The Scotsman’s front page declares “Tuition fee axe ‘still favouring the rich’“, a classic instance of the headline not being stood up by the story. To be fair, the headline online is the much more accurate “Scottish universities remain elitist“.
The supporting piece, by Sheila Riddell from Edinburgh University, argues that the proportion of working-class students at Scotland’s ancient universities has declined from 21% in 2003 to 19% now.
Attributing this change to the abolition of tuition fees, as the frothing front-page headline at least seeks to do, is evidentially problematic to say the least, given that rebranded tuition fees were scrapped in 2008, precisely halfway through that decade.
Simultaneously, and more compellingly, the Guardian reports on survey data from England which looked at precisely the most important group: 11-16 year-olds in state schools.
Amongst those who say they’re unlikely to go to university, 41% say they’re not bright enough (something which, it should be noted, never seems to deter the privately-educated and will certainly not be true for many in that group) but 57% cite the cost as the deterrent. The headline on this? The diametrically opposed “University fees biggest barrier to wider access, research finds“.
It is difficult to draw hard and fast conclusions from this data because there’s no control, no parallel Scotland which didn’t abolish tuition fees in 2008, no parallel England where the Lib Dems kept their promises (that one’s even harder to imagine).
Only 19% of students at the ancient universities are from working class backgrounds this year, sure, which is very poor: but what proportion would have been if every student had to pay £9000 per year?
Leaving aside my ideological preference for education to be based on academic merit rather than ability to pay, though, it still seems likely that tuition fees will be less off-putting to those for whom money is no object. It also remains the case that tuition is of course only one cost associated with higher education, which is why previous generations of students (notably including those Labour, Tory and Lib Dem politicians who introduced or hiked tuition fees) had the benefit of a system of grants, now largely gone. As Riddell notes, the SNP administration to its credit is also introducing (reintroducing?) funding in bursaries and loans of up to £7250 for students from poorer backgrounds from the autumn of this year. That will surely help.
However, the problems with unequal intake don’t start when school leavers are considering applying to university. The inequalities in our education system start right at the beginning, and are anchored in a secondary system divided between the private and the state-run. Means-tested grants, ending fees: these are good measures, but they are merely tinkering. Unless we start phasing out private schools (or otherwise bringing the state sector up to their standards), we will continue to see grossly unequal intakes to universities.
It’s not just idealism at work here: the current arrangement is also bad capitalism. The interests of business as well as society would be better served by the brightest making it to university, irrespective of their parents’ background. It’s not time for fees to come back and entrench the divide. It’s time for radical change to an educational system that continues to confirm entrenched privilege, generation after generation, through school, into university, and on throughout life.
Disclaimer: I went to a private school and to St Andrews (above) and am therefore part of the problem.
#1 by Aidan on May 30, 2013 - 10:46 am
Let’s put aside the fact that we have very different views of what the purpouse of university is and the fact we have tuition fees in Scotland for those of us doing part-time or distance degrees (which, in the absence of a maintenance grant, are more likely to be attractive to those without independent income) I fear this misses the question of the domination of university education at all institutions by the middle class.
I don’t think Scottish private schools are as big a problem here as they are in England – there isn’t a monopoly on Glasgow and Edinburgh from Fettes and Hutchieson in the same way as Eton, Harrow etc hold at Oxford and Cambridge. We simply don’t have the same number of private schools for a start and the Scottish system includes Oxbridge as an option as well for them.
The problem here is more with a giant middle class plug of people who expect to go to university and do so at the expense of people who think it’s not for them. The same group of people, incidentally, who would pay means tested fees and who don’t need a bursary to get by.
Disclaimer: I was one of the few people in year at my first go at uni to get a grant, and probably the only one in my year at school as I went to uni after 5th year having scraped the 4 highers I needed to do so.
#2 by James on May 30, 2013 - 12:40 pm
I think the numbers are against you on private education and Scottish universities. If anything it’s worse here.
And do we really have a different view on the purpose of university? I’d be surprised.
#3 by Aidan on May 30, 2013 - 2:16 pm
That second link doesn’t mention anything about private education does it? Just that we have lower level of inclusion in HE.
The stats in the first link look bad but are comparing apples (pupils at Scottish private schools) and oranges (students at Scottish universities from a private school background).
Even then, an extra 4% of places going to private school pupils doesn’t account for the additional 4% discrepancy in pupils from less well off backgrounds since those extra private school pupils just bring the proportion up to the same as England.
I think the purpose of university is to provide an education to as many people as possible. From our discussion on this last year, in particular ” I don’t think expanding university places endlessly in the name of access makes sense”, you seem to take a different attitude?
#4 by James on May 31, 2013 - 10:01 am
Ah yes, I don’t think university’s for everyone. I object both to the expectation that all middle-class kids will go there irrespective of how unsuited they are to it, and to (in the worst cases) the expectation no working-class kids will, no matter how bright. I don’t have a fixed proportion in mind, but I certainly know many people I was at university with who’d have been better off getting specialist training or an entry-level job when they left school instead. Let’s find the brightest and keenest, irrespective of ability to pay, and educate them at the public expense.
#5 by Benjamin on May 31, 2013 - 1:14 am
I might be committing political suicide by saying this (ha), but in many ways, I don’t think that the Westminster Coalition’s policies on student financing are as bad as they are often made out to be — and I’m a Scottish Green. Leaving aside the wider ideological debate about whether or not funding for higher education should come out of general taxation, and the economic debate about whether or not taking out lots of loans that are unlikely to ever be repaid is a good idea, higher education is in many ways more accessible for poorer students in England than in Scotland, rather than the other way round as is usually assumed. There is no reason why what is effectively a means-tested time-restricted graduate tax should make university inaccessible to students from poorer backgrounds. The problem is perception and a general lack of understanding amongst the general public about how the system works. Calling it ‘tuition fees’ for starters makes it sound like it’s something that has to be paid upfront, and, in all honesty, opponents of the Coalition have often exploited this lack of understanding for political purposes.
The Scottish Government is fond of congratulating itself for not introducing tuition fees and for abolishing the graduate endowment. But what’s often forgotten is that Scottish students are able to access far less in terms of maintenance loans and grants than English students are, meaning that Scottish students are far more dependent than English students on support from their parents and/or part-time employment. This is a far more significant barrier to higher education than £9,000 a year ‘tuition fees’ which in reality will only be paid when the graduate is earning at least £20,000 a year (which I won’t be anytime soon!) and is written off after 25 years. It’s good that the SNP are now planning to make such loans and grants available on levels closer to those available south of the border, but it still falls somewhat short, and the question remains why it has taken them until now to do so.
I’m not a supporter of either tuition fees or a graduate tax, but I do believe that student and higher education financing should be looked at holistically. I just hope we don’t lose sight of the actual (rather than perceived) barriers to higher education in amongst the hysteria surrounding ‘£9,000 a year tuition fees’. I’d also be disappointed if the lack of ‘tuition fees’ in Scotland were to become a sacred cow at the expense of providing adequate financial support to students while they are students.
Disclaimer: I went to a state school in England and then to St Andrews, and now I’m returning to St Andrews to begin a PhD.