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The use of terms like ‘loan’ and ‘debt’ to describe student finance are completely misleading, argues Professor Dorothy Bishop
In February 2018, the House of Commons Treasury Committee published a remarkable report entitled ‘Student Loans’. A response by government, added on 11 May, reveals little engagement with criticisms raised by the committee, though it does note that the Department for Education (DfE) has embarked on a major review of the system, which will report to government early in 2019.
It’s clear that those involved in the review will have their work cut out for them. Among the numerous issues raised by the committee report, the misleading use of terminology was of particular concern.
Usually, when someone takes out a loan, they receive money up-front, which they are subsequently obliged to repay on agreed terms of interest. However, the student loan system is intentionally designed so that a substantial amount of debt will be written off. Repayments are due only when the graduate’s income exceeds a certain level, with the debt in any case written off after a period of years.
As the committee notes, this is unlike any other kind of loan, and could indeed be viewed instead as a system of grants coupled with a graduate tax.
A point that is omitted by the Treasury Committee is that, whereas a graduate tax would be expected to apply to everyone with earnings above a certain threshold, the current system ensures it is paid only by those who took out a student loan: graduates whose parents were wealthy enough to pay their fees and maintenance costs up front would not be liable. It is not easy to find figures on what percentage of students this applies to: this report gives current figures in aggregate sums loaned, though it notes that in 2011-2012, 79% of full-time English-domiciled students had taken out a tuition fee loan, and 73% a maintenance loan.
The terminology of loans puts potential students off studying
A point made by one of those advising the committee was that even experienced economists find the current system complex and confusing, and use of the term “loans” is a barrier to comprehension. It’s worth quoting in full the advice to the committee from Martin Lewis, who runs Money Saving Expert:
“The Government must get rid of the language of debt. It is simply misleading. Calling the current system a ‘loan’ makes it more difficult to explain and puts potential students off. Using the language of debt means people unnecessarily fixate over the total amount they borrow and interest rates, rather than the rate of repayment which is arguably most important. […] Reforming the language to a graduate contribution system would help prevent people being put off from studying, or making ill-informed financial decisions, such as using savings to pay their children’s tuition fees to ‘save them from a lifetime of debt’.”
In a similar vein, Lord Willetts remarked:
“Saying, ‘If you are in a well-paid job, you will be paying back the cost of your higher education’, is not like a student getting into debt and having to service it. We are all trapped in that language, and I very much regret it. It is a very misleading picture.”
Maintaining the fiscal illusion
So why is the term “loan” used? One reason is presumably that many voters may find the idea of a “graduate tax” unpalatable. But there is more to it than that. It seems that the confusing language was deliberately selected to make the government’s finances look better than they are: what the report refers to as a “fiscal illusion”. This is because in the National Accounts, a loan is treated in a different way from other forms of spending, meaning that the unpaid debt – which is a design feature of the system – does not count in the deficit. As the report notes:
“Due to the National Accounts accounting rules, there is no impact on the deficit when student loans are issued. As such, shifting the vast majority of all higher education spending into loans that are written off in 30 years has shifted nearly all higher education spending out of the deficit. ……. Based on the current RAB charge, £6–7 billion of annual write-offs are missing from the deficit. This figure is approximately equivalent to excluding the entire NHS capital budget from the deficit.”
In their response to the report, the government simply reiterate information already contained in it, and state: “In … the accounting treatment of student loans, we trust that we have given a full account of the rationale for our approach.”
In a brief blogpost it is possible only to scratch the surface of the report: it covers a wide range of topics, including the collapse in part-time students, the distinction between loans for fees vs maintenance, and the creation of perverse incentives in our higher education system. Let’s hope that the complacency that comes across in the government’s initial response to the report is replaced by some serious recommendations for change in future, to ensure both that our universities are funded in a sustainable manner, and that students can get a fair and comprehensible deal.
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Discussions about how to improve access for less advantaged students show no sign of abating
‘Relax A-level grades for some medical students’
BBC, 24/05/2018, Katherine Sellgreen
Academic entry requirements for medical degrees should be relaxed for students applying from the worst UK secondary schools, researchers say.
A study from the University of York says these students should be able to drop one or two A-level grades.
Oxford faces anger over failure to improve diversity among students
The Guardian, 23/05/18, Richard Adams and Caeliann Barr
Oxford’s glacial progress in attracting students from diverse backgrounds has been revealed in figures showing that more than one in four of its colleges failed to admit a single black British student each year between 2015 and 2017.
Oxford University involved in Twitter row with David Lammy
BBC, 23/05/2018
Oxford University has apologised to David Lammy after retweeting a post labelling his criticism “bitter”.
The original tweet, sent by a student, was in response to the Labour MP saying Oxford was “a bastion of white, middle class, southern privilege”.
Oxford’s Wadham College: Diversity drives standards up, not down
The Guardian, Richard Adams, 23/05/2018
While many Oxford colleges struggle to admit a diverse range of undergraduates, Wadham College stands out as showing what can be done when a college’s leadership and governing body are committed to the cause of widening access.
While some colleges such as Mansfield, Somerville, St John’s and Lady Margaret Hall have also developed innovative access schemes, Wadham’s commitment can be measured in the 68% of state school students it admits, compared with its neighbour, Trinity, admitting just 41%.
Geography finds its place among elite
The Times, 23/05/2018, Rosemary Bennett
The geography degree has replaced Classics as the favourite choice of the privileged, admissions figures from Oxford University suggest.
Only 12 students from disadvantaged backgrounds are on its geography course, less than 6 per cent of the total. Of the 204 students on the course, 192 are from the three higher social groups and more than half of those are from private schools.
Are the humanities in crisis? If they are, how can we save them?
Times Higher Education, 23/05/2018, Matthew Reisz
Rob Paige, provost emeritus of Arizona State University, has spoken of “indicators of clear and present danger to the humanities”. Yet Blaine Greteman, associate professor of English at the University of Iowa, has argued that “the humanities death watch for the past 60 years” is marked “both by its recurring character and its disconnect from objective fact”.
Six times as many new medical students from London as from north-east
The Guardian, 22/05/2018, Press Association
There were more than six times as many students from London taking up places to study medicine and dentistry last year as there were from north-east England, analysis shows.
Greenwich University fined £120,000 for data breach
BBC, 21/05/2018
The University of Greenwich has been fined £120,000 ($160,000) by the Information Commissioner.
The fine was for a security breach in which the personal data of 19,500 students was placed online.
US public universities ‘more efficient on teaching’
Times Higher Education, 20/05/2018, Simon Baker
Public universities in the US are the most efficient at educating the general population but the large multi-campus nature of many institutions can hinder research efficiency, a study has suggested.
The paper, by two academics based in France, also found that being located in a major city can significantly boost research efficiency for US universities.
Academia is built on exploitation. We must break this vicious circle
The Guardian, 18/05/2018, Anonymous
Anonymous blog about the working environment for academics and students at British universities. Recent research has found that over 30% of PhD students develop a psychiatric condition. This is a higher rate than for people working in defence and emergency services, which is about 22%.
I’ll have a first, please: 30% of students to get top grade
The Times, 16/05/2018, Rosemary Bennett
Almost a third of students taking their finals this summer are on course for a first, according to a report that says rampant grade inflation means a new top category will have to be introduced.
It added that 30 per cent of students predicted that they would get a first and 54 per cent were expecting a 2:1. No one thought they would fail. Students are able to give a fairly accurate prediction of their final grade, with the majority completing modules as they go along that contribute to their final mark.
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The themes playing out in the higher education debates in the houses of parliament seem strangely familiar, writes Professor David Midgley
HERB 2.0 (the Higher Education Research Bill) has been playing in both houses of parliament recently. Like HERB 1.0, which enjoyed a twelve-month run between May 2016 and April 2017, HERB 2.0 has tended to be overshadowed by the greater spectacle of the Brexit debates. And like HERB 1.0 it contains ample evidence of the depth of concern aroused by the present government’s reforms of higher education.
The occasion for the debate in the House of Commons on 23 April, as Gill Evans has noted was the presentation of a statutory instrument implementing certain provisions in the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. Since parliament does not have the power to amend a statutory instrument, the challenge took the form of a motion to annul it – which was lost, but did provide the opportunity for robust criticism. The Lords, on 9 May, were able to invoke the more august measure of a “motion to regret”, which was not put to the vote, but similarly provided a forum for the articulation of misgivings.
Prominent amongst the themes in HERB 2.0 was the ambiguous status of the Office for Students (OfS). How could it be both a funding council and a validator of degrees? Was it in reality an independent regulator or an instrument for the ministerial micromanagement of universities? The evident susceptibility of the OfS to government influence in the appointment of its board members was taken to suggest the latter, as was the fondness of the current minister for universities, like his predecessor, for wielding the punitive powers of the OfS as a means of rapid response to any feature of university life that attracts hostile media attention.
Other themes familiar from HERB 1.0 included the lack of credible representation of students or academic staff on the OfS board (representation which might, as Wes Streeting argued, conceivably be effective in the tempering of egregious pay differentials in universities) and the recognition that the marketisation of higher education was more likely to drive standards down than up. Lord Hunt, who proposed the “motion to regret”, deplored the demeaning application of the term “provider” to universities along with the market ideology of which it was a symptom, and pointed to the insecurities introduced to the higher education system by the casualisation of the teaching force that the market approach also encourages.
There was a cameo role for “academic freedom” in HERB 2.0 – in Lord Younger’s response to the motion to regret, where it appeared as an adjunct to the particular conception of “institutional autonomy” inherent in the government’s market model. But the most ringing tones of the Lords debate were those of Lord Judd proclaiming the inalienable ideal of “the university as a community of scholars” in which students and scholars together engage in the exciting enterprise of investigation. The current high international standing of British universities, he averred, was not achieved by any commitment to market ideology, but through “a long-standing and continuing commitment to scholarship, to learning and to the concept of the value of education as an end in itself, not as a means to an immediate end”.
Noteworthy supporting acts drew attention to the neglect of further education within the new framework and expressed the hope that the vacancy created by the resignation of the unfortunate Toby Young in January would be used to give representation to that sector on the board of the OfS. Special mention should also be made of the Tory ingénue who apparently continues to harbour the illusion that the TEF is designed to assess the quality of teaching.
Student loans and the problem of how to widen access have been in the news again – while the post-1992 universities are about to take a big financial hit
DfE ‘failed’ to monitor UK Student Loans Company
Times Higher Education, 11/05/2018, Ellie Bothwell
The UK government failed to effectively oversee the Student Loans Company during the tenure of its former chief executive Steve Lamey, according to a report from public spending watchdog the National Audit Office.
Student loan rates absurd, say MPs
BBC, 11/05/2018, Sean Coughlan
The inflation measure used to set interest rates on student loans is “absurd”, says a report from MPs.
The government uses RPI – the Retail Prices Index – which the Treasury Select Committee says is “flawed” and should be “abandoned”.
England’s large post-92s take hit on ‘student outcomes’ funding cut
Times Higher Education, 11/05/2018, Simon Baker
A number of newer English universities are among those losing the most direct teaching funding next year following a £30 million cut to funding designed to stop disadvantaged students dropping out of university.
At some large post-92 institutions, including London Metropolitan University, Leeds Beckett University and Manchester Metropolitan University, overall grant funding will drop by more than £1 million, a large part of which is down to the cut.
White working-class boys in England ‘need more help’ to go to university
The Guardian, 10/05/2018 Richard Adams
Helping white, working-class boys in England to go on to higher education should be a top priority for policymakers, according to a manifesto to widen access to universities that identifies more than 30 gaps and weaknesses in policy.
Thinking big: 35 ideas for widening access to higher education
Wonkhe, 10/05/2018, Diana Beech
Let’s face it – we all appreciate a nod in the right direction when starting a new job.
This could be a polite hint about what needs doing, guidance on what to prioritise, or helpful advice on how to go about it. Chris Millward, is surely no exception to this rule, having just started out in his new role as Director of Fair Access and Participation at Office for Students (OfS).
UK universities alarmed by poaching of top computer science brains
Financial Times, 09/05/2018, Aliya Ram
The hiring of professors in artificial intelligence by big technology companies is “killing the goose that lays the golden eggs”, according to Abhinay Muthoo. The dean of Warwick university’s King’s Cross campus in London, which coordinates its AI projects, fears the poaching of the best computer science brains in UK higher education by US groups such as Amazon, Google and Uber is threatening Britain’s ability to build on a world leading position in machine learning.
Business schools create new courses to tap apprenticeship levy
Financial Times, 08/05/2018, Jonathan Moules
Business schools are being reinvigorated by the apprenticeship levy, with 40 out of 113 universities creating specific MBA courses to take advantage of the tax, according to a new survey.
More than 1,400 people will enrol in levy-friendly MBA courses during the next 12 months, according to the poll by TES, an education magazine.
More than 1,400 people will enrol in levy-friendly MBA courses during the next 12 months, according to the poll by TES, an education magazine. A further two universities said they were in the process of setting up courses, while others said they were considering a move into the market.
Scrap essays to stop cheats, universities told
The Times, 0405/2018, Rosemary Bennett
Universities have been urged to stop relying on the traditional written essay to assess students in order to overcome the scourge of “contract cheating”.
Online essay mills, companies selling essays and coursework, have sprung up all over the world. An Australian study said 6 per cent of students there had bought at least one essay or paid for work they submitted for their degree.
Unconditional offers fail students. Bring back university entrance exams
The Guardian, 04/05/2018, Gillian Evans
Good A-levels have long been treated as indicators of an applicant’s ability to cope with a degree course and graduate successfully. But the rise of unconditional offers has undermined this. In 2013-14, 2,985 students were told their grades didn’t matter – by 2015-16, that number had risen to 51,615. At the same time, drop-out rates are rising. Now, the new regulator, the Office for Students, is working with Ucas to investigate the impact of unconditional offers on students’ access to higher education and degree and employment outcomes.
If student maintenance grants are coming back, who will pay for them?
The Guardian, 01/05/2018, David Morris
Back when student maintenance grants were abolished in 2015, universities seemed relatively relaxed. Ignoring the student protests over how they would cope with high costs of living, universities were quietly satisfied that at least the changes came in tandem with an inflationary rise in tuition fees, linked to their performance in the teaching excellence framework. How times have changed.
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