Tuition fees: the non-debate

None of the parties wants to discuss the one subject that might put higher education on the election campaign map

By John O'Leary

The three-way election race should have livened up the debate on post-school education since the Liberal Democrats have more distinctive policies than the basically similar fare offered by Labour and the Tories. But, with the Lib Dems on the defensive over their traditional support for free higher education, all three parties have been happy to ignore the subject.

Lord Browne’s review of higher education funding was timed to ensure that Labour and Tory politicians could avoid the one question that might have put higher education on the electoral map. Both parties would almost certainly sanction higher tuition fees in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but they know how unpopular this would be with students and many parents. A review lets them off the hook, just as it did when the late Lord Dearing performed the same service in 1997.

The Lib Dems were ideally placed to capitalize on this transparent fix until they acknowledged that their flagship policy of abolishing tuition fees had become unaffordable. The subsequent fudge of promising to abolish them over six years is not calculated to set the electoral pulse racing and has been an obvious target for their opponents.

The National Union of Students has done its best to create a debate and has persuaded 1,000 candidates – including 400 Lib Dems and 200 Labour candidates, but only 13 Tories – to commit themselves to opposing an increase in fees. The union’s conference in mid-campaign allowed Aaron Porter, the newly-elected president, to challenge Labour and the Conservatives to discuss the issues, but neither was keen to do so.

Initial exchanges between the Tories and Labour were mainly about the number of university places that they would fund in a boom year for applications. Alistair Darling’s Budget had already promised another 20,000 places for 2010-11 and the Conservative manifesto confirmed that a Tory government would offer incentives for early repayment of student loans, using the savings to fund another 10,000 places.

However, none of the parties pretends that it would safeguard higher education budgets, let alone increase them in line with demand. University vice-chancellors have concentrated their efforts on trying to minimise future cuts and are planning intensive lobbying immediately after the election.

Both Labour and the Lib Dems have pledged to “ring-fence” science funding, while the Tories promise a multi-year science and research budget to provide “a stable investment climate for the research councils” and joint university/business research and development institutes proposed in a review of innovation policy by the entrepreneur Sir James Dyson.

Conservative silence on research had been worrying universities, but the party’s manifesto did at least note that contributions to the economy can come from “fundamental research with no immediate application”. The party also proposes to postpone the first Research Excellence Framework, planned for 2013, by up to two years because of concerns about the system of assessing the economic and social impact of research.

All the parties all have proposals for widening participation in higher education. The Lib Dems have floated plans for a trial scheme under which the best students from the lowest-achieving schools would be guaranteed university places. And the party wants a national bursary scheme to replace the current university-specific programmes to ensure that students from poor backgrounds do not face financial restrictions in their choice of university. Bursaries would be awarded to students studying “strategic” subjects such as sciences and maths, as well on financial grounds.

Labour’s widening participation strategy is based on existing schemes and the party has replaced its 50 per cent target for participation in higher education with a broader 75 per cent measure covering apprenticeships as well as degrees. Continuing expansion would focus primarily on foundation degrees and part-time courses.

The Tories, too, focus on apprenticeships with an ambitious pledge to create 100,000 more apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships each year, by reducing bureaucracy and offering small and medium-sized businesses a £2,000 bonus for each new apprentice. The party also promises another 100,000 further education places, funded by the savings from the abolition of  government schemes such as Train to Gain. There would be “work-pairing” schemes, an all-age careers-advice service and a Community Learning Fund to help people restart their careers.

Labour would push through its policy of keeping young people in education or training until 18 and provide an entitlement to an apprenticeship place in 2013 for all suitably qualified 16-18 year-olds. FE colleges would be given greater freedom to respond to local needs, while students – both in further and higher education - would be given clearer information on the quality of courses on offer. The Tories have made a similar pledge on the transparency of information on universities.

The Liberal Democrats would abolish the “wasteful” Higher Education Funding Council for England and merge it with the new Skills Funding Agency to form a single Council for Adult Skills and Higher Education, responsible for all post-19 education and skills funding. Its priority would be to cut the numbers not in education, employment or training.

Whoever wins the election, there will be cuts in both further and higher education, as well as increased tuition fees in universities following the report of the Browne Review. One important potential difference between the parties that has not featured in the election – and would be of little interest to most of the electorate – is where those cuts would be administered.

Gordon Brown has relocated universities twice in his short period in office, first to the short-lived Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills and then to Lord Mandelson’s Business, Innovation and Skills department. He would hardly move them again, but many Tories expect their party to return to a single education department if it takes power next week. That would probably make higher education the responsibility of Michael Gove, whose schools reforms would be high on the agenda of a Tory government. Universities might then be relegated in importance in a giant department, as they were in previous education departments, although at least the various stages of education would be reconnected.

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27 April 2010

John O'Leary. Editor, Policy Review Magazine