UK: Coalition flip-flops on higher education fees

FT said:

Cable warns universities on charging top fees

Vince Cable moved to stem the rush of universities seeking to charge maximum tuition fees, as the business secretary warned institutions on Wednesday that he would take places away from those trying to overcharge for courses.

Mr Cable, speaking at the annual conference of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, said the sector should “think carefully” about how much students will be charged for courses amid fears the £9,000 sum is becoming a default annual fee.

He warned universities that overcharging could leave them with insufficient students, which in turn could result in the government withdrawing places for some institutions.

But Mr Cable’s efforts to discourage universities from charging the maximum amount was met with disdain from opposition groups. Labour said Mr Cable’s “crude threats to universities” showed the policy was not working.

The University and College Union, the largest trade union and professional association for academics and lecturers, said “devastating” funding cuts had left universities with little choice but to increase fees well beyond the average of £7,500 that Mr Cable envisaged the majority of institutions would charge.

“Vince Cable was wrong at the time to suggest that a fee in excess of £6,000 would only be charged in exceptional circumstances. He is wrong now to suggest that universities or students should be punished for the government’s mistakes,” said the UCU.

Tim Leunig, chief economist at the CentreForum think-tank, said: “We welcome the fact the government is taking value for money seriously, but a credible plan to make universities change their behaviour needs to be more explicit than this.”

Mr Cable said last year he expected universities to charge the maximum £9,000 in fees in only “exceptional circumstances”.

But this week, the University of Central Lancashire joined the likes of Aston, Bath and Warwick as it declared it would be charging the top rate from 2012.

The upswing in fees is politically embarrassing for the government, which promised students they could expect to pay less under the new scheme.

It will also prove costly, since more expensive courses will increase the cost of providing student loans beyond the levels the government has budgeted for, which in turn could force it to start cutting university places.

Mr Cable warned universities on Wednesday that the “biggest mistake” they could make was “to underestimate its consumers”.

“Under the new principle whereby funding follows student choices, some institutions could very well find themselves in trouble if students can’t see value,” he said. “That trouble would only intensify as those institutions who prove themselves capable of attracting students and keen to expand their provision are given the opportunities to do so.”

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Source

I bet lots of people are now saying "Told you so."

The coalition government is a joke. They take away funding, define an upper limit and expect universities to price well below this limit. Really? Did they "underestimate" what they are doing? And can we expect more scandals like what happened with the LSE and Libya?

Charged debate

Tuition fees of £9,000

Aston, Birmingham, Cambridge, Durham, Exeter, Imperial College, Lancaster, Leeds,  Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores, Manchester, Oxford, Reading, Royal Agricultural College, Surrey, Sussex, UCL, University of Central Lancashire, Warwick.

Less than £9,000

Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln (£7,500), Coventry (£4,600-£9,000), Derby (£6,995-£7,995), Leeds Met (£8,500), London Met (average of £6,000-£7,000), London South Bank (£8,450), Portsmouth, (£8,500), St Mary’s University College (£8,000), University Campus Suffolk (£7,500-£8,000).

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Russell Group universities are bolded. Some are missing from this list, but any surprise that none are in the lower category?


EDIT: Sorry, link doesn't work properly. If you want to see the full article, go to FT or search it.

They are trying to appease those who are used to the past, so now there will not be enough money for a proper education and trying to limit the amount charges will make the universities unattractive to go to now if they cannot attract good teachers to universities. The money has to come from somewhere. Education is quite expensive, especially higher education, so it can never be free.

classical_hero said:

They are trying to appease those who are used to the past, so now there will not be enough money for a proper education and trying to limit the amount charges will make the universities unattractive to go to now if they cannot attract good teachers to universities. The money has to come from somewhere. Education is quite expensive, especially higher education, so it can never be free.

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This isn't even a coherent post.

classical_hero said:

They are trying to appease those who are used to the past, so now there will not be enough money for a proper education and trying to limit the amount charges will make the universities unattractive to go to now if they cannot attract good teachers to universities. The money has to come from somewhere. Education is quite expensive, especially higher education, so it can never be free.

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The tradition of past actors whereas the money of education disassociates higher expenses so therefore limit enough before universities intend agreement among now. Financially, everything amounts which was aiming that did because all but had once. Attracting excellence among faculty entrance exams forsakes debt iterations to the second degree.

First things first, I think it'll be less 'told you so' and more absolute fury.
As a student at Sussex (so one of the universities which has chosen to raise the fees to the maximum £9000) I went to the first protest up in London, although quickly decided that they were a waste of time if they were going to fall into violence and mayhem and didn't go again.
It's been very clear from the start that if the fees were to be raised to £9000 the majority of universities will HAVE to go to that maximum because they a) don't want to be seen to be giving a poorer quality of service from the universities who are charging that and then ultimately drawing in less students and b) when the fees were raised from £1000 to £3000 exactly the same thing happened. All universities bar 2 went to £3000, and the 2 that did suffered in how many students picked to go there and had to raise their fees too. The coalition government never expected universities to go less than £9000 because they know that funding is being cut and it's the only way the university can survive giving the best quality of service it can.
And I don't mean to be horribly judgemental but if you look at the list of universities that aren't, the only one that sticks out to me that isn't a 'second-rate' university is Bournemouth and they're only charging £500 less! It'd be irrelevant whether the Russell Group, which to be honest I hardly think exists any more, decided to go to £9000 or not. I would bet a lot of money on a year after 2012 when the fees have been raised those unis who have chosen NOT to go to maximum straight away have too. This is just a repeat of a few years ago.

Boundless said:

First things first, I think it'll be less 'told you so' and more absolute fury.
As a student at Sussex (so one of the universities which has chosen to raise the fees to the maximum £9000) I went to the first protest up in London, although quickly decided that they were a waste of time if they were going to fall into violence and mayhem and didn't go again.

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I beg to differ. I think that they only way they had any chance of changing anything was if they fell into enough violence and mayhem. Sadly, that's the reality of the British parliamentary system.

Boundless said:

It's been very clear from the start that if the fees were to be raised to £9000 the majority of universities will HAVE to go to that maximum because they a) don't want to be seen to be giving a poorer quality of service from the universities who are charging that and then ultimately drawing in less students and b) when the fees were raised from £1000 to £3000 exactly the same thing happened. All universities bar 2 went to £3000, and the 2 that did suffered in how many students picked to go there and had to raise their fees too. The coalition government never expected universities to go less than £9000 because they know that funding is being cut and it's the only way the university can survive giving the best quality of service it can.

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So you're of the opinion that Vince Cable's finger wagging is only to make the Coalition's move look less evil? That makes sense, but this is clearly worse politically for the Lib Dems than for the Tories. Now they can't credibly claim to be fighting for students anymore. And what of the threat? Real or fake?

Boundless said:

And I don't mean to be horribly judgemental but if you look at the list of universities that aren't, the only one that sticks out to me that isn't a 'second-rate' university is Bournemouth and they're only charging £500 less! It'd be irrelevant whether the Russell Group, which to be honest I hardly think exists any more, decided to go to £9000 or not. I would bet a lot of money on a year after 2012 when the fees have been raised those unis who have chosen NOT to go to maximum straight away have too. This is just a repeat of a few years ago.

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Well, the Russell Group universities are still among the best in the UK, and I agree that they are not going to charge like the second-rate ones.

aelf said:

I beg to differ. I think that they only way they had any chance of changing anything was if they fell into enough violence and mayhem. Sadly, that's the reality of the British parliamentary system.

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All the violence did was cause negative press coverage over a very important issue, and clouded that. The public already have a very negative view about students, and was only enhanced by the violence that it was deemed we had caused. The only way the battle would be won is to win over the voting public enough for the government to see it's a beneficial route for them to take when they're trying to win votes. And that's been proved very un-beneficial (is that even a word?) for them by the fact that when the Lib Dems did fight for students they didn't increase their voting percentage at all. I'm sure there were other reasons too, but evidently fighting for students didn't do much for them politically.

So you're of the opinion that Vince Cable's finger wagging is only to make the Coalition's move look less evil? That makes sense, but this is clearly worse politically for the Lib Dems than for the Tories. Now they can't credibly claim to be fighting for students anymore. And what of the threat? Real or fake?

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Of course it's worse for the Lib Dems than the Tories, but that's their own silly fault! I'm not saying it's trying to make the Coalition look less 'evil' at all, and I don't think everyone is of the opinion the Coalition is 'evil', but what I am saying is that the Coalition realise they can put the fees at £9000 because they know the majority of universities will take that opportunity if they can, like they did last time. It's a very clever way of them being able to cut their own funding to universities and at the same time make sure that education doesn't disintegrate into a horrible mess (more than it is already!). Keeping standards as high as possible but them having to pay less. If anything I think it makes them look...more 'evil'?

Well, the Russell Group universities are still among the best in the UK, and I agree that they are not going to charge like the second-rate ones.

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True, but I think a lot of other universities are on the way up. I only picked at that point because I have a big thing about attitudes towards Ox/Cam/Russell Group universities and people insisting they're the best no matter what. My school tried to get me to apply to Oxbridge and I refused on the principle that it wasn't about the university, it was about the course. But yes, they definitely aren't going to charge anything other than £9000 because people have those, albeit sometimes, superficial attitudes towards them, and a lot of others will too.

People could only pay silly prices for property to live in because the financial institutions such as the banks were lending them far too much.

In exactly the same way, the UK universities (with the possible exception of Oxbridge and medical colleges) can only consider charging £9,000 per annum because the government is stupid enough to lend students that amount.

The universities will charge as much as they think they can before the crash comes, leaving the government with bad debt because the unemployed or working minimum wage graduates won't be able to pay back their loans.

Someone somewhere has realised that the government is creating a false market and is trying to cash limit the supply of student loans by limiting the numbers of students.

But of course the universities will still find it very profitable to have 2/3 the number
of students at 2 1/2 the fee.