Daily View: University funding
Commentators discuss higher education in anticipation of Lord Browne鈥檚 review of university funding which is expected to recommend the cap on tuition fees is removed.
The president of the National Union of Students [subscription required] that above all else he wants to make sure the current system of tuition fees isn鈥檛 extended, as he says it doesn鈥檛 work:
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鈥淥ver the past four years, neither overall student satisfaction nor quality has improved. In the same period, the number of university managers has increased by 30 per cent. Student-staff ratios have barely improved at all, despite 60 per cent of tuition-fee income being spent on salaries. Vice-chancellors received a bumper 10 per cent pay rise last year.
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鈥淢eanwhile, a quarter of the additional income from fees has been spent on an a bursary system so complicated and unjust that even the fair-access regulator admits that it has had no effect on widening participation among under-represented groups.鈥
that the timing of the comprehensive spending review means it may come before any increase in university revenues is known:
鈥淚t is probably too late to urge caution on George Osborne's team at the Treasury but it would be as well to warn them not to be too enthusiastic to reduce university spending - and bear in mind rises in students fees are not a given.
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鈥淚f the extra revenue does start to flow to the sector as a result of the Browne review, it would surely make sense to pencil in the necessary cuts after the result of this is known rather than before - despite the current obsession (in most cases justified) for three-year spending reviews.鈥
the difficult position the review may put Liberal Democrat MPs in:
鈥淭he final page of the coalition agreement says 鈥榠f the response of the Government to Lord Browne鈥檚 report is one that Liberal Democrats cannot accept, then arrangements will be made to enable Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain in any vote.鈥 But they so don鈥檛 want to go there.
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鈥淲ith their big campus seat votes, they want something they can back not something they try to long finger and get fingered for anyway.鈥
The a rough ride in Parliament for any proposed rise in tuition fees:
鈥淲ith Liberal Democrats committed to opposing any rise in university tuition fees, and Labour scenting a vital opportunity to score a victory under their new leader, the Government may struggle to get its education reforms through Parliament next month. Even that scenario depends on a fair number of the 59 Liberal Democrat MPs abstaining rather than voting against.鈥
that the key issue of university funding - social mobility - is the responsibility of not just universities but schools also:
鈥淟ord Browne's recommendations will only fly if it can be clearly demonstrated that the universities will not set fees that would deter lower-income pupils from thinking of a university career. They will have to show how that extra income will go into bursaries and outreach programmes and all manner of measures to improve access to higher education鈥
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鈥淚t is no use expecting the universities to sort all this out by going to 18-year-olds and dangling bursaries in front of them, if those 18-year-olds have long since been let down by the educational system, or if they have concluded that university is not for them. And we cannot expect universities to spend ever more time and money on outreach programmes, sending academics and students around the nation's schools in search of potential undergraduates to foster, when that is a job that should fundamentally be done by the schools themselves.鈥
that a shake-up of university funding needs to avoid simple answers, and she鈥檚 got a few areas she says should get a rethink:
鈥淚sn't it bonkers to wrap up the cost of university research with the job of teaching 19-year-olds? Shouldn't the funding be divided? Most students know a good researcher isn't necessarily a good teacher. The top-notch universities have to be pushed to focus on other ways of paying for research 鈥 including business links, sponsorship and alumni funds. Yes, I know there's lots of this already going on. I know academics often hate it. But given the scale of the problem, there will have to be more.鈥
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