the government is making these dogmatic cuts without much thought on their long-term effects. If we don’t invest in our countries future by investing in education and research, what the fuck is the future British economy going to be now? Reliant on financial services again?! The very same sector which caused this crisis?!
Now, if we accept the cuts programme and the 80% cut in HE spending, what other methods could there be to alter the HE landscape to make things better. A simple option is to cut the number of places, not by enforcing a cap, but by selectively limiting funding for non-vocational subjects which do not have a clear roll in increasing the countries prosperity. Limiting the number of history and English students, closing down degrees in business management, travel and tourism, media studies and others would enable the universities to save some money which will help them maintain funding on other courses which directly help the economy such as science, engineering, maths and health sciences which all demand a university education.
Another option is to change ‘New’ universities back to polytechnics where their courses are vocational and funded by private business in order to generate a highly-skilled work force with near-guaranteed jobs.
People also fail to realise that up to £9k a year is just for the fees, students then need an additional £6k a year in order to live, rent accommodation and have money for transport. This would result in someone doing a 3-year degree having a nice bill upon graduation somewhere in the region of £45,000. If people think that this really wouldn’t put off poorer and middle-income families they’re delusional.
Now, people from the poorest families will have lots of different schemes and methods of applying for assistance in the form of grants and bursaries to be able to afford an education, however this system is convoluted and complex, the result of last-minute appeasement amendments being made to make the bill stomach-able for Lib Dems. If the government really believed in this system they’d have worked these amendments into the original bill.
In summary, the bill being pushed through parliament tonight begins the Tory dream of a market in higher education whereby people who can pay more, go to the better universities and those who can’t, don’t go to university at all or go to worse ones. Those who do manage to get into a decent university enter a university system where no new money has been invested in teaching for a long time, yet these students will be paying more for it, for longer. A two-tier system simply is wrong and penalises poorer people. And all this media attention is masking the huge cuts in HE teaching, which this fee increase is trying to remedy.
If this government really believed in Higher Education they would maintain funding whilst asking students to pay a flat tuition fee to enable Universities to provide a better education for them. This would be fair, simple, and a chance to give the Universities the money they want ending with everyone equally investing in the future of our country.
