Alistair Darling clearly hopes that today's pre-budget report will be greeted as good news by young people. It will certainly not be welcomed as such by university vice-chancellors staring a £600m cut in the higher education budget square in the eye.
After 12 years of prosperity and rising public spending, today's PBR is a sharp introduction to the new climate of tax rises and spending cuts. During the past 12 years arguments with government have been predominantly about how, rather than whether, government spends on our colleges and universities. For the foreseeable future the question facing progressives is how the burden of higher taxation can be borne by those with the broadest shoulders and how public spending cuts can be incurred in such a way that protects the things we value most – and the services upon which the poorest and most vulnerable rely most heavily.
Within the current public spending climate, young people have more to welcome than most. The extension of this year's September guarantee will mean that next year's school leavers can be sure of a place in education.
Guaranteeing a place in employment or training for the under-24s who have been unemployed for six months – down from the initial 12-month guarantee – shows that the government has listened to our concerns and learned from the mistakes made during the last recession. And today's announcement of financial support for 10,000 students from low-income families to take up internships will make a real impact in promoting fair access to the professions.
But it is hard to believe that students will not be affected by swingeing cuts to the higher education budgets, just as they will be by the recently announced cuts to the further education budgets. Even worse, I expect some vice-chancellors and politicians will now look to the current review of tuition fees to plug the spending gap. Alarmingly, today's PBR is carried with oblique references to changes to student support arrangements.
I am assured by Lord Mandelson that no major changes in this area will be announced until the government's independent review into higher education funding and student finance has reported. But given that Wendy Piatt, the director general of the Russell Group, has already made her intentions clear by stating that, "it is even more urgent that universities are allowed access to higher levels of income from sources other than the public purse", I want to make it crystal clear that students would not – and should not – tolerate paying more for less.
Any party seeking the student vote at the next election must make clear its commitment to investing in education in the broadest sense and ensuring that students are not forced to pay for a crisis that is not of our making.
