Over the past few weeks, thousands of students across the country have been starting their first term at university. Their arrival was overshadowed by a mixture of excitement and the grim fact that they will be the first to be charged up to £9,000 for tuition. With this symbolic moment in mind, it will be tempting for Labour to reiterate its opposition to George Osborne’s steep cuts to teaching budgets and the political choice made by Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs to increase the cap to such a staggering level.
It should of course do this, but as higher education in Britain moves towards a period of change the party needs to move the terms of the fee-centric debates surrounding its future. Since Labour introduced them in 1998, tuition fees have become a political lightning rod that has dominated discussions on the sector. In many ways this is unsurprising given their symbolic nature, striking at the heart of the idea of who should pay for someone’s tertiary education. However, there are two distinct risks of focusing on fees and neglecting other areas of Britain’s higher education sector that require attention.
First, by focusing on fees, we risk ignoring those costs of living which bar potential students from attending university and affect the experience of those already attending. The expense of textbooks, food and especially accommodation are arguably a far greater barrier for young people on low incomes than fees which are paid after university and above a certain income threshold. In my own university of St Andrews, for instance, a lack of affordable accommodation has forced all too many students to accept poor-quality housing and bad treatment from landlords.
Despite this, the issue of cost receives far less attention among our politicians and media outlets than fees. Labour should take the initiative on this issue and discuss new ways of extending government funding for maintenance and even implementing new rules and standards to prevent landlords from exploiting student tenants. If we are concerned about expense barring the talented to going to university, then we should pay more attention to these costs, which are upfront and do create a real barrier.
The second potential problem is that by limiting debates over universities to fees, other crucial areas where real reform is needed are neglected. One of these is the issue of funding of postgraduate degrees. In a labour market where undergraduate degrees are becoming much more of a norm, postgraduate qualifications are becoming an important marker of distinction. Indeed, the differential in income between workers with an undergraduate degree and those with a postgraduate one was 13 per cent in 2009. However, a combination of high upfront fees and support limited to a small pool of scholarships and career development loans prices many out of them. According to the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, roughly 60 per cent of taught postgraduates receive no support for tuition fees or living costs at all.
A status quo where postgrad qualifications and the increased earnings they bring are all too contingent on family wealth is something Labour should not accept. Instead, we should widen the discussion on fees and access to postgraduate degrees as well. In particular, Labour should call for a new system of government support based on subsidy and loans of the kind used for undergraduates in its next manifesto. This would be an important continuation of Labour’s historic mission of expanding the higher education system and providing new opportunities for the many.
Building an inclusive university system that retains its world-class reputation in a time of upheaval in higher education is no small task, but one Labour should ruthlessly pursue. That should begin now with a real debate about issues other than fees and funding. The next generations of students deserve nothing less.
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William Lord is a student, a member of Progress and tweets @Will__Lord
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