Problems with the Browne Review are a missed opportunity for the Lib Dems.

I have written before about the Browne Review and the coming changes to the way universities are funded, making it pretty clear that the deal was actually better for students than the one they get now. But two areas I didn't touch have been troubling me. First, I didn't look at the principle of whether students should have their university education funded. Secondly, there is one area on which Browne's reforms are very weak and the Lib Dems are fools for not noticing it.

Britain's current problems have arisen from a noble goal: to make university accessible to all. A consequence of this has been that the number of people going to university has increased. A lot. This may have been great for social mobility (debatable) but it was awful for the government's finances. There are now more people going to university than the state can afford. On the surface - and I think that this is where people are looking - this looks unfair. Before the expansion of HE students, who were rarely from poor backgrounds, got free higher education. Now university is open to all it suddenly isn't free.

The simple fact is that students never deserved state help. There is no reason why taxpayers should fund students. Why should the poor fund your university experience? Or rather, why shouldn't you pay for it yourself? You get a hell of a lot out of it - all the statistics suggest that graduates earn more than non-graduates. So why should non-graduates subsidise your education so you can earn more money?

They shouldn't. You should pay for your own studies.

My second point is this: there is a big problem with these reforms, but it's not with the top-up fees. That £9,000 figure has distorted the debate. Everyone is focussed on it. But the reason why £9,000 isn't a problem is because the government pays it for you up front, and you pay back when you're earning. If you do the sums, you'll see that someone paying back their loan earning £25,000 a year at the 9% rate on income over £21,000 will have to find just £360 per year. It's not the thing that makes university unaffordable.

The killer is what you have to pay UP FRONT when you're there. That is supposed to be covered by a maintenance grant and a means-tested allowance. But there is a real argument to say that the sums offered are not enough. For those with a household income less than £25,000 there will be a grant of £3,250. This is supplemented by a loan, which is to increase to an unspecified amount probably dictated by inflation and likely to be a little higher (for those with a household income of less than £25,000) than the current maximum of £3,497.

That's a little more than £6,747 a year. You can easily spend well over £4,000 on rent alone, particularly in London, leaving you with less than £3,000 to spend on food and clothes and heating all year. It's not enough. Most people will manage it because their parents will help them, which completely defeats the point. It's important to note that this isn't a new problem, it was part of Labour's initial reforms too: Browne's review just hasn't rectified it.

So students have focussed on the wrong thing. They've got caught up in an unwinnable debate over the £9,000 level and rejecting the bill outright, and have missed a real chance to make university more accessible to all. By lobbying hard students could have pressurised the government into increasing the maintenance grant and maintenance allowance.

An amendment of this sort would have been politically acceptable, in a way that rejecting the bill never could be. Not only would this have been a great benefit for students, it also would have been great for the Lib Dems, who are crying out for something positive to mask the bitter taste of this bill. I hope they realise it before it's too late.

As a footnote, I've read with some amusement that students at my former university UCL have been occupying a room (or something) in protest at the tuition fee increases which will be voted on in the Commons on Thursday. Some of the brave souls have come up with this song to mark the occasion. Favourite lines include (and I apologise in advance for the swearing, but it is, apparently, how you show solidarity, or make a valid political point, or something):

"We're all in this together as the proletariat." Sung while wearing a cricket jumper.
"The proletariat have nothing to lose but their chains, working men of all countries unite." Impressed they got a melody out of this line. 
"Fucking Tories." So edgy. 
"Theresa May is a whore", which seemed a bit excessive to me. 

Anyway, decide for yourself if you think people on the lowest incomes should subsidise this lot:

PMQs - 10th November 2010

Following the disunity displayed by the PLP on Monday this could have been a very difficult outing for Harriet Harman but her relentless focus on tuition fees left Nick Clegg struggling.

Harman's prepared jokes were excellent and she was on the front foot throughout. She began with a simple question to Clegg, asking if he could update the House on how his plans to abolish tuition fees were going. This brought howls of laughter from the Labour benches. Nick fought back with those tired lines about the deficit and the legacy of the previous government.

She pushed again with a Clegg quote from the election campaign in which he called the prospect of £7,000 fees a 'disaster'. Clegg started to warm up and retorted that the system was fairer than anything under Labour and that it would help part-time students 'shamefully treated' by the opposition.

Labour's Deputy Leader then landed the best line of the exchange about Clegg meeting some 'dodgy bloke' at freshers' week and doing something he'd regret. The backbenches on both sides were laughing now - even William Hague couldn't hide his smirk (see above).

Clegg hit back by arguing that Labour was far from the party of students, pointing out that Labour had introduced tuition fees after opposing them in 1997 and introduced top-up fees after opposing them in 2001. They also set up the Browne Review and now disown its findings. He then asked Harman if she'd be going outside to explain to demonstrating students what her party's policy was.

Then Harman got to the real meat of the debate, and hammered home what should be a central part of their attacks on the coalition. Fee increases for students are not to increase funding for universities, but to cover the money that the government is cutting from universities. 'What is the cut to the university teaching grant?' she demanded.

Nick lost his bearings. He'd been defensive but generally assured until this point but here he started mumbling about the Labour party's plans to make massive cuts, which he couldn't be specific about because Labour don't even know what they are.

Harman came straight back at him, asking if he'd been taking lessons from the PM on how not to answer questions. She said the cuts to the university teaching grant were a 'staggering 80 per cent' and that the government had 'pulled the plug' on university funding. By now Clegg's responses were incoherent, as he said something generic about being progressive and fair.

Labour's Deputy Leader finished by mocking the Lib Dems' pre-election pledges. Clegg then tried to cram in a joke about the PLP's Mutiny Monday, but it was way too late and totally off topic. He looked completely lost, complaining that before the election he didn't know how bad things would be in government after Labour.

It was a big surprise to see Clegg so weak in debate, given that it's supposed to be one of his strong points. He didn't really land a single attack on Labour, and his Mutiny Monday joke was deployed out of desperation. Harman, on the other hand, was assured and relentless in her attack on the Lib Dems leader. In truth she has an easier time attacking the Lib Dems than Miliband has with Cameron, because they are so vulnerable on the compromises the are making. Even so, she defeated Clegg with some panache yesterday, matching excellent prepared jokes and quotes with points of real substance.

Solid Harman win. 

Students! Stop and think: Browne's reforms are great!

I wanted to begin by saying that I really don't understand why students dislike the Browne proposals. But the truth is that I do understand. I understand that students have seen the figure of £30,000 widely quoted and correctly worked out that this is more than they pay now. It then occurred to them that there would be no way for poorer students to afford that because they don't have £30,000. Then they heard someone mention a 'free market' and 'choice', and that made them really mad. So they decided these reforms are regressive, bad Tory cuts which will harm the poor and make university elitist.

They've thought about it for about as long as it took you to read that paragraph. Which is a shame. Because Lord Browne's reform is excellent.

The most important part is that you don't have to repay your loan until you earn £21,000 a year. That is brilliant. I wish I was that lucky. This measure, on its own, removes any argument that this reform unfairly impacts the poor. Because if you're poor all your fees are covered, and you don't pay back until you earn over £21,000. And if you're earning more than that you're not really poor any more are you! You've succeeded: you've come from a poor background, gone to uni, got a degree and got a good job after it. Well done.

And if you don't, then you don't pay. Your education will be free. FREE! What a great deal. £21,000 is so much fairer than the current £15,000, which almost all graduates will achieve. Yet even then, you don't just get a bill for the whole amount, you have a small percentage taken from your wages before you even see them. It will also increase with average earnings, so will not be fixed at £21,000 forever.

That leads into the second point about this system: you don't miss money you never had. The system will mean that university is FREE AT THE POINT OF USE. You will never see the money used to pay your fees, and you will never see the money that gets taken from your wages when you reach the threshold and start to pay your loan back. So much gets taken off in tax and NI anyway that having a little extra disappear to repay a loan - that helped you get your job earning over £21,000 - won't make any tangible difference. No-one is going to become destitute because of these repayments.

As I mentioned in my previous post, fear of debt has not put off poorer students from applying to university. In fact the opposite is true. Application numbers have increased dramatically. People clearly believe that university is a good path to success.

The problem with Browne's report is simply presentational. Using the words 'debt' and 'loan' makes students think, naturally, of a bank loan they must repay come what may. But this is not the case. It's not real debt, because if you don't earn over £21,000 it doesn't exist and whatever you haven't paid after 30 years gets written off.

There will also be more generous maintenance grants of £3,250 for students who come from households with incomes of less than £25,000. The upper threshold for students receiving partial maintenance grants will increase from £50,020 to £60,000, meaning more families will be get financial help. This will be supplemented by a flat-rate £3,750 maintenance loan which will no longer be means tested (yay!) and won't be paid back until you earn over £21,000.

The reforms also allow for funding to be extended to those completing part-time courses, who are not supported by the current system. This will make such courses much more appealing and will extend educational opportunities to millions of people who work and would like to do a part-time course but can't currently afford it. 

Browne's reforms also call for the universities to change some of their practices. For example they will be required to inform students up front how many contact hours they will have each week, so they can make informed decisions. There is also the hope, which may not be fulfilled, that universities will become more responsive to the needs of undergraduates. While this may not happen it is worth a shot, because at the minute they are not responsive and, frankly, inaction will not bring change either. 

Students will get their university experience totally free at the point of use and only have to pay money back once they earn over £21,000. Far from being penalised, the poor will be able to get the education they want knowing that it won't hurt them or their families financially. 

Today David Willetts will unveil the plan, and announce that when the reforms come in in September 2012 there will be two thresholds: £6,000 and £9,000 a year. Universities can charge what they like up to £9,000, but over £6,000 they have to demonstrate to the government that they are proactively encouraging students from poorer backgrounds. 

It already looks like one Lib Dem, Jenny Willott, MP for Cardiff Central and PPS to Chris Huhne, will resign over the matter. This is probably pretty helpful to the Lib Dems. Because of their election promises they can't be seen to totally support these measures even if the leadership does, and as their success in university seats is threatened they probably need a resignation to show students they care. It's a good move for her (she has a university seat in Wales) and for her party. I wouldn't expect to see any others go though. 

University Fees Reform

This is getting a lot/all of the press coverage today, and rightly so. It's a major test not of the coalition itself but of the way it works when Lib Dems oppose government measures. I'm not going to get into all of the details, rather I'd like to make a few points.

The first is that the NUS is saying that fear of debt will put off the poorest students and make higher education elitist. I can see their point but, frankly, I don't think they have any evidence of this. In fact, I think the evidence points firmly in the other direction, given that fees are at their maximum levels this year and there were too few places to meet demand. If there is funding available from the government (be it a loan or whatever) people won't be deterred from university.

The second is simply that I quite like the idea. Especially because I hope students being saddled with 30k of debts will be much more likely to demand a better standard of education from their universities. At the minute, class sizes are too big and time spent in seminars too small. This needs to change.

Thirdly, people already factor in financial costs when considering which university to apply to. It's a recognised fact that living in London is more expensive, and students there have long had a larger loan to cover their costs. People still go because of what it has to offer.

Lastly, I'm in favour of those who can being able to pay upfront. This is because not to do so would be to penalise the rich with no matching benefit to the poor, and that even if there was such a benefit, funding for universities is no place for wealth redistribution.