What's the aim?

Tweet According to the treasurers of our universities, Welsh Government policy on student fees is diverting “their” money to English universities.  They don’t quite say it, but the implication is that it would be “better” (for them at least) if students were charged full fees rather than having their fees paid wherever they choose to study.

The opposition parties were quick to jump on the bandwagon.  Any stick with which to beat the government will apparently do.  They were more than a little short on positive alternatives though.

The question that struck me was about what we are trying to achieve with the money we spend on higher education.  There are at least two - very different - choices:

• providing the very best higher education for our young people.  If that is our aim then paying their fees wherever they study – which is effectively current Welsh government policy – is probably the best way of doing it; or
• making our universities as good as we can – in which case, funding the universities directly and keeping all the higher education spend in Wales would be the better approach.

In an ideal world, the two might, in effect, look very similar.  If our institutions were the very best – and they are certainly striving to be that – then the best education for young people would be that provided by our own universities.  There are some complications though:

• Universities in Wales have expanded way beyond what is necessary to meet the “home” demand.  Even if we assume that there will be some transfers in and some transfers out, the imbalance between those transfers means that to sustain their current size – let alone support ambitious expansion plans – our universities need to attract a significant net inflow of students to Wales.  To what extent do we want to use our higher education spending to fund the education of “foreign” students?
• Wales is a small country, and it is unlikely that our universities will ever be able to even provide for every possible academic discipline, let alone be the best in all of those.  Do we want to limit the choices of young people to what is available in Wales, or do we want to facilitate learning wherever they go?
• Many of those who go elsewhere to study choose never to return (although by the same token, many of those to come to Wales to study choose to settle and stay here).  Leaving aside any considerations about the desirability or otherwise of the population exchanges involved here, to what extent do we wish to pay for the education of our young people, even if “we” don’t see the return on that investment?

None of these are easy questions, and politicians reducing them to simplistic sloganeering aren’t really shedding a lot of light, nor do they seem to be offering much clarity of direction.

I find myself torn – I want us to invest in the best education we can for our young people; I want them to stay in (or return to) Wales and help us build the nation we can become.  And I want a world where people are free to go where they wish to follow their dreams and aspirations.  My problem is that I’m not sure we can do all of those things at the same time.

And my problem with the political reactions highlighted in the BBC report is that it left me unclear as to which – if any – of those objectives either the government or the opposition is actually trying to achieve.

Muddled thinking

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There are signs of some muddled thinking in this report today.  The report notes that the number of English students applying to study in Wales has dropped, and the usual suspects proceed to provide the customary quotes.

The Conservatives' Education spokesperson wins the prize for squeezing the most clichéd phrases (and the most hyphenated ones too) into the shortest space (‘headline-grabbing’, ‘wafer-thin’, ‘half-baked’ and ‘wake-up call’, all crammed into two sentences).  Stripped of rhetoric however, her point seems to be that the policy is wrong because it’s going to cost more than planned.

In fairness to the Government, they have admitted previously that the costings for the policy were based on estimates.  Indeed, they had to be estimates.  No-one could have known in advance what the level of applications was going to be; apart from any other factor, this was the first year with the new higher fees level – no-one really knew what the effect of that would be on applications.

We shouldn’t castigate governments for proceeding on the basis of estimates rather than hard figures, which seems to be part of the Tories’ pitch.  All governments do it; very little would happen if they did not.  If the estimate could and should have been closer to the out-turn, then there is a potential criticism of incompetence, which is rather a different matter.  But from my reading of the figures, it seems to me that the government took a reasonable and reasoned view in arriving at its numbers.

The question is what happens next.  The Tories’ position seems to be that the policy should be abandoned because it costs more than planned.  That sounds rather like a way of trying to sink it on practical grounds rather than arguing with the principle, which is what they really dislike but are afraid to say.

Clearly, it will be challenging for the government to find what looks like significant extra funding for the policy, but having taken the bold decision to go down this route, it would be an enormous shame if they decided to change tack at this stage, quite apart from the impact on the financial planning of students. 

One thing which does deserve more attention, though, is the comparison between Wales and Scotland when it comes to the numbers of students choosing to stay here to study.  There are many factors involved in this, but the difference is nevertheless stark. 

One of the advantages of the previous policy, before it was abandoned by the One Wales Government, was that there were signs of an increase in the number of ‘stay-in-Wales’ students.  Encouraging that trend wouldn’t solve the financial problems, but it would help to direct the expenditure into Welsh universities.  There’s scope for some tweaking of policy, but it doesn’t need to be abandoned.

Lawyers, advice, and politics

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There have been a few comments this week about the story which first appeared, according to Dylan J-E, in the Sunday Times.  It was based on an anonymous source who said that the Scottish Government had considered a similar approach to that in Wales for paying fees for Scottish students studying in England, but had rejected the idea on the basis of legal advice received.

The motive for the anonymous source who started this particular hare running is unclear, although the motivation of those who’ve jumped on the issue to attack the Welsh Government is all too clear.  Both the Tories and the Lib Dems are hostile to the way in which Wales is giving its students a better deal than they are receiving from the coalition in London, and are only too willing to undermine the policy in any way they can.  They will be happy only when Welsh students face the same crippling levels of debt as those from England.

But I wonder for how long they can go on demanding the impossible level of assurances which they seem to be seeking.  The initial report was based on ‘legal advice’.  Now I’m no lawyer, but I’ve had enough dealings with those offering ‘legal advice’ to know that it is often no more than an opinion on how the law might be interpreted, and that different lawyers might well come to different conclusions.  And so might judges.

I haven’t a clue how robust the advice given to the Welsh Government was.  It clearly does not draw the same conclusion as the advice given in Scotland, but as is ever the case, it only becomes clear who is right when a ruling has been made.  For the Welsh Government to give the absolute assurance being demanded by the Tories and Lib Dems is unlikely to be possible without a test case being brought.  Up until that point, it’s just a difference of legal opinion, compounded with a whole lot of political bluster.

And, apart from politics, I can’t see any motive for bringing a test case.  If the Welsh Government won, then the current situation could continue; and if they lost, then they’d have no choice but to scrap the current provision as it relates to Welsh students in England.  There’d be no winners, only losers.

And even at a political level, the Tories and Lib Dems might take some satisfaction if they were proved right, but I can’t think that many students or parents of students would share their satisfaction.  It doesn’t even look like good electoral politics.

Meaningless Conscience Salving

Tweet The 'strong hints' being dropped by leading Lib Dems that there will, after all, be a cap on the level of fees charged by universities is clearly aimed at reassuring their supporters that they haven't completely abandoned their opposition.  But it's a meaningless concession if the level is set so high, as seems likely, as to prevent no university from charging the amount which they were planning on anyway.

Telling universities that they can go so far, but no further, is just a pointless bit of rhetoric if they weren't planning to go that far anyway.  But in fact, it could actually have a negative impact on the situation - the upper limit could rapidly become the norm.  Universities which were thinking in terms of a lower number could end up standardising at the same level as everyone else.  It may not be what the Lib Dems intend; but that's the whole point about the law of unintended consequences.

Social Mobility

Tweet With Labour and Conservative parties both trying to appeal to the 'middle class', social mobility is a phrase which we have been hearing more frequently. The implication is that 'social mobility' (generally interpreted as the ability to move up through the social classes rather than down, although in theory it can mean either!) is inherently a 'good thing'.

And so it is, for those able to benefit. And by drawing on a wider pool of talent and ability, society as a whole also gains from the process. And yet…

Social mobility for the few held up as though it was an indicator of a society which is increasingly classless is not the same as greater social equality for the many. Picking out the most talented and enabling them to 'get on' is not the same as developing the talent and ability of all to the maximum.

When I hear Labour or Tory politicians talking about social mobility, I do really wonder whether they understand these points, and what, if anything, they are offering to the many rather than the few. And even for the few, there is a danger that their actions do not match their rhetoric.

I was listening to an address by the Vice-Chancellor of one of our universities recently, and he made the point that, in recent history, the greatest single driver of social mobility has been a university education. Making that opportunity available to more and more of our young people is, in that context, one of the most important pieces of social engineering that we have ever undertaken as a society.

Yet, whilst Governments seem to be praising the concept of social mobility, their policies seem designed to restrict the one proven approach to enabling that. Introducing tuition fees was, in my view, one of the most retrograde steps ever taken by government in this context. To pretend that it has not impacted the likelihood of young people from poorer backgrounds attending university is flying in the face of logic and experience. But the direction of policy seems to be to continue to increase the level of fees, likely to deter even more people from applying.

Recent suggestions that the number of places in universities will be cut is another indication of a return to a form of elitism which benefits the more well-off rather than the poorer in our communities. It was disappointing indeed that the Welsh government felt that it had no option ultimately but to follow the English lead over fees. I hope that they will resist following any English lead in reducing the numbers of places.