The government has got it totally wrong on higher education funding - it’s time for Labour to propose an alternative.
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By Rory Weal
Figures released yesterday show that university applications from UK students for courses starting this autumn have fallen by 8.9 per cent. The drop coincides with the increase in tuition fees, to £9,000 a year, which the current cohort will be the first to experience.
These figures stand in stark contrast to the government line when tuition fees were increased in November 2010, when education secretary Michael Gove told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
“I believe that [higher fees] won’t put off students. They will make a rational decision on the benefits that accrue to them [from going to university].”
Yesterday’s figures have disproved Gove’s assertion that the prospect of having over £27,000 worth of debt will not deter students from applying.
These statistics show that the prospect of carrying such an extraordinary debt before even leaving university is making many young people, who would have previously considered going to university, reconsider.
What is equally notable is the differentiation in applications from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In England, tuition fees are at £9,000 a year, whereas in Wales and Northern Ireland fees stand at £3,465, and there are no fees for Scottish students applying to university.
Application figures clearly show that the slump is far more dramatic in England, with Scotland experience a far less significant fall. England has seen by far the most substantial reduction, down 10% compared with the same point last year. The other declines are of 2% in Scotland, 3% in Wales and 5% in Northern Ireland.
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This clearly shows a strong link between increasing fees and declining applications. The government’s previous attempts to claim that the fee rise will not deter students has been shown to be totally incorrect.
Sally Hunt, leader of the UCU lecturers’ union, attacked the government for their pivotal role in seeing universities become inaccessible to many young people, saying:
“These figures once again highlight the folly of hiking up tuition fees to £9,000 and making England one of the most expensive countries in the world in which to access higher education.”
She went on to criticise the double standards of the Tory-led government, which gives lip-service to social mobility but in reality is making the situation far worse, saying:
“This government can talk all it likes about improving social mobility but how will erecting punitive financial barriers help our best and brightest get on?”
These figures are evidence of a government that is blocking the ability for young people to get on in life. The increase in tuition fees is just one element of a wider mix of measures which are ending any pretence that young people can still do well regardless of their background.
The scrapping of EMA has made education unaffordable for many young people while the slashing of youth centres has taken away an essential resource from kids from deprived areas. Now we see that increasing the cost of education has meant that many young people are simply not applying to stay on into higher education.
In light of these figures, Labour needs to be pushing for a radical overhaul of the regressive and unfair tuition fee system with a new mechanism, which Ed Miliband supported in his leadership campaign: a graduate tax.
Such a tax would get rid of the deterrent caused by the threat of taking on masses of debt and encourage young people to apply for university, not least those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The government has got it totally wrong on higher education funding. It’s time for Labour to propose an alternative.
40 Responses to “Fall in applications undermines government claims fee rise will not deter students”
Phil Taylor
RT @leftfootfwd: Fall in applications undermines government claims fee rise will not deter students http://t.co/5PUI9gaD < my post today
Selohesra
Keep up your misinformation Botty – Dr Goebels would be proud of you. Scaring the poor away from education is presumably justified in your twisted world as worthwhile in furtherance of your ideology. The truth is though that those who get less well paid jobs will never repay their loans. Whilst free education for everyone for ever might sound nice at the end of the day someone needs to go out into real world to get real money to pay for it all.
Anonymous
Oh yes, telling the truth is the same in your world as being your approved family doctor. Keep up the propaganda, hurting people for the sake of your shares.
And that’s right, and you’re determined that it’ll be the 99% who pays and pays and pays and pays and pays and pays. Graduates make the economy cash, a concept you’re utterly opposed to in your campaign for chinese wages.
The truth is, again, the new fees will COST the average person paying them cash across their working life. You can pray to your totalitarian gods all the like, but you can’t change that.
Mr. Sensible
What a mess…
Anonymous
Rot.
If you care about this country’s economic wellbeing, then funding those degrees is more than affordable. The fact is, in 30 years most of that debt will be written off anyway, with predictably disastrous results.
The advance technology says there are fewer and fewer low-skill jobs. This is not a trend which will stop or slow for your ideology. Nor will international companies care, they’ll require a degree just as before for their roles. We’ve had a falling % graduation rate for years, this is now going to plummet. Wages are going to nosedive.
University, under the new fees, is NOT an “equaliser”. It HURTS the finances of the person taking it, over their entire working life. They are better off, at retirement, if they have NOT gone to University! The COUNTRY benefits, but they LOSE!
Your hatred for this country, and the saps you’re leeching off…
I’d strongly suggest a more fitting user-name like…oh…Crassus.