Many have recently been debating the details of the Browne report and why the decision of the government is regressive, creating an unfair debt on those seeking to better themselves at university. However, such a debate cannot be had in isolation. As such, I feel it is important that we step back and consider the wider values around university funding.
As the title of this piece suggests I believe university funding is totemic of our values. Simply, what we believe about higher education funding says a lot about what we believe as a progressive movement.
For me, the question of university funding highlights three key issues that are – or should be – at the heart of the Labour party and the wider progressive movement: fairness, equality of opportunity and positive government investment in our future.
Firstly, the foremost issue about university funding to me has always been about fairness. The system must be built upon the basic criterion that ‘those with the broadest shoulders bear the greatest burden’. This is something that the coalition government has stated it agrees, although as Charlie Brooker recently pointed out in an article in the Guardian, ‘the majority of people develop broad shoulders by doing underpaid manual work, not trading stocks from the comfort of a Herman Miller Aeron chair’.
The real point is that two people with exactly the same degree may choose different courses in life. It is surely fair that those who graduate and become millionaire bankers should pay many times more than those who graduate to become social workers or teachers. 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. This is not because it is wrong to become a banker, or morally superior to become a social worker (although some might think that), but simply because they can afford it, because it will impact them least, and because the money required to fund a world-class university system is immense. This system should not be designed around desperate tinkering with levels of interest rates to soften the blow (for the Liberal Democrat backbenchers as much as anyone else); it should be a truly just system where the richest graduates provide their fair share of funding. A rational, caring progressive society is built upon the foundation that those with the most contribute the most.
Secondly, the core principle of equality of opportunity must be enshrined within the system. If we are truly to create a society where wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many and not the few, ensuring every child has the opportunity to go to university must be a barometer. The decision about going to university is about whether it is right for each individual and as soon as it becomes a choice between debt and university we are forcing the poorest students’ hand. Furthermore, do we want to build a society where the only way to get on is by building up a lifetime of personal debt? Is that really ‘getting on’? The Tories see themselves as the party of aspiration. How can students truly aspire to the lives they want and the goals they want to achieve if they will spend the majority of their working lives paying off crippling levels of debt?
Thirdly, all economic models of globalisation show Britain that in order to succeed we must be the inventors, designers and high-skill leaders of tomorrow, that we cannot compete in the low-skill and low-cost market. As a nation we should ensure that as many of our children as possible go on to be scientists, writers and architects. Now, we all know career paths are not irreversible either or decisions that befall students aged 18, but ensuring a well funded and fair system of university funding is about ensuring future generations of British citizens are ready for a truly globalised world. For this you need government intervention and investment; you need to build university funding into a tax system that is progressive and fits the first principle of this article. By doing so you ensure Britain’s future generations design and build all they can, thus raising the tax revenues of future budgets. The point is almost too obvious to state: by investing now we guarantee the quality of tomorrow’s society.
Labour lost support over tuition fees while in government. Many define this as a student issue. It isn’t. It is an issue for thousands of mothers and fathers up and down the country today looking at their 16-year-old son or daughter, wondering how they will support their shining light through university and whether to advise them away from university and into work.
Ed Miliband as leader supports the introduction of a graduate tax; Labour is on the truly progressive side of the university funding argument. This issue defines us as a party – can everyone regardless of wealth or background achieve their potential and will those who can bear the greatest burden carry the load of creating a fairer society?
It’s time to show our true values.