Mixed signals on student funding

The NUS says choice of course should not depend on price

Students' representatives have made a final call for ministers to scrap their plans for tuition fees in England.

The National Union of Students (NUS) says the government's plans will mean poorer students choosing courses on the basis of price, not suitability.

But groups representing universities have urged MPs to support the Higher Education Bill.

The government is sticking to its guns, attempting to win over rebel Labour MPs ahead of Tuesday's Commons vote.

Deterrence

A key plank of the government's proposals is that nobody will have to pay fees until after they graduate and are earning at least £15,000 a year.

The concessions it made when it published the bill mean that those from the poorest homes will be entitled to support totalling £3,000 a year - equivalent to the maximum they could be charged in tuition fees.

Top-up fees will mean people choosing their courses based on cost Mandy Telford, National Union of Students

But the NUS argues that students from poorer homes are deterred by debt and the fear of debt.

As evidence, it cites research commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills and carried out by Professor Claire Callendar, professor of social policy at South Bank University in London.

She found that debt aversion most deterred the very groups the government most wanted to attract into higher education.

The NUS president, Mandy Telford, said the union agreed with ministers that universities needed more money.

"But they are trying to do that by creating a market in our higher education system, pricing thousands of students out of higher education."

She accepted that different institutions had different status - East London was not Cambridge.

But at the moment the different status "doesn't have a price tag on it", she said.

"Top-up fees will mean people choosing their courses based on cost."

University support

The Coalition of Modern Universities on Monday urged MPs to back the Bill, however.

The status quo is unsustainable. Universities need more funding Prof Alasdair Smith, University of Sussex

The group - representing 33 of the newest universities, including East London - issued a statement saying that if the Bill failed, "many of those with the greatest need will be denied the life-transforming opportunity of a quality university education".

The so-called 1994 Group also urged MPs to vote in favour.

The group, which speaks for 17 smaller, internationally recognised universities, said the worst possible outcome for universities and for the country would be a political stalemate that offered no way forward.

Its convenor, Sussex vice-chancellor, Alasdair Smith, said: "The status quo is unsustainable. Universities need more funding. The question is not whether it has to be paid for, but who pays for it.

"It is unrealistic for the full cost of higher education to be paid for by the taxpayer, some of the cost has to be paid for by the individual graduate."

And Universities UK, which represents the vice-chancellors of all the UK's universities, has written to all Labour MPs asking them to vote for the Bill.

Public against

Universities' views are out of step with those of many of their staff, however.

And a newly-published survey from the Association of University Teachers suggests public opposition to the plans.

A poll of 1,001 adults carried out by BRMB over the weekend found 70% were against the government's policy and only 24% in favour.

Four out of 10 women were against, compared with six out of 10 men.

Opposition was most forceful in the 16 to 24 age bracket.

The union's general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: "This poll shows that - even after months and months of hard-sell by ministers - variable top-up fees are still the most unpopular policy this government has ever proposed."