October 09

University applicants had extra reason to feel anxious this summer. The government’s decision to cap student places, despite record demand, ensured that clearing was the most competitive and chaotic in recent history with the fallout still being felt now as some universities are accused of breaking the cap and the others of not doing enough to accommodate talented students.
After years of encouraging people to go to university ministers should have been bold enough to make the case for higher education and for extra university funding.
The mad rush for clearing places and the government’s decision to cap numbers seriously exposed the flaws in the government’s widening participation agenda. The widening participation agenda should have been celebrated and allowed to flourish. Higher education has the ability to transform people’s lives and is vital to the economy; however, without proper funding and political will the widening participation agenda will do little more than ration hope for thousands of students.
A recent report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) concluded that ‘with employment markets still weak, now is a good time to invest in education.’ A message our politicians should be listening to. Britain is still lagging behind its economic competitors when it comes to public spending on higher education. We spend 20% less of our gross domestic product (GDP) on universities than France, 10% less than the US and 10% less than the international average.
This has very real implications for improving social mobility. Increasing the number of students from poorer and non-traditional backgrounds cannot be achieved without proper funding. The failure to do this has left Britain with a rising number of young people not in employment, education or training (NEETS), a benefits system which will inevitably be stretched by people who would benefit from being at university, rather than on the dole, and a system of funding higher education which has little support among the British public.
The latest polling shows that the ‘top-up fees generation’ are overwhelmingly opposed to any increase in university fees with a staggering 85% of young people (18-24 year-olds) against an increase in student tuition fees and just 5% in favour. As well as being unpopular among young people, an increase in fees is opposed by the majority of all voters with 62% of people polled rejecting higher fees.
Next year’s general election will be the first for many students who started their university education in 2006 – the year when top-up fees were introduced – and any party wishing to win the next election cannot afford to ignore voters on the controversial issue of student funding.
There is a clear economic case to be made for investing in students. Aside from the obvious benefits of more teachers, nurses, doctors, engineers etc, graduates are less likely to commit crimes, they are less likely to be a burden on the NHS and less likely to claim benefits.
It is unacceptable for any of the political parties to fudge the issue on student funding. Voters have the right to know how much the different parties will charge students and their parents for a university education and what their detailed plans are for student expansion. They need to know that information before they go to the ballot box next year.
Although the government has invested considerable sums in higher education, it has fallen in to the trap of trying to sell university as a passport to greater riches in life in order to justify the costs to hard-working families. It should have been bold enough to go the whole hog and properly fund our higher education system. Failure to do so has left Britain with real problems.
If we are to avoid a repeat of this summer’s clearing misery there needs to be an urgent overhaul of the higher education funding system. The bottom line is that putting up financial barriers to studying higher education will never ensure that the brightest students, whatever their backgrounds, will be able to study the courses that best suit them or our wider society.

Sally Hunt, general secretary, University and College Union, on university fees and benefits of education