Higher education

As new data points to a looming cash crisis in higher education, the minister responsible said he would regret any reduction of university places for British students.

 

Kim Howells' comments come amid fears that institutions like OxfordUniversity will cut domestic places to take on additional foreign undergraduates in a bid to earn more money.

 

They also coincide with new figures revealing that the number of applications received from overseas students has slumped by 5.3 per cent.

 

Government Response: Department for Education and Skills

 

Kim Howells, higher education minister told ePolitix.com: "I don't think it is a bad thing for our universities to discuss the whole funding question with government and their own prospective students and the parents of students.

 

"There ought to be a debate about what higher education costs. It can't be a good thing to have a debate that's cold and uninformed.

 

"It has to be one that is properly informed. It does cost a lot to deliver world class higher education, no question about it.

 

"I am  worried about a worsening skills shortage caused by fewer people wanting to study maths and science subjects.

 

"Universities should do more to help themselves by working more closely with industry in order to make sure they had the best facilities.

"I am very worried about the decline in the number of young people who want to study science, engineering, technology, maths, and some IT subjects. It is very worrying and a big concern.

"I know that those kinds of subjects cost more to teach. You need proper laboratories and proper equipment. You can't do it with clapped out equipment. All that costs universities a great deal of money and we have to discuss with them the proper ways of making that money available.

"Universities can do much more to help themselves. We've done a lot of work in the past few years on trying to strengthen the links with industry and industry benefits enormously from what higher education does - turn out graduates. We've got to be a lot more imaginative about how we fund them."

Stakeholder Response: Campaigning for Mainstream Universities (CMU)

Pam Tatlow, chief executive of CMU, said: "Ministers continuing concern with the plans of a few universities and the future of a limited number of subjects, derived from a Cabinet wish list, beggars belief.

 

"It is also surprising that a government higher education minister appears to be unaware of the strong record of CMU universities in applied research and of their work in promoting links with employers and industry.

 

"Admittedly, we could do more – but it is the government which has failed to provide the specific stream of funding, supported by the CBI and recommended by Richard Lambert in his Review, which would have boosted university-business collaboration.

 

"Recent evidence to the House of Commons Science and Technology committee further confirms that the primary reason for closure of science departments is the government’s own policy of promoting increased selectivity in research funding.

 

"However, many students, parents, university staff, and MPs will be stunned that a government minister believes that the debate about tuition fees has been “cold and uninformed” when only last year the government’s majority was reduced to five over this very issue.

 

"Higher education has suffered from 20 years of chronic under-investment. The government of which Mr Howells is a member, sought to address this by capping fees at £3000 per annum and introducing variable bursaries which CMU warned at the time would prove complex and confusing to students.

 

"Ministers would be wise to take heed of the chief executive of their own English Funding Council (HEFCE), Sir Howard Newby, who said in evidence to MPs on 7 February that there was still underfunding of teaching in universities and that that the tuition-bursary fee system applicable from 2006 would itself produce variable income into universities.

 

"For a government minister to re-open the question of lifting the cap on tuition fees rather than addressing the government’s own responsibility to fund higher education just weeks before an election, seems to be a hostage to fortune. 

 

"Papers released under the Freedom of Information Act show that David Blunkett, as Secretary of State for Education, pressed Downing Street into cutting the target for young people entering higher education.

 

"Government ministers should now answer a straightforward question: are they going to pass the buck for the costs of higher education back to individual students and their families? Or are they going to support the commitment of previous Labour governments and back the principle of the Robbins Report by providing the public funding to ensure that all students who are qualified are able to attend universities which are well resourced, wherever students choose to study, whatever course they choose to pursue and however – full-time or part-time - they choose to pursue it?"

 

Stakeholder Response: Institute of Education

 

Gareth Williams, emeritus professor of educational administration at the Institute of Education, said: "The fall in applications from students outside the EU is not related to the £3,000 fee as they already pay fees at least twice as high as that. The number of students from old Europe has been falling for some years. Numbers of students from the new EU member countries, especially Poland, are likely to increase because of a shortage of places at home.

 

"Unsurprisingly, recent massive increases in recruitment from China and India have been followed by retrenchment. More surprising were projections that numbers of overseas students would continue increasing indefinitely – a bit like expectations that house prices would do so as well.

 

"The issue of whether foreign students keep out British students is complicated. At postgraduate level and in the sciences and technology, many university departments are economically viable only because of the overseas students they recruit. Without these students, they would have to close, with fewer opportunities for UK students to study these subjects.

 

"Overseas students are widely believed to be more assiduous in their studies than their UK counterparts, which helps universities maintain their high graduation rates, considered by the government to be an important performance indicator.

 

"The extent to which some leading universities depend on the income from overseas students is worrying, not least because it bolsters the view that higher education is a globally tradable commodity.

 

"If the UK higher education market were opened up to real competition from leading United States universities, the consequences would be interesting, to say the least."