Some belated thoughts on Tuition Fees

I haven't really had time to get down my thoughts on this issue over the last few weeks, so thought I'd take this opportunity of a break over the festive season to offer some musings. Firstly I must say that I still believe that a university education should be provided free for all students. Whilst, its been the Lib-Dems who have been in the firing line for their u-turn, we shouldn't forget that none of the parties have managed to maintain a consistent line:

Party Inconsistency?
The 2005 Conservative manifesto (written by one D. Cameron) promised to abolish fees and now they are raising them. As for Labour, its very hard to take them seriously on the issue - they promised not to introduce fees and then did, they promised not to introduce top-up fees and then did. They commissioned the report that recommended that fees should not only be tripled but completely uncapped and there is no reason to believe that they wouldn't implement those recommendations. Whilst in office they completely dismissed the idea of a graduate tax (the NUS favoured option) but are now supporting it in a cynical ploy to make political hay out of the issue. Their opportunism on this issue is far more cynical than anything the Lib-Dems have done.

Meanwhile in Scotland (where we have free tuition), the SNP are coming up with all sorts of unworkable solutions in order to delay their own u-turn on the issue until after the elections next May.

The only parties who are maintaining a consistent anti-fees line on the issue are the Greens and UKIP (now there's an unlikely alliance).

As for the Lib-Dems. They officially remain committed to abolishing fees and I think would genuinely like to see this happen. We will never know whether they could have negotiated greater concessions on the area in the coaltion agreement, but in coalition you do need to compromise on certain issues and they knew before the election that they wouldn't get anywhere on the issue with either Tories or Labour in a coalition and would have to put it onto the back-burner. The question then arises, knowing this, whether they should have signed the NUS pledge? Probably not, but then how would it have looked if they tried to say we believe in abolishing fees, but won't pledge not to increase them - its certainly a more honest position, but one that would not stand up in an election campaign in our current soundbite political culture, which has no room for nuance or complexity.

The Details

And in that culture, what we get in the media is that tuition fees are to triple for everybody. Which isn't the case. Firstly, in order to triple, rather than double fees, universities will have to do quite a lot to increase access to university for students from more deprived backgrounds.

Secondly, under the current proposals, the 25% of graduates with the lowest incomes after completing their courses (there's nothing to pay up front) will actually pay less than they do currently. Added to that, it is calculated that around 50% will never pay back the full amount in the 30 year timespan. So far from all students three times as much as currently, much fewer than half will actually pay that, and only when they are earning enough to be able to afford it. Somebody who averages £30,000 pa for the thirty years after graduation will end up paying just £2000 more in total, which works out at £67 per year more.

Taking all this, I think that is what is being suggested is probably more fair than what is currently in place. In fact in practice it doesn't work out all that different from the graduate tax the NUS advocates, except that theoretically you could have a graduate tax and still maintain you're sticking to the principle of free university education. Personally, I think that's a bit of a fudge and would prefer no fees and higher education funded by the use of the taxes that already exist, but I'm not sure if I would prioritise it over funding on healthcare or schools, for example.