Degrees of value
Anastasia De Waal, 24 May 2010
A short article in the Telegraph last week was of a gravity unmatched by its modest coverage, writes Zenobe Reade. It told of Oxford University’s plans to create a fund to pay the tuition fees of graduates who go on to careers such as teaching and social work. Graduates would apply to have their fees paid by the fund, made up of donations by alumni.
The announcement could, at first glance, appear to be another imperceptible string to Oxford’s bow of endowments. With combined college endowments of around £2.7 billion, it is in a position to provide its students with a myriad of services and support, not least £8,000 of the remaining £16,000 required annually, post tuition fee and taxpayer contributions. Oxford and Cambridge stand alone in this capacity: together, their endowments represent 70% of the UK total.
In reality however, the move is far more significant, tacitly acknowledging the potential dangers of lifting the cap on tuition fees. Pro-vice chancellor Anthony Monaco has commented that it is ‘very important’ to avoid forcing Oxford graduates into high-paid employment purely because they have high university fees to pay. This appears to run contrary to Oxford Chancellor Lord Patten’s strong support for lifting the cap on the tuition fees universities can charge, the £3,255 a year fee he has called ‘preposterously low’. This is an opinion shared by the powerful Russell and 1994 groups, which represent the UK’s top 39 universities.
Oxford’s proposed fund seems more akin to the position of the National Union of Students who advocate a graduate tax, which would see students pay for higher education retrospectively and in line with their earnings. Lower earners would pay less, rather than longer. Equity is not only a question of wider access to university but also integral to the debate over who pays for university. We’ve largely forgotten about the utilitarian underpinnings of university and why the taxpayer is implicated in its cost: this is the understanding that we as a country benefit from the professional and technological development which universities afford. Monaco’s comment and the establishment of the fund underpins the suspicion that higher fees will instil an individualism which contradicts these ethics.
Our oversight of the utilitarian goods of university is for good reason: the expansion of participation in higher education since Labour’s ascendency has meant vast inflation in the value of a degree; these are no longer accomplices to a national good or synonymous with quality. Instead, their worth is located in the degree certificate itself and the employability this affords the individual.
A new government must refine higher education provision so that there is not only the impetus to ‘improve the quality of the student experience’, as David Willetts recommends, but that higher education becomes a worthwhile investment – whether for student or taxpayer – and develops skills which accord to Britain’s labour market needs.
Zenobe Reade