A market in Higher Education is precisely what we need

By Andrew Lomas

Over the coming few weeks, nervous teenagers will be tramping up and down rickety wooden staircases in dark corners of ancient quadrangles to face a grilling from weary Dons. Luckily, I am on the other side of the interview panel these days, but as the candidates’ dry throats produce crackling, half-confident answers, our obsession with Oxford and Cambridge admissions continues to grow unabated. First was the news that some colleges have a less than glowing record on admitting black students. Later in the week, the debate widened to universities as a whole as raising tuition fees came to a parliamentary vote. All the time, we seem to have unconsciously accepted a narrative of social mobility that states that life can only be considered successful if certificated by a university offer letter.

That some students are unsuited to or uninterested in applying, that equally rewarding careers exist that do not require three years of last minute essays and regrettable romantic encounters, or that (shock, horror) some degree certificates are not worth the paper they are written on, has been overlooked. In an Oxbridge context, colleges can only accept the students that apply; beyond this, no amount of access initiatives can negate the fact that by eighteen, it’s usually too late to overcome the glaring structural inequalities that produce an array of educational outcomes. Amidst all this, the principal role of universities seems to have changed from seats of learning to engines of social change without serious question.

Nevertheless, it was with a measure of relief that I woke on Friday to find that, contrary to popular prediction, the sky had not fallen in after the fees vote cleared the commons. The scenes of violence have been claimed to have done the protesters a disservice, but it could be equally argued that it has deflected attention from the weakness of an argument that seems to rest on two flawed points; that higher fees will be detrimental to increasing access to university, and that the reforms will lead to a marketisation of HE (and as we know, in opposition we must treat markets as inherently being a bad thing).

On access, let us accept three points as read (with my earlier comment about social mobility to one side for the time being). Firstly, we can agree that the cost of university can and does deter people, particularly from low-income backgrounds, from participating in Higher Education and that this is a bad thing. Two: that under the current and proposed regime the student does not pay back their fees until they have left university and are earning a set amount (set to rise to £21k pa). Three: that after the introduction of top-up fees, there was no detrimental impact on the access profile into HE. With these points in mind then, let us separate university costs into two distinct brackets; the cost of living whilst at university and the cost of tuition paid after graduation (starting at £35 a month once graduates have hit the magic £21k mark, equivalent to something like gym membership).

I would argue that it is the former that has a greater impact on an individual weighing up whether to go to university. Moreover, the ability of parents to support their children whilst they are at university is a more glaring inequality than the ability of graduates to repay their fees once they are in work and earning a certain amount. Given this statement of the seemingly obvious, it was disappointing to see that the coalition was offering free tuition to pupils on free school meals as a concession; bringing parental income into an equation that is entirely predicated on graduate future earnings is nonsense and misses the point on living costs. Moreover, I was appalled to see that the NUS negotiating team offering maintenance grants and other support packages for poorer students for the chopping block in order to perpetuate what is effectively a middle class subsidy; shifting the burden onto poorer students is, in this context, quite frankly abhorrent. It would have been far better for all sides to propose something more imaginative; for example, privatising the Crown Estate (£6bn) and using the proceeds to fund a national endowment to provide scholarships for those that need them.

As for creating a market in HE, I’d say that that is precisely what the sector needs; it’s not for a minister in Whitehall (or newspaper columnists) to decide which courses are worthwhile and those that are pejoratively termed ‘Mickey Mouse.’ Quite simply, if universities cannot get their graduates into jobs where they are earning enough to pay back their fees then they have a stark choice, and those institutions that continue to offer three years of substandard lectures and undemanding exams will rightly whither. More broadly, students will have to ask whether HE is right for them (for example, you can start training to be an accountant without a degree) and it will force institutions that want to remain viable to innovate. Is distance learning a better model? Could we scrap the long summer vacation and offer a two-year degree? Whilst this doesn’t mean that ‘creative’ subjects won’t be studied any more, it does mean that the taxpayer will cease to fund young Jemima’s rhythmic dance and basket weaving course.

In short, we have to face facts; HE has a funding shortfall that pre-dates the financial crisis and the UK has, historically, had a workforce that has a smaller skills base than other large economies. Both of these things impact upon our productivity and international competitiveness. The trick for opponents of fees is to come up with a solution that addresses these problems; the obstacle for them is that no such alternative exists that doesn’t reduce the independence of Universities, the number of students, or quality of teaching.

Also in the news last week was the revelation that our state schools continue to slip in international league tables. Considering this, and the fact that life chances are by and large determined well before a student leaves school, I would suggest that the fees protesters divert their considerable energies towards improving outcomes before the age of eighteen. Of course no-one likes having to pay for something that was recently free, but leaving school with no or few qualifications is by far a greater burden both to the individual and society.