The Metro on Friday ran with the headline “Anarchy in the UK”, though you can’t help but feel if Prince Charles’ car wasn’t damaged as part of the protests the headlines might have been much less brutal. The student protests over the past few weeks have been a gleaming example of people power in a democratic society but all too often they have exposed the anger and frustration in today’s youth. That’s not a surprise at all – young people these days are under considerable pressure to do well in exams, to look thin and attractive among their peers and, increasingly, start to think about how to care for their elders in an ageing population.
This week’s controversy relates to the House of Commons approving the increase of the minimum level universities can charge undergraduate students by 200%. Certainly it’s unpopular among young people, and especially those that voted Lib Dem, but I’ve struggled to find an objective discussion on this issue that focuses more on the impact of the changes rather than petty political alliances. I’m going to give this a go here.
A few facts:
ONE – THERE’S NO MONEY LEFT. The former Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne might have been blunt, but he was correct. The often quoted size of the UK deficit is £175bn (9 zeros) which equates to roughly £2,500 for every man, woman, child and baby in the UK. Left unchecked, that number is only going to rise as interest payments and other charges rack up.
TWO, UNIVERSITIES HAVE CHANGED. We live in a country where the number of higher education institutions is counted in the hundreds rather than the tens. The UK has one of the most comprehensive further education systems in the world and is envied the world over for the opportunities they bring.
THREE, NOONE VOTED FOR THIS GOVERNMENT. Election campaigns and manifestos are based on the notion that one party forms the government, not two. To say that this government is unpopular is an immediate truth, noticeable from day one of the coalition agreement. An extension of this notion argues that compromise is inevitable – while that’s not an indisputable fact, it’s worth briefly mentioning.
FOUR, NOT EVERYONE IS A STUDENT. In fact, there’s an awful lot of people who aren’t students. It won’t be long before there are more retired people in the UK than young people, so while most of the people who fraternise Facebook might be young, and that your news feed might be filled with anti-tuition-fee-rise rhetoric, it doesn’t speak for the UK as a whole. Even if you aggregate the total protestors from the student riots, they still make less than 10% of the number who protested against fox hunting or the Iraq war.
It’s at this point where I delve into the economics of things. Hopefully this won’t make you fall asleep. Economics teaches us one main conclusion for this scenario, and one that most people are neglecting: university does in fact cost a huge amount of money, a lot, lot more than it does at the moment. The fact that most universities will raise their fees to the maximum shows the actual cost on universities is still well above £9,000. In fact, Lord Browne’s review – which led to the current policy – said that in the absence of government intervention fees would be as high as £14,000 per person per year. Perspective is now quite important; relative to a scenario where universities are free to choose what fee they like, the £9,000 fee is actually good for students. Relative to a £3,000 fee, it’s much worse.
Let’s now focus on both sides of the argument, starting with those who oppose the fees.
“Increased fees will mean fewer people go to university”. That’s perfectly valid; if you’re going to start messing around prices then there is no doubt that the number of people who will buy it. Trebling fees will mean fewer people will study and there’ll be an adverse impact on the quality of the English education system.
“All the politicians had a free university education, why shouldn’t we?” This argument is completely invalid. The reason why university was free in times of yore is that hardly anyone went, which meant that government subsidies to universities weren’t very high (see Fact TWO). Nowadays, in a world where are more universities and more people going to universities, the size of government subsidy would be huge. Last year, according to UCAS, 480,000 places were available. If universities were free, and we assume that £14,000 is the true cost I mentioned above, that makes a total subsidy of £6.7billion each year. That’s the same as the GDP of Albania or Cambodia or two thirds the cost of the UK police force, to give a bit of perspective.
“They’re breaking their election pledge to avoid top-up fees.” This is true as well. The Lib Dems have made a fairly considerable U-turn on their pre-election policy of opposing any increases in tuition fees. But let’s not start saying that Clegg and his liberal army have completely sold out and lost their political credibility. U-turns in government policy are not uncommon – even within a few months of a general election – and if we recall Fact THREE no-one voted for a Liberal-Conservative government. Given the compromises in the coalition agreement, it’s a set of policies that neither party can be particularly pleased with.
“The Welsh and Scottish government won’t raise fees at their universities”. That’s true, but also completely irrelevant. The Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament have powers to write their own legislation and they have their own budgets. If they want to subsidise their own universities then that is entirely their decision. In part, we can recall Fact TWO; funding models for 10ish universities in Wales and 15ish universities in Scotland will be completely different to a funding model for 90+ universities in England.
Let’s now look at some of the arguments for increasing fees.
“It’s a much fairer system for everyone.” This argument simply isn’t clear, and it’s a slight failure on the government to not explain how the system will be fairer. But the headline argument – trebling tuition fees to £9,000 – certainly isn’t clear.
“Everyone has to chip in to reduce the deficit.” This is a very compelling argument and it’s surprising the government haven’t pushed this further. There are so many cuts and changes being planned that there is no-one that won’t be affected (see Fact ONE). Everyone in the public sector (5 million people) is taking a pay freeze – or in inflation terms a pay cut – and there is a 10% chance of redundancy across the sector. Child benefit payments will be changed or scrapped. VAT will increase in January to 20%. The coalition plans affect everyone and as far as I know everyone else hasn’t started demonstrating and wrecking small parts of city centres. The fact that students feel it necessary to destroy parts of Parliament Square each week to vent their anger is frankly bordering on childish – it’s not as if everyone else is happy with the cuts. We can also use Fact FOUR here – not everyone is a student.
“Better paid graduates should pay more.” This argument depends on whether you think fairness is a good thing. The merits of going to university in terms of higher pay and better career progression are pretty well explored – by academics, unsurprisingly (of course university academics would say this – they want people to study at their institution!) And if you think that the raised tuition fees acts as a graduate tax or not – given how long it might take to pay off debts – then better paid graduates in areas like business and law should indeed pay more if fairness is a big part of your agenda. That said, if you’re going to spend three years studying to get a job with equivalent pay as that without a university degree, then there’s three years wasted earnings a student misses out on as well as a big question about what added value a degree brings.
“Universities will need to improve to excellence to justify the cap.” This argument is valid if the system works. Measuring excellence is not straightforward to do, at least numerically, and everyone’s opinion of ‘excellence’ is different. But it’s pretty likely that universities will take this up and make improvements; given the cuts to their allocation from the government they will do anything to get more money from domestic students.
So there are the arguments both for and against. Make your mind up as you wish, but for what it is worth here’s my opinion. I was fortunate enough to pay £1,200 a year each year for my degree, but I wouldn’t think twice about my decision to go to university if fees were £3,000 or even £9,000 – I would still go. The benefits of going to university still outweigh the costs, even if fees are £27,000 for three years. I know I would not have done a fraction of the things I have done and be in the place that I am in my life if I didn’t go to university. I know I can say that with the benefit of hindsight, but I am confident I would have the same view five years ago before I went to university…
What do you think?
