With the abolition of the teaching grant for all non-STEM subjects and reforms to research grants, the whole HE sector is feeling the impacts of the scramble for the remaining cash. The main sources of funding available for most institutions are now tied to sheer student numbers (tuition fees) and a backwards, elitist research funding framework which relies almost entirely on citations in ‘top’ journals. University managers in turn have changed their strategies to reflect this new environment. Sadly this has all too often meant investing in promotion, marketing and a narrow range of well-funded research areas at the expense of teaching, innovative research and ever-increasing student rents. Continue reading
Tagged with Tuition fees
Corbyn’s National Education Service will not be won without a fight
The issue of tuition fees has been thrown into the spotlight since party conference, after comments made by the new Higher Education, Further Education and Skills shadow minister and MP for Blackpool South, Gordon Marsden, that “nothing is ruled in, nothing is ruled out” on university funding.
I attended the fringe meeting, and while it is a shame that so many other important educational issues do not make the headlines, such as the Tories’ destructive proposals for a ‘Teaching Excellence Framework’ or the lack of funding for postgraduates, as usual it is fees which make the news.
The Times Higher Education broke the news, shortly followed by the Guardian‘s education correspondent and then the story became distorted by the Financial Times, who ran the headline, “Corbyn shelves proposal to scrap tuition fees.” Continue reading
Share:
Tory budget announces higher tuition fees and the scrapping of maintenance grants
George Osborne announced the Tories’ latest attack on higher education in today’s budget, announcing that for some institutions fees will rise in line with inflation, and also that grants will be abolished for the poorest students. Osborne’s budget document states measures will, “include allowing institutions offering high teaching quality to increase their tuition fees in line with inflation from 2017-18, with a consultation on the mechanisms to do this.”
This is in line with concerns about new Universities Minister Jo Johnson’s speech to Universities UK last week, where he talked about ‘incentives’ for quality teaching, and said that they will be published in a Green Paper in the autumn, usually a precursor to primary legislation – in the form of a bill that will become an Act of Parliament. Tuition fee hikes require such an Act, so this was a clear indicator from Johnson that this could happen. Continue reading
Share:
Tory higher education funding farce
I never set out to be the blogging equivalent of Mystic Meg, but annoyingly I’ve had several predictions turn out to be true. Here’s one of them. Two years ago, almost to the day, I argued that the new funding regime brought in by the LibDem-supported Conservative government would leave Higher Education with a yawning funding gap. Would you Adam and Eve it, this morning The Indy led with Tuition fees: three quarters of students won’t be able to pay off their debt. Continue reading
Share:
Lest we forget: why you should never, ever trust a Lib Dem
Let’s never forget what Nick Clegg promised just four years ago:
I really think tuition fees are wrong. I think it is wrong to saddle young people with £25,000 of debt before they’ve even taken a step in adult life.”