Those of you who follow this blog will be familiar with my position on student loans and the effects they generate beyond the debates about the headline figures of fees.
John Morgan in last week’s Times Higher Education covered the question of whether the new funding regime is sustainable in its current form.
There I warned of a new ‘unpleasant performance metric’ based on the loan non-repayment rates for graduates of particular institutions (and particular courses). At the Conservative Party Conference this week, David Willetts expressed ‘incredible frustration’ that such metrics were not already available. As reported:
Setting out his “vision”, he said it was “incredibly frustrating” not knowing the individual RAB charge for each university.
Speculating further, he said: “Imagine that in the future we discover that the RAB charge for a Bristol graduate was 10 per cent,” he suggested, meaning that the government would recover 90 per cent of loans. “Maybe some other university … we are only going to get 60 per cent back.”
He added: “Going beyond that it becomes an interesting question, to what extent you can incentivise universities to lower their own RAB charges.”
Such incentives might involve allowing ‘good’ institutions who perform well on this measure to set fees beyond the maximum or threatening ”poor’ performers, for example, by depriving their students of access to the loan book. (The latter would need primary legislation, but was proposed in the Technical Consultation that accompanied the 2011 white paper).
Owing to the nature of the requisite datasets and the patterns of repayment on the new loans, it will be a few years before these measures are anything like robust. But you have been warned. Financialised performance metrics will be far more pernicious than the misuse of the National Student Satisfaction survey of Key Information Sets.
Given that the same Times Higher Education article, tellingly titled ‘Wake Up to a New World’, also demonstrates Willetts’s refusal to accept that a reduction of 50 000 undergraduate places this year is anything other than ‘modest’, can we ask at what point the sector will recognize him for the dangerous ideologue he is?
Another Education is Possible – new issue. It includes an article by me on the corporate form of universities and the issues for governance.
A pdf of the cover and contents can be found here: Another Education is Possible
For information about how to get a copy please contact Jane Hardy, Professor of Political Economy, University of Hertfordshire: j.a.hardy@herts.ac.uk.
I wasn’t in the Royal Courts of Justice on Friday for the preliminary hearing into London Metropolitan’s request for a judicial review into UK Border Agency’s decision to revoke London Met’s licence to act as visa sponsors for non-EU students. I have read the reports in The Guardian, Times Higher Education and the Laywer. I did however participate in Radio 4’s The Report and have now seen some senior level minutes from London Metropolitan.
I will try to summarise what I have gleaned from those sources, covering the court case first and the minutes second.
The Preliminary Hearing
First, Judge Irwin granted a judicial review but did not reinstate LMU’s highly trusted sponsor status. That decision will depend on the outcome of the full review: for the meantime, LMU cannot recruit non-EU students. Read more…
A PDF promoting the event can be found here
Recognising that we are in the midst of a strong push to reform education, writer and researcher Andrew McGettigan asks What is Education For? Responding to the fall in recent GCSE and A level exam results and the raise in University tuition fees, McGettigan will probe recent shifts away from state administered and funded provision towards private educational operations that favour competition, fees and test outcomes. Does this represent a solution to the perennial ‘repeating problem’ of providing education within society?
‘Repeating Problems’ is a day of talks, performances and discussion at the QUAD gallery, Derby to mark the closing of the current exhibition, ‘Accidentally on Purpose’.
I’ll be asking: ‘what is education for?’.
Both Times Higher Education and the US-based Inside Higher Education picked up on the piece here about New College of the Humanities which opened its doors to 60 students last week.
‘Repeating Problems’ is a day of talks, performances and discussion at the QUAD gallery, Derby to mark the closing of the current exhibition, ‘Accidentally on Purpose’.
I’ll be asking: ‘what is education for?’.
UCU Left is organising a day-long event on Saturday 22 September: ‘Defending post-16 education in an era of austerity’.
Venue: Goldsmiths, University of London
Time: 11am – 5pm
I will be speaking on a panel at 2pm with Ken Spours and Jane Hardy addressing the topic: ‘Does it matter who owns our education system?’
I have also written an article for the UCU Left magazine on the related issue of university governance and corporate form. It should be out shortly.
I will probably talk about joint ventures, private buyouts, the von Prondzynski review into Scottish universities and bond issues.
ps. I am not a professor.
The story at London Metropolitan is still unfolding with the university taking its case against the UKBA to a judicial review hearing on Friday. It is seeking ‘urgent interim relief’ pending a review of the UKBA’s decision to revoke its licence to sponsor visas for non-EU students (see previous post on London Met). ‘Interim relief’ would mean that the UKBA’s decision would be temporally suspended allowing London Met to continue to engage with its international students if a full hearing goes ahead.
In the meantime, the ‘task force’ set up to move affected students into alternative institutions met at the end of last week and announced a ‘clearing house” operation that is to begin on Monday (17 September).
Fifteen London-based institutions have been nominated by London Met to participate in the endeavour.
“The task force’s key priority is helping genuine students affected by the revocation decision to continue their studies. With the beginning of the academic year imminent, the clearing house is working to tight timescales, and the process poses significant challenges. Limiting the number of institutions will help the University to manage the process efficiently and effectively, while giving students choice.”
The institutions include six ‘private providers’, two of which are charities: Regent’s College and ifs School of Finance. Two more of those are owned by private equity companies: BPP University College (owned by Apollo Global) and Greenwich School of Management (Sovereign Capital). A fifth, College of Law was a charity but is in the process of being sold to Montagu Private Equity. London School of Business and Finance (LSBF) is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee, but is part of a broader group of private colleges.
Neither Greenwich School of Management nor LSBF has their own degree awarding powers. The ‘task force’ states that all 15 institutions are ‘well placed in terms of quality assurance’ but the Quality Assurance Agency has published critical reports regarding both institutions in recent months.
Earlier in September, the QAA published an institutional review into Greenwich School of Management which summarised two problems:
“The enhancement of student learning opportunities at the institution does not meet UK expectations. –
“The quality of student learning opportunities at the institution requires improvement to meet UK expectations.”
While in June LSBF was implicated in a damning QAA review into its partner institution, Finance and Business Training Limited, entitled ‘Concerns about standards and quality in higher education’.
Its conclusion:
“The report has identified a number of weaknesses which are attributable to a range of factors, including, on the part of FBT/LSBF, institutional immaturity and inadequate understanding of the expectations of a higher education provider in the United Kingdom. In the case of the University, it initially failed to recognise these weaknesses and exercise proper oversight of its programmes at FBT/LSBF. As a consequence, all parties bear responsibility for the issues identified in this report.”
LSBF and FBT shared the same ‘academic and operational control’.
Have the affected London Met international students been apprised of these issues? The task force has alerted them to the different visa statuses of private colleges:
“A number of the institutions, for example, are from the private sector, and students considering offers from these institutions will need to know that the conditions attaching to visas to study with private providers differ, in particular in respect of entitlement to undertake paid work while studying. Students will also be offered academic guidance to help them in their decisions, as well as welfare advice and counselling.”
But ‘informed consumers’ also need to know about quality and where their fees might be going.
Critical Education 