24th June 2010 9:00
By Blue Tutors
There is a political debate at the moment on the subject of university tuition fees, and higher education in general. The Liberal Democrats will openly oppose their coalition partners on the proposal to raise the current cap on tuition fees, stating that higher education should be accessible to all.
Now, while the ease of access to university for students from all social backgrounds is a commendable standpoint, it doesn’t tell the whole story about how funding is being distributed. The perception of any access scheme is that students from less privileged backgrounds are less inclined to attend university compared to others, but have the same academic ability. However, this isn’t exactly true. In fact most access schemes encourage universities to accept students from poorer backgrounds despite the result being that they turn away a few students from more privileged backgrounds whose academic ability may be better than some students who are accepted. This doesn’t appear to be too unfair; students from wealthier families are likely to have had a better education, and therefore it’s understandable that they’ve, thus far, performed better at school.
There is a very obvious problem with these sorts of access schemes: why are we trying to even the unbalance in education when students are 18, rather than when they’re much younger?
The main argument against raising tuition fees is that it will saddle students with unreasonable amounts of debt, which will lead to many choosing not to attend university. Currently a student will pay £10,000 in tuition fees by the end of a three year course, and if the funding were to be removed completely then this would rise to £30,000. However, plans suggest that students would receive a full loan for this amount, with interest at the base rate, so it will be up to each individual student whether the debt at the end of their course exceeds the value gained from the tutoring and experience received at university.
This solution would seem to offer an answer. Students at the top universities would see their degree as being well worth the debt incurred, whereas students at the poorer universities probably wouldn’t. Isn’t this what we want? Students going to university who genuinely have the ability to be there, and those universities who don’t offer value being closed?
If this is the eventual solution then we will have to hope that students from poorer backgrounds are given the guidance and reassurance so that they are not scared witless by the prospect of their debt after three years. As for the problem of early educational inequality for students from different social backgrounds, that’s a far harder issue to resolve.