By Wes Streeting / @wesstreeting
As the Labour Party turns its attention away from introspection over its leadership to debating ideas to secure a fourth term, the National Union of Students today launches a radical alternative to tuition fees – a policy which has caused the Party a serious headache throughout the past twelve years.
The introduction of so-called variable ‘top-up’ fees, capped at just over £3,000, brought the government within just a handful of votes of defeat in 2004 and threatened to bring down the Prime Minister himself. Later this year, the government will establish a review of the existing fees regime and the forthcoming debate is likely to generate as much political heat.
It is crucial that the forthcoming review is not simply a question of how high the current cap on tuition fees can rise. Although a real market is yet to emerge while the cap remains where it is, NUS published a report in September 2008 revealing the serious consequences that would arise if the fee cap were set at £7,000 (a modest target for some university chiefs). In short, the richest institutions would benefit most despite their poor performance in widening access to under-represented groups, and the market itself would reinforce existing social inequality of both opportunity and outcome.
I don’t believe that the miserable vision offered by the proponents of the marketisation of our higher education system is one that is shared by people who vote Labour and spend their time toiling away on #labourdoorstep. Any minister committed to social justice should baulk at the prospect that, further down the line, those universities with the worst widening access records would be able to charge runaway fees, while those institutions with the best record of expanding opportunities would be left to languish at the bottom end of the market.
The Labour Party’s relationship with students has suffered during the past decade. But students will never forgive a Labour government if they establish a review that simply seeks to plunge them into further debt, unleash market forces and indulge those in higher education who are encouraging the privatisation of elite universities.
Instead we need a wide ranging review that is open to alternatives and encourages solutions that meet the political aims and objectives of our Party.
That’s why NUS has made a radical break with our history of simple opposition to any form of graduate contribution. The model we propose today is fairer, more progressive and supports widening access. It prevents variable top-up fees and instead abolishes the notion of ‘fees’ altogether. It delivers more income for our universities and opens the doors to part-time students, currently priced out by unregulated up front tuition fees.
Our model is not a ‘graduate tax’ that would see graduates paying an extra penny in tax for life, only for the Treasury to siphon off funds to other areas. We propose a People’s Trust for Higher Education, to which graduates would make a contribution, linked to how much they earn and how many academic credits they have attained. The actual proportion of earnings donated to the trust would vary on average from 0.3 from the bottom fifth of earners to 2.5% for the top 20% of earners. Contributions would only be collected for a fixed period of 20 years and graduates would not contribute anything while earning less than £15,000.
No system is perfect, and we don’t claim that our proposals can solve every problem. But our radical proposals deserve serious consideration by our Labour government, and students deserve a place at the heart of the forthcoming review.
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a) I care about my students
b) I think that students’ should be able to have a legitimate say in the way their education is managed, and don’t to the extent they deserve, especially within FE
and
c) I’m a member of the party because I’m a socialist, I’m a feminist and I’m a trade unionist, and I believe that the Labour Party is the only party who is able to represent me.
Its really not that hard to understand why people like myself, and like Wes, are comfortable being active labour party members whilst being involved with student politics – and that’s because my Labour values are something that penetrate every part of my life, be in my life as a student, as a member of the NUS NEC and as a worker. I’ve never really been able to understand how people assume that if you’re involved in student politics, and if you’re a member of the party, you automatically want to be an MP, or are only doing it because of future political goals. I simply don’t see how opposing your party on something as big as this, is at all beneficial to becoming “a Labour MP in the future”.
How you can consider any proposals made by the National Union of Students, on issues that directly affect students as “fake, pointless politics” I’ll never know. Especially on issues such as funding, and the associated debt within HE, which are the biggest barriers to people accessing education. Personally, I trust my national union with the direction of my education, rather than those who don’t have a great expertise or knowledge of the sector.
I think the danger of the review is exactly that it will be perceived to be surrounding only the cap, without taking fully into consideration the great failings of the current system, and I applaud NUS for putting forward this alternative model – I couldn’t support it more!
I am more than aware that in four years time, I will come out of university with over £30,000.00 of debt, which in all honesty terrifies me, given the amount of debt I am already in from supporting myself through college, and the idea of the debt I would incur was the single and biggest deterrent to me applying.
I am very fortunate that I was accepted by an institution that values life experience, and takes this into account when reviewing applications, but a marketised education system would ensure that those institutions that already do so little in the way of opening the doors to students from non typical backgrounds, continue to keep those doors bolted shut to those that can’t afford their fee’s, and I refuse to believe that this is a system that Labour members and voters would support.
1) This is fake, pointless politics
2) It is done purely with a view to becoming a Labour MP in the future.
Prove me wrong Wes.
An entitlement to three years further education? are you suggesting a voucher scheme? :-)
I will say (and probably have before) that one of the reasons I am quite so bitter about labour is that despite not liking them in the first place, paying way too much tax would have been tolerable if we had services that reflected the spending (its not 'investment' its spending). And the few thing I would have directly approved of (including like life long learning/learning accounts) were never properly implemented just leaving all the cr*p that I truly despise.
I never liked blair, but do believe he was originally sincere (otherwise he'd have been mad to introduce the FoI act - that his party have been trying to dismember ever since) - unlike the rest of the labour government (then and since).
I left school and started work in the aftermath of labours destruction of the country, with the tories just in starting to rebuild the country, I and my cohort went through all the pain to get the country back on track and times became good - but that has now all been squandered by labour again - and my children will be starting out in a country pretty much back where it was when I started out. I hope to god they don't let the same happen to their kids - *never*never*never* trust labour *ever*ever*ever*.
Education, education, education. You're not Tony Blair are you?
Actually I agree with the aspiration of training 50% of young people, but I think the idea of doing it through universities was a silly one.
There just aren't enough short courses. I would be in favour of the government saying "You have three years of state-provided further education. Choose how to take it." and then a 19 year old could go to a university and do a media studies degree, or s/he could take six 6 month courses. That way, the oft quoted plumber could get his/her training for free too. (Have a look at the cost of night school and day release courses - they aren't free.)
I used to work in software development and we would find that when we employed people straight out of university with a Computer Science degree they would not have a clue how to programme. How the hell could that be the case? Simple, the courses are not designed to be vocational. So we would have to pay for a £3000 course to get them trained. Consequently, the company rarely employed CS graduates, in fact, the most able developer I worked with "only" had A levels, and was self taught in programming.
Industry, and the economy, needs short courses and the current further education policy has woefully ignored that.
Your problem is that you seem to think that higher education should only be made available for the privileged. It is not and should not be. It should be for everyone. It is counter-productive, particularly for those on low incomes, to charge them for education - any education.
How would it deliver value for money? Competition is the only proven way of delivering efficiency.
A big fat trust for further education to call on would make them fat, lazy and inefficient.
Students are actually complaining about the quality of courses now that they are actually footing the bill! This is a *good* thing.
We have millions of teachers, spending millions of hours creating identical lesson plans over and over for standardised national curriculum lessons - that wouldn't happen in the private sector - just how brain dead is this government?
Debt is evil, but uni fees means whole generations are entering adult life thinking it normal - meanwhile much of that borrowed money is paying for courses that are overpriced in the first place so shouldn't need any 'top up' at all.
So how would a trust slash waste?
If people weren't forced by the government to hand over most of their money for the government to spend, then they would have more that they could choose how to spend.
And if the government stopped its pretence of being a market participant, recognised its monopolies, and then used them to minimise the cost to the taxpayer (returning the savings to the taxpayer, not wasting them on stupid pet social engineering projects) there would be more wealth produced and available for elective spending.
Like the NHS, education has a massive element of a government make work scheme for their 'friends'.
The state spends as much (or our money) per pupil as a private school charges -- where is the efficiency saving? where is the economy of scale? Education has so much money sloshing around that they can hardly keep up with schemes to waste it. Unfortunately they waste it with one hand while still not providing an acceptable level of service with the other...
How much *should* it cost for an intelligent person to be educated to the level required for a degree? I think a plumber could cover it with out blinking - that's his kids sorted out... whose next?
Everybody might have benefitted when the more well off, had they got that way through higher education, actually paid more taxes but they don't now. Most plumbers probably earn more than most Bachelors anyhow, with their degrees Media Studies or Politics & Economics.
The problem with the cost of further education (so the 'need' for fees) is labours stupidity in relation to 'equality'.
50% going to university whether it will benefit them or not, means that everyone has to pay, so the poor who could benefit (and would have in the past) *dont* go anymore.
Labours obsession with targets/metrics rather than actual outcomes rears its head again.
'Individual learning accounts' and 'life long learning' were fantastic ideas (and I believe sincerely believed in originally) - but they were so badly implemented that con men fleeced them - instead of fixing the problem the schemes were abandoned never to return.
Enabling people to become skilled, retrain etc should one of the governments top priorities - ahead of the NHS. If people are skilled they can generate wealth which then makes money available for everything else.
It is rather churlish for people whose education was paid for by others (it isn't 'free') to refuse to pay for the education of others - why haven't you set up a scholarship?
Oh buggerm here I am agreeing with Tory Troll, but you are right, it should be free.
However, in my defence I should add that there is nothing socialist in turning education into a commodity to be bought and sold. And yes, as a student activist I demonstrated against the Thatcher government who wanted to cut student grants. Little did I know it then that in the future a Labour government would turn universities into education supermarkets.
A Blair and G Brown had their education financed that way (and so did I) so why shouldn't our children? Everyone benefits from a better educated population and the only fair way to do that is to make education completely free. Turning education into a commodity is the most disgusting policy that the Labour government has done.
Looking back, the huge expansion of University styled education for those who are not really up to it was something of a mistake and has led to the dilution of education lower down the system, but that is another issue.
So again we have hte situation where the succesful, those who take their degrees and make use of their training and education subsidise those who don't. As it is they already pay higher taxes both in real terms and in terms of the marginal rates and under this scheme they subsidise the less successful even more.
Someone with a degree from Oxford and a job job will end up spending 20 years paying a higher tax rate to support the sociology graduate from the University of Wolverhampton?
As I said before is there no end to the times you expect that those who get on and succeed in life have to dip their hands in their pockets to pay for everyone else.
Further education should be free for those who will benefit from it.
If (once working) graduates thought their contributions would actually make a difference then maybe they would make donations by their own free will.
The distortion of the current funding model makes individual contributions pointless.
Labour love it because it put the government firmly in control of universities, just like our s*tty state schools.
If individuals were allowed to make a difference then labour couldn't force through their stupid, damaging socialist crap.
A real vote winner there.
On top of this..."lesser proportion of your household income, say if you're a homemaker/carer". So if I was a non graduate make who married a graduate female who chose to stay at home with children I would have to have part of my income taxed to pay for her higher education?
Another real vote winner and a great boost to marriage in the UK.
I suggest a contract - enforceable anywhere. In return for your education and a contribution to your living costs you contract to pay a proportion of your income back to the university throughout your working carer, and/or perhaps a lesser proportion of your household income, say if you're a homemaker/carer. This way the universities that produce successful graduates will make more money, more return on their investment, whereas those that don't will loose money or at least have less money coming in. Neither system deals with how they'll be initially funded.
Or is it just for new graduates?
By the way could you stop using words such as "People’s Trust for Higher Education" that require a "contribution". It's a graduate tax, the public will see it as a TAX, it is a TAX, it will function like a TAX as it will be removed from pay packets like a TAX.
This is just wealth distribution on the sly. Why should graduates on low incomes only pay 0.3%? If you are earning money and there is a tax related to a service you received then pay the going rate. Why the hell is it you lefties always expect those who are successful to consistantly be having to dip into their pockets to fund your dumb policies?
The NUS as I well remember spent years with it's head in the sand arguing for a mass increase in higher education numbers and no financial cost of the expansion to sit with students.
Does the NUs still run itself on closed shops? Does it still run it's "democracy" at conference on card votes and mandation? Does it still proport to represent all student with it's half baked left wing agenda?
This proposal will be kicked into the long grass and rightly so. Dropping a 2.5% tax rate on the top 20% (most of whom will be graduates) for 20 years will be a great vote loser for Labour.
Is it the Barnett Formula by any chance?
These are the latest figures for funding per person across the UK
Northern Ireland £9,577
Scotland £9,032
Wales £8,493
England £7,426
Not really fair is it?
Just three questions:
- How will you build up the Trust's capital in the early years. Would the government issue bonds, lend the finance to the Trust which will pay the loan back as it receives funds from graduates?
- Will students on Foundation Degrees be included? If so, could Colleges apply to the Trust for funding? (speaking as a College Governor....)
- Finally, when you say top 20% of earners- what income level are talking in cash terms?
Interesting.....
I also think you have your banding the wrong way round. If you are earning average earnings, clearly the degree hasn't helped much so I would argue they pay more in. The flipside is also true, someone who has an excellent degree (and probably paid through the nose for it) should pay less because they are already paying 50%+ of their income in tax.
Also, define 'fair', who is this 'fair' to? Those that are extremely valuable (and probably highly mobile)? Or those that have under-achieved with their degree?
This system isn't perfect, it's howling at the moon madness.