A report published this week by the Higher Education Commission finds the current higher education funding system unsustainable. The Higher Education Commission, an independent body comprised of leaders from the education sector, business community and the three major political parties, compiled the report over nine months with information from over 60 experts.
The report shows that as many as 73% of students graduating with an average debt of £44,035 will be unable to pay back their tuition fee loans before the end of the 30-year repayment period. Under the old system, 25% of students would never pay back their loans in full, which amounted to an average student debt of £24,754.
The Government has therefore ended up funding higher education by writing off unpaid student loans. The report finds that the Government is not better off than before the change in tuition fees in 2010, but are less rewarded in the public eye as students feel they are paying substantially more.
The Commission highlights concerns that mid level earners such as health professionals, teachers and public sector workers who need a degree to enter their profession will be unlikely to ever pay back their loan.
The Commission also mentions concerns over declining postgraduate, part time and mature student numbers.
Universities are struggling as the frozen £9,000 tuition fee cap is worth increasingly less due to inflation. The report finds that by mid-2015 tuition fees will only be worth £8,250 in real terms. Although the Commission did report that it has not been presented with strong evidence from universities that it costs more than an average of £9,000 to deliver good quality courses.
Lifting the cap on student numbers next year could pose a threat to ‘weaker universities’. Therefore the Commission recommended that The Government should monitor its plans to lift student number controls and be ready to reverse them if further research and experience shows they have had a damaging impact on students, universities or government finances.
“We have created a system where everybody feels like they are getting a bad deal. This is not sustainable.”
Megan Dunn, National Union of Students vice-president (higher education), said: “This is yet another report which joins a long line of disappointing revelations that have consistently shown that the current funding system is entirely unsustainable…The current system is bad for students, bad for the sector and bad for the taxpayer.”
The Commission analysed six options for funding higher education, assessing the positives and negatives of each one as follows:
- Maintaining the status quo with or without tweaks to the system
- The graduate tax
- Lowering fees and increasing government grant
- Lifting the fee cap
- Hybrid system
- Differential fees
You can read the report in full on the Higher Education Commission website here.
