So, leaving aside the fact that Johann Lamont didn’t actually change policy at the Fabians on Saturday, something the SNP; Newsnet and others seem to be willfully ignoring in their haste to get back on the attack, is even looking at how education funding works in the round a heretical betrayal of some deeply held core principles? I’m going to finish of my degree with a return to philosophy so I thought I’d take what I covered about ethics previously and apply it here but tldr: QTWAIN
Let’s start with some premises:
P1. Education is a public good – society as a whole benefits from an educated populace.
P2. Education is a right – everybody has a right to an appropriate level of education (this is currently universal, compulsory and free up to 16).
Given P1 and P2 it seems both sensible and ethically correct that there should be state funding for further and higher education. In fact, given those, it seems the logical position is to provide as much education as possible for everybody for as long as they want.
Sadly, we must also live with a further premise:
P3. Being in full time education limits current earning potential
One of the reasons I’m studying at the OU is because it means I don’t have to compromise work – there isn’t a great deal of part time work out there for computer programmers. For other people, in other circumstances to me, it makes sense for them to study full-time.
P4. Some people do not have sufficient support to study on part-time earnings
Being at university incurs living costs such as rent, food, clothes, transport as well as books and other materials. While some people may receive support from family, partners etc this is not always possible or sufficient.
Given premises P1-4 we should offer free education to all along with sufficient support to ensure people have a decent standard of living while doing so, perhaps topped up with the sort of part-time, insecure, low wage work generally available to them.
Speaking of money, let’s add a final premise to make this more realistic:
P5. Education budgets are tightly constrained.
This reflects the reality there there is not, unfortunately, an especially large pot of money available. Personally, I’d love to bring back the grant and offer free PhDs to everyone who wanted to do one and was deemed capable. That isn’t on offer from anyone AFAIK, not Labour, not the SNP, not even the Greens.
Given those premises, how can we judge education funding policy? I would argue that P1 and P2 taken together suggest the following corollary:
C1. the greatest number of people who are able to benefit from education are able to do so.
Since education is a public good society benefits and since education is a right society has an obligation to provide it as best it can (rights often come into conflict, so this is often a less than straightforward issue).
Given C1, let us consider some possible schemes that divvy up £1,000,000 (P5) in the budget different ways, with each course costing £10k to deliver £5k of living costs (P3 and P4) and a population of eligible students who would benefit from education and want to do so. 20 will go to university even if they have to pay full fees and full costs (eg. the rich), 100 will go to university if they can get loans to defer fees and costs and 100 will only go to university if they can pay no fees and get help with costs.
S1. No state funding for university education.
This is an extreme example of the situation in the US where everything is paid for the by student through loans or philanthropic grants, bursaries, scholarships etc. Quite clearly violates P1 and P2, let’s move on.
S2. Subsidised loans for fees and living costs costing govt 2% per annum
This is analogous to the situation in England & Wales at the moment. Students on the vast majority of courses pay for the whole of their tuition and are given access to subsidised loans and some bursaries to help defer living costs. It doesn’t quite violate P1 or P2 as there is some attempt at helping, there’s enough money to provide 3333 places but on this model only 120 people want to go. The other 100 are priced out by the system
S3. State funding for course fees, loans for living costs at 2% per annum
This is close to the situation in Scotland. Scottish students do not pay tuition fees and are given subsidised loans to help defer living costs. On this model there are 99 places available, so 31 people who want to go to university are excluded and 100 who would benefit think it’s “not for them”.
S4. Fees for those willing to pay them, subsidised loans living costs for the rest
This is an optimised version of the above – the 20 students who would be willing & able to pay for their education in totality fund another 20 places for a total of 118 and so only 12 who want to take out loans to go to university are excluded and the other 100 are still left out in the cold on princple. Better, but obviously room for improvement.
S5. Full fees and costs for those willing to pay them, subsidised loans for fees and support for those who will go if they can get them and full support for the others on a round robin basis.
This is a perfectly spherical education system operating in a frictionless vacuum with an omniscient and omni-benevolent God means testing system. 20 people go to university and cost the state nothing. There’s £1,000,000 to divvy up between the 100 who require loans and 100 who require full support. Apportioning the funding on a round robin basis to one member of each support-requiring group results in there being 78 places. This is fewer than the 119 above however everybody who could benefit from education wants to.
S6. Full fees and costs for those willing to pay them, subsidised loans for all who would take them and the rest of the budget allocated to full support.
Adjusting S5 to provide the maximum number of places by apportioning funding first to those who only require loans and then to those who require full support yields 184 places with nobody deterred from going on the basis of cost but some of those who most require support excluded due to insufficient funds. That’s harsh, and I’d stress I’m not advocating this or any of the other schemes as an actual policy, but it does provide the greatest number of places and illustrate my fundamental point: an appropriately formulated policy can meet premises P1 and P2 given the constraints of P3 and P4.
Rather than having a free for all accusing me of being a member of the Labour party (hiya R.G) I’d ask folk to limit themselves to challenging the premises, the corollary I assert flows from them and the way they’re applied to the scenarios presented. Egregious errors in my calculations will also be accepted, albeit grudgingly.
That’s really all a long winded way of saying that education funding is a complex, nuanced area with a lot of things to consider when formulating policy. A simplistic stance of “no tuition fees” without considering the affect that has on access and inclusion is not really a principle unless you’re prepared to prioritise platonic characteristics of your system over those characteristics as the inevitably imperfect education system is actually implemented.
The spreadsheet used to calculate the above examples is available here (Edit: now in Excel format). Please download it, it will mean you’re even more tedious than I am and I’d really appreciate that.
#1 by Kieran Wild on May 15, 2012 - 10:18 am
I agree that the “no tuition fees” mantra is simplistic and will limit access. All parties say they are in favour of life long learning, in reality there is not a great deal of it available (Open University is expensive for people on a low income). I think we should be reforming higher education so people can access through out their lives. At the moment most people have to make a huge decision at 18 when they are really still children. Could the Scottish Government work with the Open University to free offer one year access courses so people can get into the second year of the majority of courses offered? It would reduce the amount of debt people get into by a 25% if you only do 3 years at the actual university.
#2 by Aidan on May 15, 2012 - 11:02 am
There’s quite a lot of help available for OU courses for those with a household income of less than £22,000 per annum: £500 covers 2/3rds of a 60 point module. Those with a household income of less than £16,000 per annum get the whole of their fees covered: http://www8.open.ac.uk/study/explained/how-to-apply/financial-support#scotland
I totally agree that we should be looking at alternative routes through education – I wasn’t ready when I went to Glasgow at 17 and dropped out.
Transferring credits between the OU and brick universities is quiet easy, I think the big thing for most people is the organisational changes and being a mature student at undergrad level isn’t the easiest thing in the world if everybody is 19 and listening to music that is both too loud and too fast.
#3 by Doug Daniel on May 15, 2012 - 10:44 am
What is happening in England should be a warning, almost a “look at what you could have won” type moment. Here’s what happens: You start off with a modest fee. Budgets get squeezed, so that fee becomes a little bit higher. Budgets get squeezed even more, and that fee gets higher still. The formerly socialist party in opposition say “oh that’s terrible, how can you even think of increasing fees by £6,000? We’d only increase them by £3,000” and said party’s members bafflingly claim this equates to their party wanting to “cut” fees.
It’s all very well saying we should means test people, and it always sounds great in theory, but in practice, what happens to the people who are just over the line where we say “you must pay fees”? Besides, one of the great things about universally free education is it levels the playing field – you know the others on your course got there on credit, not because mummy and daddy are rich. Students from all backgrounds can get together to share a grotty flat and eat Pot Noodles.
It’s fairly obvious where this charge-some-people approach would lead. Those who pay would start demanding “more value” for their money. They’d want special treatment for their child – otherwise why should they be paying more than everyone else? Maybe set up their own universities and call them “free” universities, even though they’re anything but free. Hmmm, this sounds familiar…
Anyway, when did the Labour party abandon the idea of using income tax in order to fund things? If the education budget isn’t big enough then here’s a pretty novel idea that no one seems to have thought of:
Increase the education budget.
(Incidentally, let’s remember Scotland is not alone in having no tuition fees for its students: http://www.studyineurope.eu/tuition-fees)
#4 by Aidan on May 15, 2012 - 10:57 am
How about what’s happening in Scotland where the number of places are so constrained, as outlined in the model above, that many people are excluded? See, for instance, this Herald article today: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/education/new-call-to-recruit-more-working-class-students.17556641
#5 by Doug Daniel on May 15, 2012 - 1:30 pm
Here’s the key section for me in that article:
“The situation has arisen because access to university is tightly controlled, with pupils given priority depending on their exam results.
Because poverty has a direct impact on academic achievement, pupils who are bright enough to go to university can fail to get the qualifications that allow them to do so.”
Forget any rubbish about how they’re able to support themselves once they’re at uni – Pot Noodles are cheap – the problem is they’re not getting the qualifications to get there in the first place. Therefore the problem is not university, it’s schooling. Direct your ire in the correct direction.
Above all, it’s a drop of 0.8% in 9 years. Not good, but excuse me if I don’t go demanding people start getting put off university by tuition fees for that. The phrase “hammer to crack a nut” comes to mind.
And above all that, I still say the answer is to increase the budget for universities through an increase in the highest rate of income tax (say, 55% like in Ireland). Personally, I consider education to be just as important for a person’s growth and well-being as their physical health. Further down, you talk about how doing this and that would lead to the education budget increasing to 15% of the current Holyrood budget. What you fail to do, however, is tell us why this would be A Bad Thing. now, whether all that’s currently feasible or not is another matter entirely, but then you’re getting into “union dividends” and whatnot.
#6 by Aidan on May 15, 2012 - 1:42 pm
University, college and schools are all paid for out the same pot. If we’re going to increase direct funding elsewhere we should look at all the options – the point of my post is that university tuition fees are not some uncrossable rubicon that in and of themselves limit access to university.
It’s a bit more complicated than that.
#7 by Craig Kelly on May 15, 2012 - 1:48 pm
But surely the issue is more complicated than exclusively focusing on access. Might it not be a matter of concern that students would graduate with mortgage level debts into a job market which offers little opportunities?
#8 by Aidan on May 15, 2012 - 3:14 pm
Of course it is, but it’s also more complicated than just saying “no fees”.
#9 by Doug Daniel on May 15, 2012 - 2:57 pm
“university tuition fees are not some uncrossable rubicon that in and of themselves limit access to university.”
Yes they are. My family have never had to worry about money, but if I’d had to pay to go to university, I would have thought twice about it, especially as my sister had just finished uni and my dad was due to retire just as I finished. I can’t guarantee I would have been able to go to uni if I’d had to fork out fees. As it was, the choice was simple: I’m intelligent, so of course I should go to university.
“It’s a bit more complicated than that.”
No, it’s not. You put a price on something, and people start having to make a value judgement to decide if they can really afford it, and if they even should. This is completely at odds with the idea that education should be limited only by ability, and not by finances.
You don’t need a degree to see that.
#10 by Aidan on May 15, 2012 - 3:19 pm
Upfront frees are clearly a bad idea, and I point out that loans for universal fees are suboptimal in S2.
Tuition isn’t the only cost of going to university however, and I’m not clear why you think S6 is unthinkable but S3 isn’t when it includes people deterred by living costs.
#11 by Doug Daniel on May 15, 2012 - 4:18 pm
Back-door fees are a bad idea too – that “graduate endowment” caper that Labour and the Lib Dems embarked upon to allow them to fallaciously claim they’d “abolished tuition fees” was in some ways even more prohibitive – you’d done the work, but your degree was held to ransom until you paid up a couple of grand to have it released.
Graduate tax is a bad idea for the same reasons Jeff highlighted yesterday – graduates already pay higher tax through income tax, and it just encourages the idea that university education solely benefits the individual.
As for tuition not being the only cost, it’s the only unavoidable one. As I pointed out below, I came out of university debt-free thanks to staying at home and going to Aberdeen uni, rather than joining friends at Edinburgh for four years of the full “student lifestyle”.
Oh, and before anyone says “what about books?”, universities have these things called “libraries”. Or you could just, like, pay attention in lectures. I learned very quickly that only an idiot went out and bought every book the lecturer told them to get.
#12 by Aidan on May 15, 2012 - 4:19 pm
You didn’t eat for four years?
#13 by Iain Menzies on May 15, 2012 - 7:03 pm
I have sat in history lectures with upwards of 400 people in them where there are 3 or 4 core texts.
The first point is that there are HUGE amounts of things that you WILL NOT FIND OUT if you only pay attention to lectures.
The second point is that if you are gonna ensure that there are enough copies of those core texts for all those students, and that the texts are reasonably up to date editions then, since your essentially saying you dont have to give students money for books, your gonna need a helluva big library.
#14 by Doug Daniel on May 15, 2012 - 11:26 pm
Strangely enough, my family still allowed me to join in at meal times, despite being a scummy student. Although even if they hadn’t, my part-time job would have covered food costs, rather than beer and CDs. Two weekend shifts and a couple of evenings hardly prevents a person from studying.
People are just far too quick to assume going to university instantly equates massive living costs.
#15 by Aidan on May 16, 2012 - 1:19 am
In which case you were lucky. Not everybody has a family that’s willing or able to support them for 4 years.
You claimed previously that you might have been put off by tuition fees. What about those who’d have been put off by living costs?
#16 by Doug Daniel on May 16, 2012 - 8:57 am
Folk I went to school with who went to Edinburgh or Glasgow for uni managed to support themselves with a student loan (the best loan you’ll ever get in your life) and a part-time job. Bear in mind students also get discounts on a lot of stuff.
You can find a way when it comes to living costs, it just depends how good you are at being careful with your money and thinking up ways of making a saving. You can’t get round fees though – and it’s far more daunting because it’s one big number.
As for Iain’s point, textbooks do not need updating every year. And I distinctly remember Queen Mother Library having plenty of copies of “essential” books. On top of that, eBay is awash with copies of textbooks that students no longer need.
#17 by Iain Menzies on May 15, 2012 - 11:23 am
Scotland does have tuition fees, its just that MOST students get them paid for them.
#18 by GMcM on May 15, 2012 - 12:03 pm
DD this looks like a very rosy picture of how things are working under the SNP. However it is not very accurate.
The SNP are trotting out the line that their policy ‘levels the playing field’ but it does not. It places further financial constraints on universities and leads to greater competition for places which results in those nearer the bottom losing out.
It is so bad in Scotland that to try and plug the funding gap in HE the SNP are robbing the FE budget which will have an even greater impact on those from the lowest socio-economic groups.
I think, and it is just my opinion, the SNp policy is a bit like watching Robin Hood: Men in Tights in rewind. The poor have money taken off them to be given to the rich and it isn’t funny.
#19 by Commenter on May 15, 2012 - 12:38 pm
It places further financial constraints on universities and leads to greater competition for places which results in those nearer the bottom losing out.
Nearer the bottom of what?
The poor have money taken off them to be given to the rich and it isn’t funny.
This’ll be the rich that – ya know – fund the universities out of their taxes, right?
#20 by GMcM on May 15, 2012 - 1:36 pm
The lowest socio-economic groups.
Yes the rich do pay taxes but so do less affluent people – should everyone pay taxes to allow the richest to go to university or should a balance be sought out that provides opportunity for all sections of society?
#21 by Craig Gallagher on May 15, 2012 - 5:24 pm
This is completely nonsensical. The whole point is that everyone pays taxes so that the POOREST can go to university.
#22 by Craig Kelly on May 15, 2012 - 12:09 pm
A move to a three year undergraduate degree system in Scotland would make a lot of sense, be perfectly possible (since first year is often at such a basic level), and cut the costs of providing undergraduate degrees. The only obstacle that I perceive is the current disconnect between school education and that offered at University. My first year lecturer’s mantra of, ‘forget everything you’ve ever been told’, sums this up nicely.
We have to get away from this myth of Scotland’s ‘free education’. If it were true, I wouldn’t be typing this from Sweden – a country who, in fact, offer a universal free education (providing you’re from the EU).
An educated populace provides unquantifiable benefits to the economy in the long run and an all encompassing, free system will go a long way to tackle the chronic brain drain which plagues Scotland. And the call was, ‘where will the funding come from?’ Increase the budget, increase income tax, find a way. I don’t believe that the only option for the funding of higher education is to continually limit, squeeze, and restrict the budget.
#23 by Aidan on May 15, 2012 - 12:31 pm
Doing away with premise 5 is fine, but would require a massive amount of money to bring back maintenance grants. For the roughly 250,000 current scottish university students we’re talking an extra £1.25bn for a £5k grant – around 150% of the current university budget and more than 3 times the college budget.
Offering the same support to the 300,000 students at college would take £1.5bn or another 300% of the current FE budget.
Assuming teaching costs were the same then to maintain the current student numbers education FE and HE budgets would need *counts on fingers* 1.25 + 1.5 + 1 + 0.5 = £4.75bn per annum. That’s about 15% of the entire current Holyrood budget and roughly half what we spend on health care each year.
All without a single extra student going.
#24 by GMcM on May 15, 2012 - 12:47 pm
Spot on Aidan with your last point.
We can throw money at the sector to provide free FE/HE but it will not create new places.
The test for me is to find a policy that balances the financial restraints of the budget with the financial pressures of the individual while opening more doors.
#25 by Aidan on May 15, 2012 - 3:13 pm
Also worth pointing out that that diverts all HE funding to teaching & supporting undergrads meaning we stop doing any publicly funded research in Scotland.
#26 by Mel Spence on May 15, 2012 - 12:09 pm
Veil of Ignorance applies.
Access to education does need to be reformed, but, it should be free at point of use. That’s why we have a progressive taxation system.
#27 by Aidan on May 15, 2012 - 12:32 pm
Where, precisely, does the veil of ignorance fit into this argument and how does it change the outcome?
#28 by BaffieBox on May 15, 2012 - 12:38 pm
The two main problems I have are:
1. The dilution of higher education to the point where we offer suspect degrees in marginal areas reduces the wealth creation effect. Maybe Im a cynic, but I cant believe some of the degrees on offer genuinely pay back into society in terms of an increased income tax rake (that more than justifies state funded places). If we must offer these kinds of degrees, Id like to see a inverted sliding scale of fees for different subjects linked to average starting salary or some other metric, such that the best wealth creator courses have minimal fees, while those that fail to create healthy wealth creation, incur higher fees).
2. I have issues with the constrained education budget premise. It’s only constrained if you consider the budget to be rigid. If I rip up the budget and consider it flexible, the education budget can be much less constrained. As an example, with major surgery to foreign policy and defence (principally with scrapping Trident), and moving all that extra finance to education, I’d consider that a much better balance of where I’d want to see Scotland spend my taxes.
Just my 2p.
#29 by Aidan on May 15, 2012 - 12:46 pm
1. is an interesting refinement of the final scenario proposed. I think some STEM courses in E&W get some funding
2. See above for a back-of-envelope costing for fee free, full grant education in Scotland – it’d be substantially more than any estimate I’ve seen for Scottish defence spending (typically £1.5-3bn) and I don’t think you’re suggesting we spend nothing on defence at all.
#30 by BaffieBox on May 15, 2012 - 5:38 pm
True. But that was just an example and a place to start. I’m pretty sure I could find other areas where I could redirect money in to education. But I guess that cuts both ways – would I prefer to see free higher education or good quality, free childcare, and which would transform the opportunities of those from poorer backgrounds? Hmmm. This budget thing is difficult. 🙂
#31 by Aidan on May 15, 2012 - 5:47 pm
Right. There will always be conflicting calls on the budget, so it’s pretty safe to assume that there isn’t going to be enough to fund everything for everyone.
Which is why I was really trying to avoid getting into the detail of that by setting out a fairly simple example above so we could get focus on what is and isn’t a matter of principle (which, presumably, would apply in all circumstances).
#32 by Craig Kelly on May 15, 2012 - 1:28 pm
I agree and respectfully disagree with your point. There are a lot of courses offered at all levels of HE which at times appear baffling, do not lead to any obvious vocation, and generally appear a little sub-standard. However, I think we can be in danger of conflating a couple of issues.
1) there are no longer technological colleges which could offer, unsurprisingly, technological courses. Because of that, every institution must – or feels they should – offer a massive footprint of courses. What I mean is that HE institutions which specialise in, say, computer game technology feel the need to offer law degrees and so on. And, as a result, a broad range of sub-standard degrees.
2) Following on from that point, these technological degrees are now offered at hitherto academic institutions and confuse what is an academic and what is a technological vocation.
3) Whilst accepting that there are degrees offered which are of a sub-standard level of education, who are we – or for that matter, how can anyone – decide what is worthy of academic pursuit. I worry that by placing a pound sign before any degree, i.e. how much money will the said student go on to earn, then we rip the heart out of academia. Surely academia has to be founded upon the spread and expansion of human knowledge. That is not necessarily quantifiable in monetary terms. If Plato had been forced to justify his pursuit of knowledge on how much money he potentially brought into the Greek economy through future taxation of his wages, then I fear we would have no idea who that Greek chap was and anything he ever did.
#33 by Iain Menzies on May 15, 2012 - 2:26 pm
LOVE how you didnt put up that disclaimer about how you did/are doing History…
Tho you are right that just to say this degree doesn’t track directly into a specific industry or profession is not a good enough reason to make it impossible to do.
But as I am sure you will agree, there are huge differences in the demands of various academic subjects. The problem you have is that many people have a view that those with a Humanities degree had to do one essay every other month (maybe) and then sit a couple of exams at the end of the year.
Its all well and good saying that a more educated populace produces a better/richer society.
But a History or Politics degree aint gonna give us the cure for cancer, and for the most part the knowledge could just as easily and much mroe cheaply be disseminated by a book club.
#34 by BaffieBox on May 15, 2012 - 5:35 pm
A fair point, well argued. Thanks. 🙂
#35 by Jenny Kemp on May 15, 2012 - 1:11 pm
Interesting piece. I am so glad your opening premise was the public good argument as that’s too rarely made these days. HE especially is often described as a personal selfish endeavour to create earning potential and nothing more.
I want to look at the spreadsheet before I comment more fully but I can’t open it – it’s a .ods file – not working for me. Tips?
#36 by Aidan on May 15, 2012 - 1:30 pm
oops, sorry – was using Communist Linux Open Office. Have updated link to Excel format – http://www.betternation.org/2012/05/labour-tuition-fees-and-all-that-hard-to-listen-to-acid-jazz/bn-tuition-fees-spreadsheet-4/
#37 by James on May 15, 2012 - 2:24 pm
Aidan, as promised, and to your total absence of surprise, I do disagree. First, the squeezing of “education budgets” is a choice, not a given, and it’s a premise I’d reject. The Block Grant is being squeezed, but how that gets divided up is entirely up to Ministers/Parliament. In addition, there are plenty of ways the Scottish Parliament could raise more money progressively on big business and the better off. Just because neither Labour nor the SNP want to do it doesn’t mean you’ll get me to agree with their position.
Secondly, I don’t think expanding university places endlessly in the name of access makes sense. For me the most important thing is that enough of the brightest go to university, irrespective of income. And the fact is that imposing debt on anyone but the richest right now is a deterrent. I don’t want bright working-class kids put off from university, but neither do I want bright middle-class kids put off. And yes, that means a return to grants, which would require spending to be diverted into education.
In short, a fairly close position to the one set out by Baffiebox above, except I wouldn’t describe the economic payback as the most important aspect.
#38 by Iain Menzies on May 15, 2012 - 2:27 pm
Is there any evidence that the lack of grants is putting of working class kids from going to university?
#39 by Aidan on May 15, 2012 - 3:09 pm
I really don’t want this post to be about the specifics of Scottish education funding. What I’m trying to get at is why you think tuition fees are wrong *in principle* and even looking at the current system of fees is a betrayal.
Constrained in P5 is intended to mean “not sufficient for everyone who can benefit to get full costs and fees paid” rather than “shrinking” – which you seem to accept is realistic in the first sentence of your second paragraph.
The second sentence seems to imply that you don’t actually consider education to be a right? ie. you don’t accept P2.
You’d presumably consider the following scenario the best one:
S7. Full costs for everyone
1,000,000 split between 66 people, leaving out 154 people
Which would almost inevitably return us to the situation we were in in the 1970s where university education was the preserve of the elite?
#40 by scottish_skier on May 15, 2012 - 4:04 pm
Preserve of the elite?
My parents (Glasgow uni early 70’s)
Father = Civil engineering:
His father = railway signalman
His mother = seamstress
Home = Council house
Mother (mathematics):
Her father = police detective
Her mother = housewife
Home = Police house (council estate)
Hardly the elite. Fees paid, basic student grant + part-time work in both cases. Same for me without the grant (student loan – thanks Labour).
University should be the preserve of those intelligent enough to go to university. Not everyone can – it should be free and only limited by technical merit, with a certain standard at e.g. School level securing funding for higher education. If you don’t make the grade then other options can be open to you, e.g. college training in vocational skills.
France under Mitterrand tried to massively up the numbers going to uni by making it much easier to get in academically (lowering entrance standards). Of course what happened is all these new entrants failed in first year costing them a wasted year and their parents a lot of money. New Labour obviously did not learn and went down a similar route, massively increasing the number of students. Of course this watered down the quality/worth of undergraduate degrees in the eyes of employers and now companies are looking for MSc/PhD while the state is left with a huge bill; a big reason behind the introduction of fees.
#41 by Iain Menzies on May 15, 2012 - 7:05 pm
Ok so on your parents…..what percentage of school leavers went to uni then?
#42 by Doug Daniel on May 15, 2012 - 3:00 pm
By the way, everyone seems to be under the illusion that it is impossible to go to university at the moment and come out the other side without being in debt. I managed it with ease. It’s called “stay at home and go to your local university.”
Not possible for everyone obviously, but equally not everyone needs to put themselves in masses of debt to go to uni. I didn’t even apply for a student loan, the cheapest loan anyone will ever take out in their life.
#43 by Danny on May 16, 2012 - 11:10 am
Do you really think it’s advisable to encourage students to remove the whole “independent living.” and what not?
#44 by Doug Daniel on May 16, 2012 - 4:57 pm
I’m not “encouraging” it, I’m just saying people are far too quick to highlight living costs as an unavoidable fact of university life, and it’s simply not true, as I proved by never getting into debt the whole time I was at university.
Staying at home in no way hinders your ability to learn – in fact if you have parents who take an interest, you’ll likely do better than you would if you were surrounded by folk who are going to drop out after a couple of years. Are you saying we should promote “independent living” ahead of intellectual pursuit?
#45 by scottish_skier on May 15, 2012 - 3:34 pm
Norway = no tuition fees
Sweden = no tuition fees
Finland = no tuition fees
Denmark = no tuition fees
Austria = no tuition fees…..
Same for most of Europe. Move towards the countries that are more centre-right economically in recent times:
France = minimal fee (~160-400 £/year)
Germany = no tuition fees in some states, £400/semester in others
And to go all the way to the right-wing:
USA = highest tuition fees in the world.
England = third highest tuition fees in the world
The general rule of thumb is right-wing = tuition fees (also up to eyeballs in debt incidentally too as a result of failed right-wing economics). Long term it means the rich get an education and the poor don’t, as per across the atlantic.
Progressive more centrist social democracies = no or token tuition fees (the latter are also doing much better economically….).
http://politicalcompass.org/euchart
Obviously UK Labour, being a centre-right party (in poorly fitting centre left clothing) need to run with tuition fees to grab some of the soft Tory vote. Hence 6k instead of 9k = Tory-lite.
http://politicalcompass.org/ukparties2010
Leaves Scottish Labour in a pickle as their traditional core voters are primarily the old left (e.g. union members, ex-industrial areas) and trying to spin that tuition fees are maybe(?) a progressive social-democratic thing when it’s a regressive right-wing policy and no mistaking it. Or maybe all those more centrist social democracies have got it wrong? Might explain their higher GDP/capita, lower debts, lower inequality, higher standard of human development (HDI) etc etc…
#46 by Aidan on May 15, 2012 - 3:51 pm
Tuition fees may or may not be good policy, but the point of this post is that they aren’t actually incompatible with education being a public or a right and aren’t unconscionable.
A point you singularly fail to address in the interests of abject Labour bashing.
#47 by scottish_skier on May 15, 2012 - 4:38 pm
I can bash the Tories too if you want and as for the Lib Dems…They would probably have had my vote in an SNP-free world; no chance now. It is the policy I’m bashing and I hope Scottish Labour do not follow UK HQ on this, I really do. As a centrist I want to see a proper left in Scotland to add the centre and right which are currently filled (SNP and Tories respectively). Labour can still fill that role if they go back to their pre-blairite roots; after all that is where their core vote still lies is it not?
Note that I have quite strong opinions on this as I am both an academic (postgraduate institute) and work in industry with graduates. For me the principle of free access to education is deeply ingrained. If the SNP brought in fees they’d lose my vote promptly.
#48 by Aidan on May 15, 2012 - 4:58 pm
Two things. Firstly, we don’t have free access to university now: there are more people who want to go to university and have the qualifications to do so than there are places, even taken account of the people who don’t have sufficient support from families / partners to be able to afford to do so.
Secondly, you’re still not engaging with the argument I laid out on tuition fees being a point of principle: given that isn’t enough money to give everyone who wants to and is able to go to university full fees & a maintenance grant, why are S3/S4 preferable to S5/S6 (or the S7 I outlined in reply to James)?
#49 by scottish_skier on May 15, 2012 - 5:19 pm
There is not enough money? I could think of quite a few places where savings could be made. Not replacing those WMDs on the Clyde would be a start. I’m also willing to pay more tax, just not to Gideon or Balls (sorry).
I do not doubt that we have a problem in terms of numbers wanting to go versus funding. I support limiting funding to what is affordable and to specific courses which meet the needs of society/industry. However, I would only ever advocate discrimination on the grounds of academic/technical merit – i.e. if you are clever/work hard then you be funded all the way. In that sense I would e.g. support a system common in France (my wife went through it training for the French civil service) where if you want to progress up to the next level, you sit an exam and the top X% get to move on. If you don’t make the grade, then its up to you if you wish to fund yourself. I don’t agree with funding a degree for someone who got into a clearing place to study boy band science on 2 C’s and a D…
Paying for education devalues it ‘How much did your degree cost?’ as invariably it becomes about profit – we academics are struggling with university management over this at the moment. How can we fail people when they are paying us thousands of £’s of their own money? Uni management want passes and £’s all the way….
Likewise giving too many people degrees also devalues it. As for ‘why should the rich get it for free too?’ well, at PhD level we don’t ask them how much their parents earn and base their stipend on that. And anyway, if they are well off their parents are paying more tax, covering the education of their kids and others. Well, they should be paying tax anyway….
#50 by Aidan on May 15, 2012 - 5:25 pm
So you disagree with P2 – university education is not a right for all who could benefit from it, it’s a privilege for the top X%?
#51 by scottish_skier on May 15, 2012 - 7:05 pm
University education is a right for all, but it is a right they need to be clever enough for/work hard enough for. If you want everyone to have degrees you need to bring the standards down and that devalues a degree. Or, if everyone was magically capable of Einstien-like thoughts we’d have a bit of a problem. Who’s going to collect the bins?
Devaluation of degrees has already happened in my industry (energy). Go back 10-15 years and the min qualification for an engineering position would be a BSc. However, now its an MSc min – even PhD – as their are too many BSc’s wandering around. Standards are slipping in general, usually because universities are needing more cash so take on students of increasingly lower standards. Then pressure is put on academics to pass them so that pass rates look good.
I’d advocate setting a minimum standard (subject to review) of e.g. highers qualifications needed to obtain tuition fees. This should also be targetted at specific areas based on society/industry needs. If standards are maintained and increasing numbers of people are making the grade then you should be able to keep funding them as your workforce would be becoming a very educated, productive one.
I would advocate support for living costs on a means tested basis as much as possible where people are really struggling. However the fees are the key – basically if you are clever enough then the door is open for you to come and study. Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day..give him a fishing rod/teach him how to fish and….
TopX%? Well, some people are more skilled/intelligent than others. That’s life. Its not a privilige like a silver spoon in the mouth. I hope you are not suggesting that intelligent, educated people are not the new evil elite? These people are the ones design bridges, discover new oil and gas reserves, carry out heart transplants, find new drugs to save lives. Not everyone has the ability nor wants to do that (notably take on the high level of responsibility such roles can bring). Do you consider a heart surgeon ‘priviliged?’. I’d say they deserve their pay – I’d not like to be responsible for someone’s life in that way. Takes a certain type of person. In my line of work, bad advice could cost a company 1 million a day – it needs extremely specialist knowledge understanding; something that not everyone is capable of. Every job is important, but some require skills that not everyone has.
My best mate felt he should go to uni as that was being actively encouraged; he was not really sure why he was going/even a bit against it, but his parents put pressure on him. He did pharmacology, getting in on not particularly good grades through clearing. Numerous repeated years and left with only having scraped a pass for 3 years. It was not for him and was a waste of money. In the end he has found his calling in network systems sales. Maybe if he’d have had to really work to get the funding (even reach a certain grade each year at uni to continue getting funding), it might have made him think twice about whether it was really for him.
Incidentally, do you think a driving license is a right for all to benefit from? Should everyone get one, no matter how bad they are at driving/dangerous they are behind the wheel? 😉
#52 by Doug Daniel on May 16, 2012 - 9:10 am
“I hope you are not suggesting that intelligent, educated people are not the new evil elite?”
Don’t you know? Only rich kids who went to private schools get good grades. It’s impossible for poorer kids to get good grades. Scientifically proven and all that.
Which is strange, because I could have sworn I went to a state school. I really need to ask my parents why we didn’t live in Rubislaw Den when I was younger if we were so rich, and why I don’t have a trust fund. Typical penny-pinching Aberdonians…
#53 by Iain Mac on May 15, 2012 - 10:31 pm
As a casual onlooker, I notice that you fail to answer the point. Is there money there or not? Surely, if ‘Socialist’ economics is good enough for the Tories, and Labour, to persist with their ludicrous piles of WMD’s and related equipment ‘because it creates jobs’ then surely providing free education for those able is not a step too far?
As to bashing Labour, I’m all for it – complacent and corrupt – they’ve left much of their ‘heartlands’ to rot.
#54 by scottish_skier on May 16, 2012 - 8:23 am
The Scottish government seem to have found some on a fixed budget. The Welsh government have scraped some together to ease things somewhat, as have the NI government I understand. The Lib Dems seemed to be under the impression it was possible before a mirror and some beads were waved in front of their eyes. The vast majority of Europe can do it…
The Tories would have introduced fees no matter what as that is their ideology. Labour? Hmm, combination of too large a bill due to thinking everyone should go to university, poor grades or not, and appealing a bit to the soft Tory vote? I’d put a few bob on that.
I guess it is about priorities and what the government considers it best to invest in. Some new nuclear weapons (@£100 billion or so I believe) or training the country’s workforce to be more productive? The expensive handbag that is the London olympics or more cutting edge R&D? Bailing out the private water industry to give London a new shiny sewer system courtesy of the UK taxpayer or investment in the next generation of graduate engineer wealth generators? Make your own mind up…
I could bash the Tories too, but then it’s cruel to beat a man when he’s down; and down they most certainly are. Approaching irrelevance in Scotland really. I thought for a moment they might see sense and elect Murdo, establishing a more credible Scottish centre-right, but I was wrong. I guess we will have to wait for post-independence before they have a chance to emerge again as a group that might be worth listening to on some issues…
#55 by Don McC on May 15, 2012 - 6:45 pm
Aidan, a lot of your argument seems to rest on the unwritten principle that places at Universities are unlimited if we can only fund them.
There is little evidence that that is, indeed, the case. If we accept, then, that regardless of how much HE funding is made available, there will always be a finite number of University places available, we need to ensure that the system used to choose who can take advantage of those limited places is not determined by how much money you/your parent make but by how talented you yourself are.
Fees do not ensure that and, I would argue, go against that very principle.
It seems that Scottish Labour are sounding out the public’s position on fees, either covertly or overtly. I think Lamont has to now come out and state, unequivocally, what Scottish Labour’s position is.
#56 by Aidan on May 15, 2012 - 7:02 pm
University places are not related to available funding? Really?
#57 by Don McC on May 15, 2012 - 10:06 pm
So you believe (if we had the money), we could offer a billion university places, 10 billion, 20 billion? Really? We could offer places to every many, woman, child (and their dogs) on this planet if we only had the money? Really?
#58 by Doug Daniel on May 15, 2012 - 11:45 pm
Despite Aidan’s rather sarky response, it’s good that someone has touched on the issue that people seem to be under some sort of misconception that each extra student on a course relates to a uniform increase in costs to the university.
Unless lecturers get paid per student, their wages are presumably a static figure, regardless of the number of students. A lecturer can teach a class of 10 for the same cost as teaching a class of 100 – the only limit is the size of the lecture hall. In fact, I’ve even been at lectures where overspill rooms and a video link were used because the normal lecture hall was too small. So really, the cost per student should actually go down as the size of the class grows. If we were to start charging fees, it might be an idea to acknowledge this and mitigate for this factor when setting the fees.
Really, no one should even be thinking about charging people to be taught at university until someone properly explains what it is exactly that people are paying for. There’d be uproar if energy companies didn’t specify why your energy bill is the size that it is, and if we’re going to privatise education, the same rules should apply.
#59 by Aidan on May 16, 2012 - 2:17 am
Non-lecture tuition, essay / assignment feedback and marking… On that argument we should have primary school classes an order of magnitude greater on the grounds of cost.
#60 by Doug Daniel on May 16, 2012 - 9:04 am
So lecturers get paid extra for each essay they mark, for every person they give an assignment to, and for every tuition class they take? That’s a bit of a rubbish system.
Or perhaps it’s true that each extra student does not increase the costs for university by a uniform number.
#61 by Iain Menzies on May 16, 2012 - 10:36 am
In my experience, 10 is the limit for a seminar/tutorial class, beyond that and you dont get any real quality of interaction between students and tutors. Now in some subjects, ie ones that arent fundamentally about ideas, that lack of interaction may not be an issue, if you are being taught something. But if the point is to argue something, then students need a chance to verbalise that argument.
So if you want to increase numbers of students you need to increase staff numbers. Or accept a lower standard of education.
#62 by Doug Daniel on May 16, 2012 - 11:54 am
10?!? What sort of uni did you go to? I took several subjects in my time at Aberdeen uni (as computing science didn’t qualify for enough credits in 1st and 2nd year on its own), and I don’t recall a single computing, maths, chemistry, psychology, philosophy or politics seminar/tutorial/laboratory/practical class containing less than 20 students, and usually closer to 30. Unless there were a lot of skivers, that is. And interaction was just fine, partly because by the time you’re 17, you shouldn’t need to be mollycoddled like a schoolchild.
But I accept you need more staff for these sort of classes. However, again, this is not a uniform extra incurred cost per student. Suppose we go with your number and we say 10 extra places requires an extra tutor (ignoring the fact these tend to be PhD students, rather than completely separate people who are there for the sole purpose of taking that one tutorial class). Labour wants to charge people £6,000 fees in England. So 10 extra students means £60,000 extra revenue for the university. That’s one very expensive tutor.
#63 by Iain Menzies on May 16, 2012 - 12:31 pm
Ok i could have made that clearer. I went to Dundee, and Stirling….
In first and second year your perfectly right, by third year more than ten becomes an issue, and by fourth year more than ten, in my opinion is a nonsense.
Time is also an issue, of the three modules that i had in fourth year one had regular two our tutorials, the others one hour. Small classes and long classes are better.
The question isnt can you do it with larger/shorter classes, the question is about the quality of education that results.
I tend to take the view that if you are looking to get a degree, especially if someone is paying for it, which someone inevitably is, then we should be interested in making sure that there is a concern for quality of degrees, not just the number of people getting them.
I hate to say it but from all i have seen you post here you dont seem, to me at least, to be all that interested in the quality of education that is being provided.
#64 by Aidan on May 16, 2012 - 11:23 am
There’s a difference between a number not being uniform and it tending towards 0.
#65 by Doug Daniel on May 16, 2012 - 11:59 am
And this disproves my point that each extra student does not incur a uniform rise in costs how, exactly?
It’s interesting you’ve not addressed Don’s point that university places are limited by many more factors than cost.
#66 by Iain Menzies on May 16, 2012 - 12:32 pm
What does it matter if costs raise uniformly or not? are you seriously suggesting that more students can cost less?!
#67 by Doug Daniel on May 16, 2012 - 4:42 pm
Why would I suggest that? I’m just saying that putting 100 students through university doesn’t cost 10 times the amount to put 10 through. But as DonMc pointed out, the way these kind of debates focus solely on funding, you would think it did.
#68 by Barbarian on May 15, 2012 - 11:10 pm
I’d suggest some people go an research the true cost of higher education, and the cost to the taxpayer.
The problem lies with the sheer volume of students, not the cost.
The figure for students in the UK is about 1.2 million, almost 2% of the population. Even those paying tuition fees are being subsidised, since £9,000 does not reflect the actual cost of a course.
Then you have the EU students, which by European Law must be funded. Why do you think Swinney is trying to get this stopped, and he is on a hiding to nothing.
#69 by Aidan on May 16, 2012 - 11:24 am
Right, so you disagree with Premise 2 – Education is a right?
#70 by Sandy Brownlee on May 16, 2012 - 11:37 am
I have to agree that there is a fundamental problem with the number of students in higher education currently. Fewer students means that it’s easier to properly fund them, and their degrees become more valuable again. Instead, have people less suited to degrees studying in a way which works for them (e.g. apprenticeships).
“P2. Education is a right – everybody has a right to an appropriate level of education (this is currently universal, compulsory and free up to 16).”
I agree with this premise, and it’s not incompatible with what I said above, given the key point that it’s a right *to an appropriate level*. So everyone has a right to an education suitable for them. How do we determine what’s suitable? The obvious way is to restrict entry to university by ability, measured by existing qualifications and experience, but make it completely free so that simply having money doesn’t mean you can skip over people more able or suited to a degree.
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#71 by Sandy Brownlee on May 16, 2012 - 12:19 pm
I certainly didn’t – marking was just part of the job!
#72 by scottish_skier on May 16, 2012 - 1:38 pm
Type your comment here
When my mother – a maths then computing teacher – ended up teaching at a private School in Edinburgh she asked if I wanted to attend; the fees being much cheaper for the children of staff.
Not a chance in hell was my reply. My state school was just fine thanks.
In my experience as an academic and in industry, I’ve never found those from private schools to be any more academically/technically skilled than those from state schools. In fact, overall I’d say the latter have the edge as they can better communicate in general with people from all walks of life as they’ve been doing that all through school. IMO makes them better in managerial positions where they are working with people of all levels, from roughnecks to senior managers. They switch elegantly from ‘Aye ah ken’ to ‘Precisely gents’ without even thinking about it. Very adaptive and not seen as aloof.
#73 by Nik on May 17, 2012 - 7:55 am
Has anyone seen this?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18060226