OPINION by Joe Ahern
The recently published Browne review recommended changes to higher education funding in England. Some of these changes are to be taken on by the current Conservative and Liberal government. The report recommended that the cap on student fees be removed, but with a levy on those universities that charged over £6,000 in order to cover the cost of student finance on those courses, with repayments starting after graduate's pay passes the £21,000 yearly threshold. The justification for this being that this places the cost of a degree onto the student rather than the taxpayer, the current system being unaffordable due to the poor state of public finances. It is this proposed change to the system that has been met with fury by the National Union of Students, the University and College Union, and others.
The arguments put forward against this are that this will inhibit or at least discourage poorer students from taking a degree. If the Browne review is implemented, it is said, it will harm meritocracy and higher education will become either simply dominated by the well off, or a two-tier system where the rich will attend elite universities, and the poor will attend cheaper universities of a lower standard.
It is my view that these worries are misplaced. Firstly, the government have made it clear that the cap will not be removed. It will remain in place; probably we are told at around £9,000. The whole cost of tuition will still be covered by low interest loans from the government. It also seems apparent that most of those concerned about the changes have not read the other proposals in the Browne review that are likely to be adopted. Students will only have to start repaying their loans when they are earning £21,000 a year, and then at a rate of about £7 a week. Maintenance grants are to be both increased for poorer students and the top income bracket for those eligible for them increased.
It is unlikely that these changes will price anyone out of university. However I must admit, if they go some way towards eliminating the view of university as simply the default option, then they will be a good thing. It is reasonable to make students incur the cost of their own education not just out of fairness to those who are eventually footing the bill, the taxpayers, but because it makes economic sense. Free or heavily subsidised services increase demand for those services exponentially. The often quoted figure of 50% of students going to university is no accident; it is a result of offering students educational opportunities at considerably below cost. University and the degree itself have been for too long held up as the be all and end all of post 18 education. Alternatives such as apprenticeships, colleges and paid work have been over looked for too long, that is one cost of our past policies on higher education. The other is of course hundreds of thousands of graduates flooding the job market with skills that employers do not require, sociologists end up in starbucks, historians at call centres etc; this needs correcting.
I will summarise by saying that these changes are to be welcomed, we can look forward to a better funded, and perhaps even less crowded, higher education system. We can also take heart that they may go a small way to curing this country of its crippling public sector debts. A final word about the recent protests: Violence is to be deplored in a democracy, I would say this even if I agreed with the proposals so I expect others to say so too. However I think that the irresponsible and inflammatory response to the proposed changes by the NUS, particularly Aaron Porter, made such outbursts inevitable. I applaud that he has condemned the violence, though others in the NUS have not, but for matters of expediency a bill for the damage at Milbank tower should arrive at the door of NUS HQ post haste.
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