Jamie argues, ‘The majority of the burden of funding a world-class university system should fall on those who attend, and the greatest burden should fall on those who can afford the most.’ The second assertion is unproblematic for progressives; the first deeply troubling.
To argue that the majority burden should fall on those who attend accepts the assumption that it is graduates themselves who benefit the most. That is an individualist value, not a democratic socialist one. It is also nonsense. Every day, non-graduates benefit directly from graduates. Any non-graduate benefits each time they don’t die from an infectious disease because graduate doctors have the skill to diagnose the illness, and graduate scientists the skill to develop effective drugs. We all benefit from buildings designed by graduate architects and from bridges that don’t collapse because they were built by graduate engineers, and non-graduates benefit from having their children taught by graduate teachers. Society as a whole benefits from having a population with a developed cultural life and widespread knowledge of history, philosophy and literature. And, as Tony Crosland argued, ‘a more literate and sophisticated electorate … [is] less likely to succumb to the wiles of a would-be dictator.’* Progressive values should include the belief that education is a public good. If everyone benefits from people having a university education, why should the burden of paying for it fall mostly on those who attend?
Most of us would accept that students should be expected to contribute towards their food and lodgings while at university. Some form of subsidised loan paid back after graduating either as a loan repayment or through a low and time-fixed graduate tax of some sort is fine. But what about tuition fees?
Raising tuition fees and then rolling them up with students’ maintenance loan just has the effect of increasing students’ debt. Do we really want our young people to have personal debts of £25,000 to £40,000?
If repayment is by direct deduction from salary then that is a form of income tax. Now, students pay nine per cent of their salary over £15,000 until their debt is cleared. Add that to 11 per cent National Insurance and 20 per cent income tax and you have an effective marginal tax rate, at £18,000 say, of 40 per cent; the same as Wayne Rooney on his £200,000th of income and much higher than a pensioner receiving £18,000.
If the Browne proposals are adopted then debts will be higher but repayment will only start at £21,000. However, Browne proposes that students should pay an interest rate of inflation plus 2.5 per cent. At the average income of £25,000 pa only the additional interest is paid, not the capital. It is not until earnings reach £31,000 that the level of the debt starts to be reduced. That’s a pretty hefty salary. Women taking breaks to have children, or workers on modest salaries, may find themselves paying back debt all their working lives.
A progressive approach is to argue that a strong university sector educating as many of our citizens as are able to benefit is a good thing for everyone. The costs of tuition should, therefore, be borne by everyone according to their ability to pay. That means making no distinction between a graduate earning £25,000 and a non-graduate earning the same amount. For progressives, it should be income that determines one’s ability to pay, not the educational qualifications gained in order to earn it. A small rise in income tax for everyone is surely fairer than graduates alone facing life-long high additional deductions from their salary.
*Crosland, C. A. R., 1980. The Future of Socialism. London: Jonathan Cape, p.176.
I felt rather uncomfortable with the argument that the benefits of universities are being conferred on (or trickling down to) non-graduates indirectly by their being ministered to by graduates. I wonder if there might not be another way of looking at the issue of fairness and university funding. There is a story that Sir Keith Joseph, having been appointed Secretary of State responsible for education, was being briefed by civil servants about the successful department of state he was taking over; statistics on achievements by teenagers were cited. Sir Keith recognised a division amongst teenagers between those who would ‘stay on’ at school, receiving subsequent tutorial investment resulting in ‘A’ levels and university degrees, and those who would leave school, maybe qualified only by their lack of qualifications. He enquired about the government investment in this ‘other half’. The civil servants’ response – “Oh, Secretary of State, don’t say half!” – reveals, by quibbling only over the fraction, the substance behind Sir Keith’s question. It remains a question of substance and deserves to be answered in the context of the debate over university funding currently under way. Why should state resources in straitened times be used differentially to support post-school learning by one half of the teenage population (i.e those who are ‘good at school’)? Is this fair? Not surprisingly universities are expensive to maintain. There are full-time staff (the resident learning community), the professors and the lecturers, justified to cope with the teaching requirements associated with the demands of undergraduate students. Then there is the research community required to produce the stuff (the results of research) for the learners to learn and the teachers to teach. Of course there is overlap between these two groups of staff. However, state financial support is given separately to cover tuition and research; together these comprise Higher Education funding. Taxation to pay for this comes from the population as a whole. For those who do NOT attend university, how much is spent by the government on post-school learning support? Is it equivalent? If not, a rebalancing, away from universities and towards post-school general public learning support, seems justifiable. The extent of this shift is politically debatable. Where, I wonder, are the figures that would enable the appropriate comparisons and judgements to be made? And what judgement ought the Labour Party to make?