‘Major Review’? Who’s he?
Monday 19-02-2018 - 15:51
The fallout from the general election last year will run and run. After Labour promised to abolish tuition fees and saw a massive increase in young people getting involved on different issues, the Tories have been running scared about losing popularity with students.
So in October, Theresa May promised a ‘radical review’ of student funding – but then, typical of this chaotic government, the universities minister Jo Johnson un-announced it, saying “we always keep the system under review”. Johnson and the education secretary Justine Greening were against it – but then, in January, they were booted out in a reshuffle. Their replacements, Sam Gyimah and Damian Hinds respectively, took over – and the review was back on. And today, the PM™️ formally launched it. But what a ‘major review’ actually means hasn’t been clear. It’s been debated whether it’ll be major or minor, internal or external – and whether it will focus mostly on tuition fees in higher education, or look further afield.
Although no announcement was made in the speech, there have been rumours that fees will be cut to £7,500, as Philip Hammond considered over the summer, or even to £6,000, which is the current baseline. Johnson suggested it should provide ‘value for money’ and ‘incentivise choice and competition’. Both Hinds and Gyimah want ‘different price points’ for different courses. Hinds says there should be a cut in the interest rate on student loans, but the Commons Treasury Committee says there shouldn’t. The Committee says ‘re-introducing maintenance grants’ should be assessed.
Let’s break down the facts from the rumours, and explore what the review – which will last ‘up to a year’ – might actually mean for you.
The Good: Maintenance Grants
As the Committee recommended, the review will ‘assess the case for re-introducing maintenance grants’. The Conservatives scrapping maintenance grants in 2015 was a brutal move, which affected the poorest students. At the time, EHSU co-ordinated an effort to take students to Westminster to lobby MPs, which I was proud to be involved in.
Since then, I’ve been lobbying MPs on student funding, including the Shadow Minister for Higher Education, and discussing how important restoring maintenance funding is. In Wales last year, they had their own review of HE funding, the Diamond Review, which avoided grabbing headlines and instead sought political consensus – and the result was a dramatic increase in student support. Reinstating grants has widespread support, from former Labour education secretary Charles Clarke to former Tory ministers David Willets and Greening. Maintenance grants are approximately 70% cheaper than cutting fees, and restoring them will have a profound effect on students from the least privileged backgrounds.
The Bad: Cutting the Arts
Something worrying is the threat of the ‘different price points’ offered by Hinds and Gyimah. The proposal is to cut fees for arts and social science courses, because in terms of job opportunities they don’t have ‘higher returns to the student’. So cheaper arts courses – sounds good, right?
The problem is that cheaper courses creates the perception that they’re lower quality or worth less, which drives down applications – so less funding overall. Which means departments have less money, so then quality actually is threatened. It also means that the money universities use to cross-subside other (more expensive) courses will be reduced – creating more chaos, and affecting STEM subjects too. While the Prime Minister’s announcement wasn't specific on the topic, it seems likely that it'll be up for debate as part of the review, which will give universities and SUs the opportunity to submit evidence against the idea.
The Ugly: Not thinking it through
The fear behind the whole review is around the £9k figure. The Tories are worried about Labour’s appeal, and will likely want to get that figure down at any cost. But just cutting fees to £6k without compensation to universities will cost our HE sector £3.3 billion – and if they try to appeal to students by headline-grabbing without plugging the gap, we’ll be left with a weaker and underfunded system. Analysis by London Economics found that because of the amount of debt that doesn’t get paid back, a £6k fee doesn't actually affect most students' debt, and only benefits wealthier graduates. Bit bad.
Here’s some clipart of a graduation cap full of money.
So what can we do about all this?
Well, the biggest asset we have is your voice. The more evidence we can gather of what students at Edge Hill actually want, the more we can submit to the Government as the review enters full swing. We’ll also work with NUS to push for student representation on the review panel. Once consultations are launched, we’ll gather your views in the widest possible way – and make sure that your student funding system reflects what you want. Keep an eye out for surveys and Food For Thoughts over the next year!
Luke
References:
