In the past, I have been a supporter of the ‘Keep the Cap’ message. I thought that tuition fees helped improve universities to an extent, but they shouldn’t be too high. If they were too high, you could deter some potential students from applying for a place.
Back in 2006, I was part of the group from Hull University Union who went down to London and marched (with many other unions) through part of London to Trafalgar Square. This was part of the NUS‘s ‘Admission: Impossible’ campaign (photos from the event are here).
Campaigning against students having to pay more money is a natural thing for a body like the NUS to do and, at the time, the economy was stable enough, so lifting the cap wasn’t necessary.
However, that was roughly four and a half years ago. Things have changed and the economy is in a worse state. Cuts needed to be made and tuition fees have been increased. Now I agree with increasing fees as we are in a less than ideal situation.
Photo taken by Anna Machell, a.k.a. thespyglass (Flickr, CC Attribution-NonCommercial)
Condemnation
Following the news that many universities are set to charge the maximum for tuition fees (£9,000), Ed Miliband and the Labour Party were (naturally) quick to criticise what they believe to be the cause of this – the Coalition government (well, they call it a ‘Tory-led Government’ because they approve of cheap marketing slogans instead of proper political terminology).
In this article on the Labour website, there was the following quote from Ed:
“This unfair and shambolic tuition fee policy is now unravelling.
“It will cost students more.
“It will now cost the taxpayer more.
“And it may cost thousands of young people their place at university.”
In this Guardian article, there was the following from Ed:
“He accused the government of a “second betrayal” and said David Cameron had broken a promise that £9,000 fees would be an exception.
“Nick Clegg promised not to raise tuition fees, and now David Cameron looks set to break his [promise] by saying that £9,000 fees would be the exception,” Miliband said. “What’s more, this incompetence blows a hole in the claimed savings in the tuition fees policy.””
It’s true. The coalition did state that charging £9,000 would be an exception. Whilst not every university is charging the maximum, a large number are (this assumes that the Office for Fair Access approves each submission made to them). The coalition felt that they would see an average yearly fee of £7,500, but this has been proven wrong and, in hindsight, they were foolish to make the estimate so low.
However, all of this has been done due to a combination of a global financial crisis and financial mismanagement by the previous government. Remember, they were the ones who introduced tuition fees in the first place.
Whilst Labour have been reactionary, the general points are in line with what they have been saying previously. I guess consistency (in this situtation) could be interpreted as a good thing.
Case study – The University of Hull
This university was one of the institutions to announce that they were charging the maximum today. Whilst they are not ranked as highly as anything from Oxbridge, they are frequently ranked highly and have received awards for both academic quality and the general student experience. They feel that charging the maximum because of the cuts will enable them to maintain/improve their current standard.
In a press release, the Vice-Chancellor (Professor Calie Pistorius) said:
“We have given careful thought to the package of support we are offering to our students and by doing so, no student should feel that an undergraduate experience at Hull, irrespective of their background or financial situation, is beyond their grasp.”
The press release also stated implied that existing students would not be affected (confirmed after seeing an email sent to all staff) and that graduates will only start making repayments when their income goes above £21,000.
That second point is an important one and something that is the same for all universities across the country. So, if you e.g. earn no more than £17,000 per year for the rest of your working life, you won’t need to make repayments. This also means that the minimum earnings boundary is higher than it was for the previopus fee levels.
Basically, a university remains free at the point of use.
I graduated from The University of Hull in 2006 (under the old fee structure). A combination of that and what I earn at present means that I repay nearly £40 per month. This is not the largest deduction by far (the largest is tax and the second largest is National Insurance). Naturally, if I graduated under the new structure, that monthly repayment would be slightly higher and there would be more of them. However, the amount would still be negligible when compared to things like tax and NI.
There is too much hyperbole surrounding repayments and, despite the noticeable fee increase, the repayments won’t be as bad as people think.
The Student Union response
Hull University Union issued an official response to their university’s actions. It included the following:
“We recognise this level of tuition fee is coupled with a draconian cut to the University teaching funding from the Government but the University must prioritise the continued improvement of teaching quality under this new fee level as student expectations will correctly grow as their burden of payment is substantially increased.
We will continue to challenge the University to have an ambitious policy to ensure access to this University is available to all students from all backgrounds and to have a retention plan to improve the ability of all students to stay in higher education and importantly finish their course of study.”
It’s pleasing to see a calm and measured response (in contrast to the more extreme stance of Hull Students Against Fees & Cuts). It’s also understandable that they don’t wan’t students to be paying too much. Their response also mentioned a referendum about this in the previous year – good to see some recognition for that and a willingness to go with the views of who they represent.
However, the university (like many others) are in an impossible situation. If they were to charge less than £9,000 per year, they could be perceived as a second class institution. This would mean student numbers would go down even more and their income would be reduced.
Finally…
The coalition government could have increased the levels of national taxation. However, then you would have people who have never been in Higher Education paying for students. It is not unrealistic for those who benefit to ay something back. When, funding is more scarce, it’s perfectly realistic for the contribution to be Higher unless other forms of income are identified.
Wes Streeting, a former VP and President of the NUS disagrees with the increases, but agrees with some of the points that the Coalition have made. However, he believes that there should be far more publicity for financial provisions that will ease any burden on future students.
As I mentioned earlier, I used to disagree, but the economy is different now and changes have to be made. Increasing the tuition fees is now a legitimate thing to do.
So, what do you think?