Higher Education: Gotta stay high

I am always interested to hear of the latest way business has come up with to avoid their responsibilities towards students and graduates. Often we hear business representatives announcing extreme positions on how to pay for our university system. The position often consists of one of three usual suspects: suggesting astronomical tuition fees for students, arguing for a reduction in numbers of university places, or trying to make the case for "encouraging" businesses to take on graduates, usually through tax benefits.

I was therefore disappointed to see the latest report from the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) arguing for all three. The future for the higher education system in the UK, according to AGR, is a reduced number of places, a complete lifting of the cap on top-up fees and, to top things off, they believe giving businesses tax breaks for the benefit of having graduates on their books is also a key part of funding our higher education system.

I would never argue that the only way someone can make the best of themselves is by going to university. However, the fact remains that university is one of the main ways to make the most of your talent. Graduates generally still receive a huge premium on their lifetime earnings and the professions in our country and those with much of the power (Doctors, Lawyers, Politicians, Judges, Senior Civil Servants, etc.) are dominated by graduates.

We must increase places, not reduce them, expanding opportunity to people based on talent not on background.

The AGR report also proposes to remove the cap on top-up fees. I will overlook the fact that we, thankfully, don’t have top-up or tuition fees in Scotland. In fact, speaking at NUS Scotland conference last weekend the Education Minister, Mike Russell, ruled out them ever returning to Scotland again. This will allow all those that want to, to have a mature debate on funding universities, leaving knee-jerk reactions behind, and finding a fair and sustainable way to fund our students, colleges and universities.

However, increasing top-up fees in the rest of the UK would have terrible consequences. Students would be saddled with enormous levels of debt, putting off all but the most well-off from going to university. Graduates would also be forced into the most well-paid jobs rather than the most suitable jobs for them. Introducing such a ferocious market into the higher education system could only have damaging effects.

Education is not, and should never be, a commodity to buy and sell.

The third suggestion from the AGR is perhaps the most despicable. At a time when public funding is becoming much tighter, when students are struggling to get by financially, and when we have an increase in applications to university of over 30 percent, the AGR proposes a tax cut for businesses. A tax cut for business to help pay for universities. I don’t think I need to say more, really.

We need greater levels of investment into our college and university sector, and we must protect them from the worst of the public spending cuts which are predicted just round the corner. We need to protect the numbers of university and college places while maintaining the quality of teaching, and crucially, we must have a fundamental look at how students are supported through study.

The report seems based less on fact or solid research, and more on the fallacy that you would read on the hallowed pages of the Daily Mail: “a degree is not worth anything these days”. The AGR report simply gets it all wrong. I look forward to the coming debate on how to fund our students, colleges and universities and I look forward to making the case for an expanded, properly funded sector that drives our economy and drives a fairer society. Let’s just hope AGR have a rethink and see sense between now and then.