Higher ambitions

Jo Johnson, the higher education minister, published his education White Paper Success as a Knowledge Economy this week. Its strapline promises reform to enhance teaching excellence, social mobility and student choice. The focus on social mobility is welcome, but action must accompany words if it is to have real impact.

Some big changes have already happened. Student maintenance grants are being scrapped from September, forcing those starting university this year to add around £10,000 to debts that are more than double those in the United States. At the same time, the repayment threshold is being frozen, changing the terms even for existing borrowers, so that graduate contributions increase in real terms.

However, it is good too that the White Paper promises much more transparency in the data published about universities’ records on access, not just for disadvantaged students, but also for boys and for those from different ethnic communities. Transparency is vital in identifying issues, though it needs to be followed by real action if the numbers are to shift.

And to be fair, we have seen improvements in the proportion of disadvantaged young people going to university. Today, 19 per cent do so, compared with 11 per cent in 2006. However, there is still a significant gap between those from the poorest fifth of neighbourhoods and the richest: 45 per cent of young people from those communities enter higher education.

That’s the context in which the Prime Minister has set his target to double participation of those disadvantaged students.  However, those students will come out with over £50,000 of debt and with the debt compounding at up to 3% over inflation they will be saddled with payments which will affect their ability to go to graduate schools, to afford a mortgage, and on the timing of having children and other major life decisions. But it is not enough to focus on the access gap: a far greater challenge persists in access to our most selective universities. Only 3 per cent of disadvantaged young people go to the most selective third of universities compared with 21 per cent of those from the richest neighbourhoods: and that access gap is even greater at the top of the Russell Group, those we call the Sutton Trust 13.

Urgent consideration must also be given as to how to reverse the massive decline in part-time and mature students, as these are engines of social mobility. OFFA reported last week that since 2009-10, the proportion of mature students fell by 48 per cent by 2014-15, while part-time numbers fell in the same period by 60 per cent. The drop accelerated with the increase in tuition fees in 2012 and unlike young people’s applications, it has not started to reverse yet.

Moreover, other encouraging planned changes have been dropped. The Green Paper and consultation suggested strengthening the powers of the Director of Fair Access so that he or she could impose targets on universities that were not doing enough to admit less advantaged students. While a Director would probably not want to use those powers, having them would improve the bargaining power in negotiating ambitious access agreements.

So, what remains is a curate’s egg of reforms. It is good that ministers are focusing more on the quality of teaching at universities, even if students face higher fees where those efforts pay off. Whether an increased private sector – with immediate degree-awarding powers – will help or hinder quality remains to be seen. The American experience has been decidedly mixed.

But it is on its promise to improve social mobility that we must judge the White Paper and the success of any subsequent legislation. I am pleased that Jo Johnson has listened to concerns that we – and others – raised with him about the independence of the Director of Fair Access within the new Office for Students. We will look carefully at any legislation to make sure the promise of the White Paper is translated into law.

But, we need to see more action to ensure that the £700 million being spent on access is well spent, something we’re discussing with the government at the moment. We need also not just to have transparency on access at individual universities but also to have transparency about the impact of soaring loans, lost grants and rising fees. And we need to have completely open publication of data on where graduates from each course go to work and what they earn.

We have called for MPs to monitor the impact of the loss of grants on disadvantaged students and we want to see the Office for Budget Responsibility keeping a close eye on whether the large student debt is being recovered by taxpayers: saddling graduate with debt is one thing, doing so with little Exchequer return is quite another. One study the Office for Budget Responsibility should do is to look at what would happen if you means tested fees – charging the better off more and poorer students less – which would be much fairer than the current system where someone from a top boarding school pays the same as someone from a council estate.

We also need to see a much greater expansion in higher and degree-level apprenticeships, so that young people have real choice when it comes to deciding their options: a degree level apprenticeship means you earn while you learn, come out with little or no debt and graduate with skills which the marketplace values.

With the tripling of tuition fees, removing the maintenance grant and freezing the repayment threshold this government’s record on improving social mobility is poor.  If we are to see improvement, their statements about improving social mobility need to be backed up by more action.