By Paul Goodman
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None of the special interests concerned likes the Government's decision to raise tuition fees by up to £9000 a year – a tripling of the ceiling.
And the man presiding over the whole kaboodle is David Willetts who, as nearly everyone concerned has pointed out, has written a brilliant study of intergenerational unfairness.
There have been solemn warnings of plumetting student numbers in the autumn, when the new maxiumum comes in – particularly among poorer young people. It is therefore only fair to report that there are some reasons to be cheerful amidst all this despondency, as Willetts is keen to point out to today's readers of the Daily Telegraph.
He writes that:
"Already, more people have applied to start university in 2012 than there are places available. So yet again it will be very competitive.
The Ucas numbers also show that applications from young people with disadvantaged backgrounds have held steady. They fell by just 0.2 per cent on last year’s all-time high. There has admittedly been a slight decline among young people from more affluent households, but more than half of 18 year olds from wealthy backgrounds apply to university compared to fewer than 20 per cent of those from poorer backgrounds. So there is no evidence that middle-class applicants are being penalised."
The Higher Education Minister also argues that "our reforms offer an opening to new providers, with all institutions accessing public money on a level playing field", that "new providers can drive improvements, including efficiencies, throughout the whole of higher education' and that "we want British institutions to be at the forefront of the globalisation of higher education because, despite the prestige of our universities, we are at risk of being overtaken by other countries".
I suppose Willetts has no alternative but to write that "Simon Hughes, the Coalition’s Advocate on Access, has really helped us to get the message across". He also confirms that the Government's preferred Director for Fair Access is Les Ebdon, the vice chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire. Parents and students have yet the feel the pinch of the fair access regime, to borrow the title of the Minister's book.
The Government certainly has no alternative to the tuition fees policy itself if Britain's universities are to be good quality and student numbers are to remain high (since the taxpayer simply can't afford to fund their fees). "Those institutions that succeed are likely to be those that are more accountable to their students", Willetts writes today. This is suggesting directly that market pressures are going to have their way.
Which in due course will surely mean fewer Universities and higher fees. The unwillingness of young people to take on substantial debt will clash with the sense that higher education boosts potential earning power: young people will peruse University "league tables" more closely. It is more rare for Ministers to get pieces in the papers than used to be the case, and Willetts will be pleased to have done so today. But the fair access muddle remains his policy's achilles heel.