Tories’ favourite think tank says allow universities to set their own fees to “create a market”

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

Yesterday, Left Foot Forward scrutinised a new Policy Exchange report on the future of university funding, entitled More Fees Please?. LFF’s guest writer, Sally Hunt of the University and College Union, said the right wing think tank’s “lazy” report:

“Spectacularly fails to consider any radical options for the funding of higher education and falls back on the lazy and tired option of students, and their parents, footing the bill.”

The report recommends charging tuition fees of up to £5,000 per student in order to “create a market” in our university sector.

Under market conditions, “elite” universities would be able to charge more for places than others, exacerbating the already too large gap in opportunities for those families on low incomes to send their children to university.

When it comes to education, Policy Exchange is the favoured think tank of the Conservative Party. It was formerly run by Michael Gove, whose Special Adviser, Sam Freedman, was also its education policy person between 2006 and 2009.

Moreover, the Tories have already started to differentiate between helping alumni of “good” universities, with their plans to repay the student loans of those trainee teachers who get a degree above a Third in a “rigorous science subject from a good university”.

Evidently, something radical needs to be done to meet the deficit in university funding. But, as Sally Hunt says:

“What the Policy Exchange, Wendy Piatt and other commentators fail to recognise is the impact debt already has on students and their families. Current graduates are going into an uncertain job market with record levels of debt. It is a myth that student loans do not accrue interest or that the repayments are barely noticeable. Student loan debt takes years to pay off and is one of the monthly costs that is likely to delay people taking out some form of pension. It also makes getting onto the property ladder a pipe dream for the majority of graduates.

“We do need a full and frank debate on the future of how we fund our universities, but we need a proper debate. We do not need the same old tired arguments in favour of students paying more from people with no understanding of the reality of student debt on graduates or their families. And we certainly don’t need elaborate ways to put whole families’ assets at risk or even more complicated debt plans that are likely to enshrine the view amongst people from the poorest backgrounds that university is not for them.”