Today Times Higher Education runs a piece on the likely scenario for restructuring undergraduate recruitment caps.
The paper, currently under consideration at 10 Downing Street and due out in the next few weeks, is expected to focus on three key policies: removing recruitment caps at universities with A-level entry standards of AAB or above; removing the cap for institutions charging cheaper tuition fees below a fixed level; and a “core and margin” system, where a proportion of total student places is opened to competitive bidding from institutions.
The government believes that these interlinked policies would ease the pressure on public funds by driving down average fees, currently clustered around the £9,000 maximum.
A solution of this kind has been brewing for a while since as a ‘supply-side’ reform it has the merit of creating competition in new ways at different levels:
- it makes the ‘top tier’ operate differently and perhaps compete more with each other;
- it squeezes the middle who may have to rethink what they do as they potentially lose their better qualified students to the ‘top tier’;
- it rewards those who pitched their fees low;
- it creates an open pot of places for which any kind of provider can bid (these recent governments do love a good tendering).
Though THE do not spell it out – what this seems to mean is that in each of these cases the students getting a place will have access to the student financing scheme, and in the case of the tender pot (the “Opportunities Fund” – Willetts) this would probably mean giving additional support to successful private providers (access to maintenance money for their students).
I may return to this in future as the use of A-level qualifications to set offquota places is not without concomitant problems – not all students apply with these and at some institutions the offers made at different courses will fall either side of this marker.
I wrote earlier here about a letter I had received from David Willetts which suggested that the government was keen to explore options about ‘monetizing the loan book’.
I suspected this was about selling off loans taken out at particular universities. David Kernohan writes instead that the rate of non-payment against individual institutions would be ‘hedgeable’.
Insurable risk against the non-payment of expected dividends from anticipated income. This is hedgeable. Not content with establishing a market in higher education, the government wants to start playing with derivatives.
Since we might also see bonds issued against fee income, that talk of an education bubble has a bit more content.
Tomorrow: I have been invited to appear as a discussant on Novara, a weekly politics show on London’s Resonance FM.
The show goes out live at 2-3pm, Tuesday 14 June and repeated Friday at 9pm.
Resonance broadcasts on 104.4 FM or you can listen to the live stream here.
“Novara – a weekly show discussing political theory, practice and aesthetics. Discussions and interventions will be with workers, theorists, students and activists. Hosted by Aaron Peters.”
A representative from New College for the Humanities has been invited to discuss higher education but they have not yet confirmed.
UPDATE 1
The show will be repeated on Friday 17 June (9-10pm). No representative for NCH was prepared to come on the show.
UPDATE 2
The whole programme is now available on soundcloud. (14 June 2011)
I am providing a temporary link here to my commentary in the current Radical Philosophy (which someone has scanned onto google docs). It surveys the place of marketisation in government thinking and the manner in which supply-side restrictions on undergraduate recruitment will be maintained to facilitate the entry of competitive, cheap higher education ‘providers’.
I will replace the link with one to Radical Philosophy’s own website once they relaunch it (very shortly, I understand) with all articles from the archive available as pdfs (over 150 issues since the 1970s). I encourage everyone to subscribe to benefit from this fabulous resource.
Via my MP, I have in the last fortnight received two letters from David WIlletts replying to my concerns about the proposals for Higher Education in England.
The first, dated from mid-April, confirms what I have already written on here.
The government will not legislate on the ‘details’ of the proposed student finance scheme: the interest rates (linked to RPI) and the repayment threshold (indexed to wage inflation).
According to Willetts, “Parliament will still have the opportunity to scrutinize the Regulations and to oppose them if it feels that the Secretary of State is using his powers unreasonably.”
But as an administrative matter, rather than a regulatory one, this current ‘intention’ lacks substantial protection and can be more easily revised in future. That means that, in a possible parliament where the Conservatives have an outright majority, it will be much easier to lift the concessions granted to the Liberal Democrats in December and move towards commercial interest rates. The 2011 Education Bill, which contains clauses to allow commercial rates on student loans, is now in the House of Lords with its second reading there to take place next week (14 June 2011).
This letter goes on to assure me that ‘a range of potential options for monetizing the student loan book is being looked at’. Since the government can already sell-off the loan book to third parties without the need to consult with those who have taken out a loan, what could these further options be? Well, the book as a whole may not be too attractive, but certain companies may be interested in taking on the loans given out to those who study at particular universities. Oxbridge and Russell Group loans, for example.
Monday 20 June, 2011
at 7-9pm
Where: Bloomsbury Venue: TBC
A meeting to co-ordinate initiatives opposed to the Grayling’s New College for the Humanities.
NB
HMRC’s VAT Exemption Guidance for Education and Vocational Training
“4.3 I’m a commercial provider but not of tuition in EFL. Am I an eligible body?
“Not if you operate with a view to making and distributing profits. So you’re unlikely to be an eligible body if you’re a: tutorial college; computer training organisation; secretarial college; correspondence college; subsidiary company of a university or college; or partnership.”
So if NCH’s £18 000 annual fee is inclusive, then £3 000 of it is VAT. The actual spend on students at NCH may be much closer that at established universities once other tax issues are taken into account (the risk of running an education provider which is not a charity).
ps University of London’s Careers Advice Service is the latest service advertised on NCH website to deny it has reached an agreement with Grayling.
Some facts about AC Grayling’s shabby initiative, as presented to the Emergency Public Meeting held at UCL on Monday 6th June:
New College of the Humanities Limited is a company limited by share set up by Grayling and an ‘investment manager’, Peter Hall last year as Grayling Hall Ltd (Company # 731 7195). Hence, it is potentially profit-making for its shareholders – Grayling, the CEO and Directors and some of its professoriate who have taken an equity stake in the company. Its business plan is not public, but the £18 000 fee will cover not only its initial startup costs but, at some point in the future, provide a return to its owners.
New College of the Humanities Limited is not a university or a ‘university college’ – these are protected titles. It does not have degree awarding powers and will be teaching towards the University of London External Programme. As yet, it has reached no formal agreements with UoL or its colleges over use of facilities.
“NCH is not, and will not be, a part of the University of London.”
The one-to-one tutorials will be covered by junior academic staff, not the professoriate some of whom will give only one talk per year.
Its advertised courses and course content has been lifted from other sources. Here is an account from Gabriel Egan who spotted his own handiwork.
A separate charity, New College of the Humanities Trust, (Registered Charity Number: 1141608), will oversee the studentship programme which aims to support 20% of places (fees only, not maintenance unless you win a prize!) and fundraise accordingly.
As such, New College of the Humanities is an overpriced, for-profit crammer with no facilities, not even premises. It represents a crude, carpetbagging approach to the proposed transformation of the HE terrain from a bunch of media-glazed amateurs – much more sophisticated approaches will be developed after the promised White Paper (delayed again until early July). Crucially, NCH has misunderstood the intentions of the current government who would rather see such ‘new providers’ undercut established higher education in England.
Tonight: ULU @ 7pm
Public meeting in advance of the court appearances on Thursday and Friday of several anti-cuts, anti-royal and student protestors.
9-10 June, Goldsmiths University
Two-day conference on the university.
day 1: Resistance
day 2: The Idea of the University
I plan to speak on the repeatedly delayed HE White Paper and its plans to facilitate the entry of new, for-profit ‘providers’.
31 May 2011
What is Criticism in the Arts? (Big Ideas, London)
Critical Education 