The higher education sector awaits two announcements, each of which will have a significant impact on its finances. First, Labour’s policy on student fees and, second, the details of the amount of cash that each university will receive as a result of its ranking in the recent Research Excellence Framework (REF). These come as we approach the third general election at which student fees and funding will be the main, if not the only, focus of debate as far as higher education is concerned.
The recent expansion of the sector has been driven by two factors. First, the need to increase the number of graduates towards that of our competitor nations and, second, the wish to extend the role that universities play in their communities and in the life of the nation.
Despite broad agreement around these objectives, two decades of passionate debate has left us with no settled view on how either the expansion in numbers or the greater diversity of mission should be funded.
With a market in fees failing to materialise – almost all institutions charge the maximum £9,000 – the average debt for a student on graduation has almost doubled over the last five years, to an estimated £44,000. The country’s finances have fared little better, with the money outlaid by the government on fee loans likely to exceed any future income from student repayments.
However, while the noise around fees grows louder, the real problems caused by living costs receive less attention. Unlike fees, these have to be paid upfront, with any grant nowhere near covering the costs. The debt incurred on a government maintenance loan of £5,000 can easily be doubled if students top this up by borrowing elsewhere.
As for the REF, although the fortunes of individual universities are as yet unknown, the broad pattern of distribution is predictable. The bulk of the money will go to the Russell group universities, which will be seen to have confirmed their status as “top universities”.
To be clear, it’s impossible to overestimate the importance and value of these research intensive universities. They are essential to our economic prosperity and to our international reputation. However, research superiority has become short-hand for all-round excellence and that can be a problem. The risk is that we don’t recognise or reward institutions who excel at those other tasks we now ask of higher education.
A modern higher education system must be built on research, but there is an agenda beyond that. Some universities succeed at kickstarting social mobility through outstanding work on widening access; others are leading civic and social renewal – often in regions that hitherto have had little or no higher education provision – and others still are working hand in glove with local industries to meet their training needs.
We have not adapted to this diversification of mission. All the incentives are for universities, whatever their strengths or their priorities, to compete for the available sources of research funding. We should show greater pride in those institutions that have taken on the new agenda and not force them to imitate those who march to a different tune. We need them all.
Student contribution to fees was one of the consequences of an expanded sector. In reality, there may need to be other changes as well. The model of three years of 30 weeks for an undergraduate course looks increasingly unaffordable as student debt rises. We may need more radical thinking around both two-year degree courses and a cumulative, modular approach.
As for a higher education system that reflects its newfound diversity of mission, the irony is that we used to have one – polytechnics, institutes of science or technology, to name some of the institutions that used to sit alongside universities. At a time when the education system rightly prefers diversity over uniformity, we seem to be doing pretty well at making everyone in higher education jump through the same hoops.
We know that we put the success of our higher education system at risk at our peril – but if it is to remain one of the best in the world, we need more radical ideas than have emerged so far. This is one of those times when boldness would really win the day.
