Education is about more than employability skills

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The research showing a link between education level, attitudes towards immigration, and right wing politics makes for interesting reading. It seems that non-graduates are far more likely than graduates to be both hostile to immigration and vote for the Tories or Reform Ltd. Could that, I wonder, be why those parties are so keen to reduce the number of young people going to university? For those of us who see a better educated population as a valid and worthwhile end in itself, rather than treating universities as simply a means of matching ‘resources’ to the requirements of multi-national capital, having a more tolerant population which is better able to analyse facts rather than follow prejudices is just one of the many benefits. I can see why those who seek to build a politics based on prejudice might not agree.

Is education as worthless as Sunak thinks?

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The course leader on a training session I attended many years ago explained the difference between education and training in roughly the following terms: “If your daughter came home from school and said the class had had sex education, you’d probably be quite relaxed, but if she said they’d had sex training you might be a little concerned”. The English government, it seems (and there will be knock-on effects in Wales, in funding terms at least) has effectively decided that all university courses are to be designated training rather than education, in the sense that if they don’t make students fit for a particular job, they are inherently worthless. The English education minister went so far as to say that there were some students still earning less than £18,000 a year, five years after graduating, and that this was not acceptable.

Leaving aside the question about the acceptability of any employer paying low wages, whether to graduates or not, what exactly is wrong with a graduate ending up in a comparatively low-paid job? There are a number of reasons why it can and does happen – it doesn’t mean that the education is worthless or the course pointless. Sometimes, the jobs aren’t available, and sometimes people deliberately choose to work in jobs which happen to be low-paid, not because the pay is low, but because there are other attractions to the job. Whilst the chief executives of some charities earn very high salaries, most of their staff do not, to look at only one example. Social care is another. Are we (or the government acting on our behalf) really saying that there’s no purpose educating people who work in those jobs beyond the level of training strictly required for the job?

It highlights one of those ideological differences which those who espouse something called ‘post-ideology politics’ deny exists: is the role of the education system to be limited to fitting people to the work which needs doing, or is there some intrinsic value, both for society as a whole and individuals, in having an educated population? Looking at the current level of political debate in the UK, I can understand why having an educated population might be considered dangerous to a Conservative Party which depends on prejudice and hatred for its electoral support. But Labour aren’t much different, and not just in terms of fishing in the same electoral pool. It was, remember, a Labour government which introduced student fees in the first place, beginning the process of marketizing higher education. Winnowing out courses which provide a ‘poor return on investment’ when looked at on a strictly cost-benefit basis is a pretty obvious outcome from that process. The tendency towards seeing all state spending in terms of investment and return, measured only in monetary terms, is a feature, not a bug, of the two parties’ shared ideology.

In purely practical terms, there is something very strange about having civil servants (or an outside agency contracted by the civil service, which amounts to the same thing) examining each individual course at each individual university to determine whether the university should be allowed to run the course at all, and if so, with how many students. It’s a short step from there to each new course requiring ministerial approval before it can start – a level of interference in the activity of ‘autonomous’ universities of which any dictatorial regime would be proud. Presumably, Sunak thinks that this will be a ‘popular’ decision amongst his target audience – that seems to be the only factor driving his decisions on policy. Perhaps he’s right, although it seems to me unlikely that those who are vociferously opposed to immigration are also deeply concerned about the nature of courses being taught in universities. It is a blow, though, against the idea that ‘life-long learning’ has a value, both to individuals and the wider community.

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.

At it again

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The Tories were at it again this week, criticising the Welsh Government’s arithmetic over tuition fees.  Whilst the figures have not worked out in line with the assumptions made, it simply doesn’t follow that the government was wrong to make the assumptions that it did.

Given that the situation regarding student fees was an entirely new one – as a result of the huge hike in fees imposed by the Tories and Liberal Democrats in England – no one knew for certain what the effect would be on total student numbers, let alone on cross-border transfers.  So the government had no choice – whatever policy it adopted – but to make some “guesstimates”; and they set those at what they thought was the right level based on such knowledge as was available.

If the Tories have some basis for claiming that the estimates could have been closer to the eventual actuals, let’s hear it.  To date, I see nothing from them on that.  And if they have no basis for making such a claim, then criticising the Welsh government for the gap between their best estimates and the actuals is just hot air and headline seeking.

Whilst they seem happy to do that, and to criticise the Welsh Government’s fees policy ad nauseam, they never seem to say much about their own preferred alternative, which is to hike fees for Welsh students to match those in England.  I wonder why?

Graduate premiums

Tweet This report from an investment advice company makes for interesting reading.  It’s long been claimed that possession of a university degree leads to a boost in lifetime earnings, but the level at which this report sets that boost is much higher than previous estimates.  Government ministers have talked in the past about the premium being around £100,000, but this report suggests that it’s at six times that level – a cool £600,000.

Now, assuming that the recipients of this extra salary manage to avoid higher rate tax throughout their working lives, and that the whole amount is therefore ‘only’ to be taxed at the UK basic tax rate of 20%, that means that the average graduate will pay £120,000 more in income tax over his working life than the average non-graduate.

One of the main arguments for tuition fees is precisely that graduates earn more and should contribute more as a result; but these figures show the extent to which they already do that through the tax system.  Those of us who’ve argued that from the outset will feel vindicated by such a finding; why charge them an extra £27,000 on top of the extra £120,000 they’re already paying?

There’s a sting in the report as well though, because the figures I’ve used so far are based on averages over a working life.  The report also says that, unless a graduate starts his or her working life on a salary of at least £50,000 (and the average first year graduate salary is a mere £19,653 by way of comparison), then the terms of the student loans are such that the graduate is unlikely to earn enough to pay off the loan and added interest, and the government will end up writing off the greater part of the debt.

So, after saddling graduates with debts for the first 30 years of their working life, the government will end up writing off somewhere “between £30,649 and £64,935 for every full-time university student who graduates in 2015”.  That’s more than the three year cost of fees at £27,000, because of the interest added.  Far from transferring the cost of Higher Education from the state to the individuals, the Government will, to a significant extent, merely have deferred the expenditure for 30 years.

This isn’t so much reducing the deficit as putting part of the debt off balance sheet; hiding it away as an unstated liability for the future.  It may not be on the same scale, but it’s not too far removed from some of the accounting practices which Greece used to hide the true extent of its deficit.

I’ve never been convinced that the policy made sense educationally, or that it was fair; and I’ve also been concerned that it would deter bright students from less privileged backgrounds from studying.  If the figures in this report are anywhere near accurate, it suggests that the policy doesn’t even stack up in economic terms either.

Who are these people?

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There was a story about a month ago claiming that there was a possible loophole in the Welsh Government’s policy on paying tuition fees.  The nub of the issue was that different lawyers appeared to be giving different advice (as lawyers are wont to do) about the law in this area, with some claiming that the Welsh Government could find itself open to paying fees for all EU students studying in the UK.

I still suspect, as I noted at the time, that this is one of those situations where only a test case will prove who is right and who is wrong; but I couldn’t see how anyone’s interest would be served by bringing such a test case.

I still don’t see whose interest would be served, but it looks as though we may be moving to a position where a test case becomes a possibility.  According to the Western Mail this morning, a “think-tank” which I’d never heard of before has decided to actively encourage EU students in England to apply to the Welsh Government for funding.

The “think-tank” concerned has a single-page web presence here, which actually tells us very little about them.  The banner at the top, showing a combination of the union flag and the stars and stripes makes me wonder what the nature of the US connection is, but there is little hard information to be had.  The Western Mail tells us that their spokesman is England-based – do they have any connection with Wales at all?

The key question, surely, is what the motivation is behind this intervention in Welsh politics.  It’s a question which the Western Mail seems not to have even asked. 

Their web page says that they want to expose the “stupidity and inequity” of the policy being pursued by “the Welsh Assembly” (sic – do they not understand the difference between the Assembly and the Government, and what does that say about their knowledge?).  But who would pay for them to do this, and if they’re not being paid for it, why would they divert time and effort into something which is more political campaign than policy research and development?

It’s an odd thing for a “think-tank” to do; and the report in the paper raised more questions than answers in my mind. 

I wasn’t particularly surprised at the Tories jumping on the bandwagon to criticise the policy yet again, although I still don’t understand why they think such a stance holds any political advantage for them.  Supporting an organisation based elsewhere in an attempt to undermine a popular policy doesn’t look like good politics to me.

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.

More on the Browne stuff

Tweet Part of the justification used by Lord Browne for his proposals on student fees was that the average graduate can expect to earn over £100,000 more than the average non-graduate over his or her working lifetime. The argument is that this is a ‘private benefit’ accruing to those individuals as a result of their education, and that they should therefore contribute towards the cost.

I wonder. The closest to an explanation of his figure comes in footnote 11, which makes it clear that the figure is based on an analysis performed by the Department for Education and Skills in 2002.

The idea that graduates can, and do, earn more on average certainly passes the reasonableness test; but I’d like to know a bit more about the way in which the size of the ‘graduate earnings premium’ is calculated. In particular – how sensitive is it to change in the proportion of graduates in the population?

Any historical evidence is likely to be based on those who graduated when a much smaller proportion of young people went though university. The higher the numbers so doing, the more one would expect that premium to reduce; not least because an increasing number of graduates find themselves doing jobs which do not specifically require a degree.

There is no question that the proportion of young people with a degree has increased and it will, I hope, continue to do so; which means that I would expect that graduate income premium to reduce over time. And of course, since it’s future graduates who’ll be paying the increased amounts, it’s the future salary premium which is important, not the historical one.

It’s a ‘whole working life’ premium as well, and it’s a pre-tax figure. Assuming that the ‘average’ (and I understand that that word can cover for a multitude of variances here, but it’s a reasonable starting point) graduate will pay around 35% tax on that (somewhere between basic rate and higher rate, plus NI contributions), that makes the lifetime net benefit more like £65,000.

With student debt on graduation expected to reach £30,000+, and interest due at closer to commercial rates, the actual private benefit received by the ‘average’ graduate looks to be significantly eroded to me. And the repayments are ‘front-loaded’ – they are made in the early half of a person’s career when salaries are lower, rather than the later half when salaries are likely to be higher. That means that the proportion of the graduate salary premium being used to repay debt is higher than it looks taken over an earnings lifetime.

I doubt that many young people will decide whether to pursue their education on the basis of an economic calculation of this nature. It’s probably just as well.

Incidentally, the calculation of the £100,000+ is based very explicitly on a comparison with those who pass A levels but do not go on to graduate, because that group in turn do better financially than those less qualified than themselves. So if we are going to charge HE students for their education, what, exactly, is the underlying principle which does not also lead to charging sixth-formers?

Universities, graduates, and jobs

Tweet It looks as though a significant number of young people who want to go to university, and who have obtained good enough A level results to do so, are going to be disappointed this year when they find that there are not enough places available for them. And it won't simply be a case of those who obtain the lowest grades being excluded either - depending on the choice of university and subject, many of those rejected could actually possess better grades than many of those accepted.

It raises big questions about how many places should be provided at universities, and how they should be filled.

It seems to me that there are two fairly rational ways of determining how many places should be provided in total. The first is to look at the number of people who want to have a university education, and who meet the minimum requirements; the second is to look at the number of jobs requiring graduates, and only provide enough places to meet that demand. We are actually doing neither of those things; we are setting the number of places based primarily on the cost of providing them.

I make no secret of the fact that I favour the approach of providing the education for all those who want it and meet the minimum requirements. A better educated population has advantages well beyond the merely economic.

But I also think we need to get away from the idea that there are 'graduate jobs' and 'non-graduate jobs'. Of course there are some jobs where a particular degree qualification is an absolute requirement – medicine is the one which immediately springs to mind. But in many cases, employers restricting their openings to graduates are doing so unnecessarily. It's sometimes little more than a lazy way of sifting and grading people.

As a concrete example, I remember having a bit of a battle with HR professionals many years ago when I wanted to recruit non-graduates as computer programmers. We were having difficulty getting the numbers we needed, and I just didn't see that a degree was as relevant as having the basic aptitude and ability. I won the battle, and the people I went on to recruit turned out to be, on the whole, just as effective as the graduates.

Many graduates themselves are already having to recognise that if they want to restrict themselves to jobs labelled as being for graduates, then they are restricting their career chances. And many of those being rejected by universities this year will be every bit as able and competent as those accepted, but will be available for work three years earlier than their successful schoolmates. Employers who ignore that pool of talent will be doing themselves no favours in the long term. Judging people on their abilities and experience rather than on possession of a particular piece of paper may be harder to do; but those employers who are prepared to do it will find they have access to a wider range of talent.

Setting unrealistic expectations about the opportunities available to people just because they are graduates; excluding people from consideration just because they aren't; and deciding how many graduates to turn out for financial reasons rather than based either on demand for skills or demand for places are all misguided ways of looking at the benefits of higher education both to individuals and to society as a whole.

Taxing graduates

Tweet Student fees and loans have been unpopular since Labour first introduced them, and with four of the five Labour leadership candidates supporting a graduate tax instead, it seems that some in that party are, albeit belatedly, realising what a mistake they made. But is a graduate tax any better?

It's hard to make a definitive judgement without a lot more detail, but what seems to be being proposed is a sort of supplement to income tax. So graduates on low incomes may end up paying little or nothing for their tuition, whilst those on high incomes may end up paying several times the cost of their tuition. Whilst the total amount collected may roughly equate to the total cost of fees paid, the amount paid by any individual may bear little relation to the cost of his or her tuition.

In short, it looks very much like a selective form of income tax, where people in one group within the population, graduates, pay more income tax than people earning the same salary who happen not to be in the selected group. Once we start doing that, where do we stop? How about an A-level tax?

The argument, presumably, is that those who gain a degree have benefited from their education by getting a higher-paid job than would otherwise have been the case, and should therefore pay towards the cost. But what if a graduate and non-graduate end up doing the same job at the same salary? They would be paying different rates of tax, with the graduate having a lower take-home pay than the non-graduate.

And we all benefit differentially from a whole range services provided out of public funds; what is it that makes a higher education a service which is chargeable, whilst other services are not? I don't understand what the key principle is which underlies that distinction, other than the base one of 'what do we think we can we get away with?'.

It isn't just graduates who benefit from higher education; society as a whole benefits from an improved level of education. Why do we treat education up to A-level as an investment but education beyond that as something different?