‘We need boldness in higher education reform, not tuition fee hikes’

Last week, Rachel Reeves caused a stir in the right-wing press. As she prepared to deliver the first budget of this government, she replaced a portrait of Conservative former chancellor Nigel Lawson with a picture of Ellen Wilkinson.

I’m sure Reeves wouldn’t mind it observed that Wilkinson is the more radical figure of the two, even despite The Daily Mail branding the chancellor “Red Rachel” over the portrait debacle. In her brief time as Education Secretary, Wilkinson’s reforms provided for universal secondary education and free school meals for British children, as well as a total transformation of unfit school buildings. In a country broken by war she successfully brought thousands of children into the education system: a magisterial legacy.

The Telegraph, characteristically, led the portrait story with “the hot-tempered communist inspiring Rachel Reeves”. Setting aside the noisier parts of the headline, there was a clunky attempt to connect some kind of political objective between the two. Given yesterday’s announcement on tuition fees, it’s clear this government’s approach to education, at least, is not Wilkinson’s.

The small print

As well as announcing an increase in tuition fees of almost £300, the government announced an increase in maintenance loans – both in line with inflation. As the National Union of Students has said, the increase in maintenance loans is welcome.

Research by the Higher Education Policy Institute and Unipol found that the average student has little more than 50p a week to spend on living expenses, and many across the country are simply at breaking point. The allowance for less well-off students simply had to increase.

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What’s missing from the picture, however, is the increase in maintenance grants Labour had promised. Rather than piling on more and more debt for students, maintenance grants should be extended – especially as prices are still soaring after the heights of the cost-of-living crisis.

For a working-class student beginning a three-year course from next year, they’ll wrack up a total debt of over £60,000. Given last year’s changes to repayments, they might be continuing to pay this off until they’re in their 60s.

Tuition fees are not popular

According to opinion polling conducted last year, supported by Progressive Britain, 70% of the public believes tuition fees are too high. The same proportion believes that tuition fees should not rise and, if they are to rise, it ought to be slower than the rate of inflation. Across party support, age demographics, class indicators, there is no appetite for an increase in tuition fees.

The government has been clear that they are taking, as they say, “tough decisions”. But following the abolition of the winter fuel payment and a lukewarm public reception to the budget, it’s also clear they risk alienating big groups of voters.

It’s not just about making sums work, it’s about the larger narrative. A bus fare cap going from £2 to £3 will cost some people hundreds of pounds a year, while contributing an insubstantial amount to Treasury coffers. Likewise, increasing tuition fees and extending the repayment period is a sticking plaster on an enervated higher education sector – it won’t stop universities from facing the cliffedge of bankruptcy within months. The increase, while daunting and off-putting for students, will make a difference of only about 1% or 2% to university operating budgets (below inflation).

The main impact will be the political cost. UCU’s Jo Grady calls the increase “economically and morally wrong”. Even the new Shadow Education Secretary, an unlikely champion, came out yesterday to declare that “students can be forgiven for feeling betrayed” by Labour’s tuition fee hike. To a public who voted for change, this could all begin to look distressingly like austerity.

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In this year’s election, Labour’s share of the vote among under-30s went down by over 10%, as did the number of younger people turning out to vote. With rents going up, wages staying still and ever-bigger debts for going to university, is it any wonder they’re not enthusiastic?

The education system clearly needs bold reform. That means thinking clearly and candidly about decades of failed policy. Marketisation of education has failed, and we need a new model – a model that takes education seriously as a public and economic good, and doesn’t treat students and graduates like cash cows.

Bridget Phillipson will be laying out a longer-term plan for education in the coming months. I look forward to seeing the thinking laid out, and I’m very keen on the language about universities as civic anchors, the “beating heart” of local communities across the UK, and the implication of a community wealth building approach with HE as the key. I’m less keen on the language of “efficiency”.

We cannot take young voters for granted. They see the way education in the UK has been trashed by fourteen years of Tory mishandling, and they want to see Labour make good on its promise to fix the mess. If we can’t deliver, it’ll push them away from our movement. Labour must be bold, in the spirit of Wilkinson: lifelong education, free at the point of use.

Ultimately, as Phillipson said yesterday in the chamber, “responsible Governments must treat universities not as a political battleground but as a public good”.

I couldn’t agree more.

Read more of our Budget 2024 coverage:

• • Live updates and stream as tax and spend policy revealed
  • Labour’s Budget 2024: All the policies announced in advance
  • ‘No fiscal rule is perfect. But this one means welcome investment’
  • Fiscal rules: What is Reeves changing – and why does it matter?
  • Bus fare cap row rumbles on as Burnham sticks to £2 cap
  • Sam White: ‘Budget 2024 leaves Reeves facing nine circles of fiscal hell’
  • Budget bus fare row: ‘The £2 cap was a rare policy that dramatically improves lives – it’s so cheap people talk about it’
  • Budget 2024: National Minimum Wage set for record hike and Living Wage to rise 6.7%
  • Budget 2024: ‘How Rachel Reeves will turn the page on the Tories’ economic illiteracy’
  • ‘How Labour councils can help Starmer and Reeves deliver their growth mission’
  • Who key Budget policies are aimed at – and the electoral strategy they signal
  • ‘A proper Labour Budget’: MPs, unions and readers overjoyed at NHS and NMW cash – but some fear for public services
  • Autumn Budget 2024: Read Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ full Budget speech

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