The Lib Dems are rightly the focus of ire today and for this session, even if one sees it as deliberative democracy in action. However, the list of parties who’ve got it wrong on fees is much longer than that, and it seems unfair to let the others off the hook.
The Tories were the first to attack access to higher education. In 1989 they began whittling the grant system for poor students away and replacing it gradually with loans, and a generation redoubled their loathing of them.
Adam Tinworth has some classic protest pictures from that period here.
The new New Labour Government in 1997 then squarely broke a pledge to students and their landslide voters. Their manifesto said: “The improvement and expansion needed cannot be funded out of general taxation. […] The costs of student maintenance should be repaid by graduates on an income-related basis, from the career success to which higher education has contributed.” A graduate tax, in other words, roughly equivalent to Labour’s current plans.
But Blunkett and Blair then used the Dearing report to bring in fees and abolish grants (despite the latter having specifically been against Dearing’s recommendations), and this move became their first major let-down in office. As noted here before, the newly oppositional Tories fought the proposals alongside non-NUS universities, although I was advised by a senior Tory MP “never to trust us if we get back into government”.
Enough space has been spent pointing out the Lib Dems’ inconsistency here and elsewhere, and I won’t add to that, except to say that anyone unsure of the scale of their hypocrisy should watch the start of this ironically-titled broadcast very carefully.
The SNP have historically been supportive of students, but even here there are straws in the wind suggesting a shift. They have a green paper coming out next week on higher education, and Mike Russell gave an ambiguous quote in advance. “What we won’t do is have upfront tuition fees”, he said, before promising “major changes”. Given that we currently have no fees at all in Scotland, thanks to a vote by SNP, Green & (ironically) Lib Dem MSPs, students would be forgiven for anxiety about what those “major changes” might be. A return to fees paid later, the old Lib Dem/Labour position? A new graduate tax, however hard that would be to shoehorn into the current powers of the Scottish Parliament?
Just to return to the principles, education that’s free for all is not a holiday camp perk for the middle classes. Neither fees nor an additional graduate tax are required so students pay society back – if they earn more, they pay more income tax back, and graduates in employment contribute through their work, whether it’s for the private sector, for voluntary organisations, or for the public sector. That’s what Labour’s 97 manifesto said, effectively.
Access to higher education should be on the basis of academic potential and desire to attend and learn, not income level, and anyone who argues that no-one has been deterred by fees is simply wrong in fact. That’s not just the right for individual students – it’s also what the country needs. It’s an unequivocal social good for the brightest and keenest to go on to further and higher education, irrespective of their wealth or their attitude to indebtedness.
As a St Andrews graduate, I certainly knew plenty of people who went to university because their parents were rich and it was expected of them, and I also know plenty of people who didn’t go to university because the opposite was true. That was the era before fees, when it was bad enough already.
All three of the Westminster parties of government have got this wrong in the past. Much as it would be in the Greens’ short-term interest to be the only party committed to free higher education based on academic ability, not to pay, I do hope the SNP won’t go the same way next week.
#1 by Gryff on December 9, 2010 - 6:22 pm
Is there any evidence that fees put anyone off? I don’t like them, but the only evidence I have seen; in a guardian article shows that, equalised across grades, family income doesn’t affect university entrance. That is with fees.
The so called evidence from the Sutton trust just shows what people think they would do under an unexplained scheme.
#2 by CassiusClaymore on December 9, 2010 - 8:07 pm
I was at Uni for 5 years, at the sort of ‘old’ Uni which will doubtless charge the 9K. So, I’d have been in for 45K of debt just for tuition fees.
Would I consider this fair, knowing what I earn now as a result of my degree? Yes, perhaps, although I’d probably argue that my optimised graduate salary has resulted in me paying a lot more tax and to charge me for my study would mean me paying twice.
Would I have gone to Uni faced with that sort of debt on graduation? No way. At 17, and coming from a very modest background, that sort of debt would without doubt have scared me off. In fact, the concept of taking a student loan for what now seems a tiny sum didn’t appeal and I financed Uni by working part-time and staying at home. My parents, who always instilled a “save and spend” rather than “borrow and spend” mentality in me, would never have pushed me into taking on 45K of debt. I would have left school and gone straight into the workplace. I would not have fulfilled my potential, and the exchequer would not enjoy taking 50% of my current earnings.
I can actually understand why a largely private school, largely millionaire cabinet don’t get it. I know a lot of people like them, who’d say – 45K? Big deal. Price of a Range Rover or a decent Merc. But this policy is an absolute disgrace and removes the ladder of further education from a huge proportion of the populace. The people who voted for it should hang their heads in shame, and the LibDems should never be allowed to forget it. They have potentially ended social mobility.
At least the Tories are consistent. They are what it says on the tin. The LibDems have proved themselves to be entirely untrustworthy and unprincipled and I sincerely hope that they are punished accordingly on 5 May.
And anyone who says that these fees won’t put off working class and lower middle class kids is kidding themselves, or perhaps forgetting their roots and how they would have seen things as a 17-year old.
A total disgrace.
In other news:-
1. Weather now the SNP’s fault. Will they be dragged onto the BBC and congratulated on fine July days?
2. Salmond vindicated by Wikileaks. Grey and Goldie presumably about to demand the imprisonment of Megrahi’s corpse.
CC
#3 by Dubbieside on December 9, 2010 - 9:31 pm
There is a very interesting piece on tuition fees and his reasons for resigning from the Lib Dems over the issue.
http://www.libdemvoice.org/opinion-richard-huzzey-i-resign-22345.html
You can feel the guys pain in this post and it obviously was a tough decision for him.
The real question for the Lib Dems is, if this is how an atavist feels about this betrayal, just think of the anger of people, not just students, but parents and grandparents, who voted for the Lib Dems hoping that in the future their offspring might get a university education must feel.
Will they ever vote Lib Dem again? Will they ever believe any election pledge or promise the Lib Dems make, ever again? Answers on a postcard to Nick Glegg
#4 by dcomerf on December 10, 2010 - 11:34 am
How about some analysis of the Welsh situation. I’m very unclear on legal position but I’m interested in what I interpret as the principle behind their solution:
Universities are funded by charges paid by students; the state provides grants to their nationals to allow them to pay these charges.
This seems an emminently fair way for a country with a ‘net immigrant’ student population (like Scotland) to fund its higher education system. The logical conclusion would be that EU students should not be treated differently to non-Scottish UK students (it’s not against EU rules for a state to pay e.g. child benefit to its own nationals and not to the nationals of other EU countries, so I fail to see why this principle cannot be extended to a benefit that pays tuition fees) and that Scottish students should get this benefit regardless of where in the EU they chose to study.
Thoughts?
#5 by Dubbieside on December 10, 2010 - 3:17 pm
A video of Cleeg and his position on tuition fees. What has changed I wonder?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc8i8ujDHHI&feature=player_embedded
Sorry in my last post I spelled Cleeg with a “G” as everyone knows it should be “C” rhymes with transport minister.
#6 by Daniel on December 10, 2010 - 3:29 pm
I really wonder what would happened had Labour remained in power, sadly I doubt it would be much different to this.
Regarding the Welsh changes I understood it as Welsh + EU paying current fees and NI,ENG,SCO paying English levels of fees?
Since Holyrood has made clear it opposes tuition fees what options remain? A graduate tax would be difficult to implement and wouldn’t generate income from the Europeans and British abroad. A Graduate endowment is essentially similar tuition fee and probable wouldn’t raise much.
Perhaps Scotland will copy Wales initially? I assume that there wouldn’t be that much to lose politically in charging the rest of the UK £6,000. This would disadvantage the more ‘Scottish’ institutions with less English Students and could result in Glasgow, Edinburgh and St Andys being the only universities with significantly increased funding.
What to do?
#7 by Jamie on December 10, 2010 - 6:10 pm
Absolutely spot on. People need to realise that everyone benefits from having a largely educated society, not just the individual graduates.
I’m an electronic engineering undergrad at the moment. I’ll probably go on to work in an industry which will bring a lot of money to the country and benefit everyone’s lives. People like having better phones, playstations and laptops. And people need to have life-saving medical technology and renewable energy.
And it’s not just the more vocational or technology-related degrees which this is true for. I’d much rather live in a society where people can appreciate history and art, and can have educated rational debates. And of course arts degrees aren’t for everyone, but I don’t see how a 2.1 in history for an interested individual can possibly be a bad thing for wider society.
For what it’s worth, I’ll also probably become a higher rate tax payer later in my career. And I will be more than happy to pay 50% (or more) of my income if it goes towards funding an educated, green and equal society.
#8 by Daniel on December 12, 2010 - 11:10 am
So the SNP have announced they want to keep tuition free in Scotland – probably paid for through general taxation….
#9 by Jeff on December 12, 2010 - 1:58 pm
Great news. They had no other option though really with the election coming up. If Labour gets in and bring in fees again then the SNP can attack with clean hands.
Not sure where the money will come from though….
#10 by Daniel on December 12, 2010 - 3:01 pm
I agree. I broadly support a lot of what the SNP are doing but most their announcements have been to reassure people of all the policies that wont be cut, an awful lot of them too!