University vice-chancellors published a report this week, making it clear they believe student fees must rise again. While it is hardly surprising that they should demand even more money from students, it is equally clear that a new fee hike is not compatible with getting Britain through this recession, or supporting the process of recovery. To launch a campaign for higher fees when so many are returning to education to improve their chances, against the odds, is as astonishing as it is misguided.
Even more worryingly, these vice-chancellors seem to be complacent about the risks posed by opening up a full market of prices in higher education. Having campaigned for a market-based system so vehemently in 2004, they now seem to be going to great lengths to play down the chances that a market would emerge – even if the cap on fees went up to £7,000 a year. I believe as a matter of principle that there is a role for increased ‘choice’ in making our public services better. But a market in higher education would not meet the basic tests for a progressive market: it would not open up choice, widen access or improve accountability.
This market would act against the public interest because there is insufficient flexibility in the system for students to exercise real choices, and because the elite institutions would have an in-built competitive advantage based on their huge endowments, and the ever-present cachet of prestige. This market would really be about conserving and reinforcing old patterns of access and reputation, further embedding social advantage for a privileged few. This is a market, for example, that would do nothing about the fact that 30 per cent of all undergraduate entrants to Russell Group universities went to private schools.
Advocates of a market in university fees believe that their approach merely reflects differences of quality and return on investment within the higher education sector. We believe a market would cause these divisions to emerge, and would see the higher education system become a significant barrier to social mobility – the precise opposite of our ambitions.
There is an important debate to be had about the funding of higher education, but vice chancellors do not seem to want to have it – so wedded are they to a structure that doesn’t meet the needs of our changed economy. We believe there must be fundamental and radical reform. We accept that individuals should contribute to the costs of higher education after they have graduated, but we want this to happen in a genuinely progressive way. Eventually, we must rebuild a financial compact between the state, individuals and employers. In the short-term, it means making clear to some university leaders that students are in no position to pay more – and there is real concern about the role of markets.
Vice-chancellors seem to have moved from their dreaming spires to their ivory towers; I hope they reflect on the reality for people who have access to neither, and reconsider their position.
Students will today visit Westminster to the National Union of Students’ lobby of Parliament. We will present MPs with five foundations for a fair and viable alternative to top up fees.
I agree that there has to be a very serious debate and one that requires universities to ‘modernise’ just as every other public service. There are as Wes says still gross inequalities of access and serious inflexbility in the system. As I have done at endless public meetings, I highlight two areas of quite mindless ‘backwardness.’
Firstly, there needs to be a post-qualifications admissions system; this has been on the table as a ‘rational’ approach for over thirty years. Predicted grades are wildly inaccurate and conditional offers function as an inadequate layer of selection and make the admissions system even more arbitrary. There is considerable evidence that this disadvantages poorer and non-traditional applicants (verifed by Kim Howells at one meeting). This is largely a problem of administration and could be solved very easily by moving exam and entry dates around. Just do it!! The present system has no integrity whatsoever.
Secondly, again over thirty years on, there needs to be a genuine credit accumulation and transfer system at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. All universities have modularised or unitised their programmes, so the intellectual arguments against do not hold. CATS systems can be rule-based – setting up pre-requisites, putting a shelf-life on credits and prescribing rules of combination. But the current lack of flexibility inhibits participation, promotes a sense of failure (you spend two years of time, money and enormous effort, but have to leave and you are simply a ‘drop out’ – not someone 2/3 completed). Some universities claim to have internal CATS systems, but they are very underdeveloped. Many elite universities don’t even have a part-time mode for post-graduate study; some elite universities’ Teaching and Learning Committees do not even know what a ‘credit’means and once explained, dismiss it as no applying to them. This typical inflexibility shuts doors and limits opportunities for financial growth of the universities themselves. Again, the issues (academic, intellectual, social and administrative) and strengths and weaknesses of various models have been quite exhaustively researched and discussed. Just get on with it and implement a system that will encourage participation, aspiration and excellence at all levels.
Without doubt, many UK universities require more funding, but I remain unconvinced that they have really done their research, devised various scenarios and modes of increading funding. Too often, they reach for the easy options – rather than researching, devising and then adopting innovative and strategic perspectives on issues.