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Lord Browne to lead fees review
9 November 2009
David Eastwood and Julia King join panel considering the future of student support. John Gill reports
The review of fees and university funding will be led by Lord Browne of Madingley, the Government has announced.
The long-awaited Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance was launched on 9 November by Lord Mandelson, the First Secretary.
Lord Browne will be joined on the review panel by David Eastwood, the vice-chancellor of the University of Birmingham and former head of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, and by Julia King, the vice-chancellor of Aston University.
The panel also features Michael Barber, the head of McKinsey’s Global Education Practice, Diane Coyle of the consultancy Enlightenment Economics, Rajay Naik, a UK board member of the Big Lottery Fund, and Peter Sands, the chief executive of Standard Chartered bank.
Lord Mandelson said the review would take into account the goal of widening participation in higher education, the need for affordability and the desire to simplify the student-support system.
He said: “Last week I launched the Government’s framework for higher education, showing the challenges and opportunities ahead for universities in the next decade.
“We need universities to continue to thrive and meet this vision, and Lord Browne and his team will examine the balance of contributions to universities by taxpayers, students, graduates and employers.
“Variable tuition fees provide institutions with a secure income stream worth £1.3 billion, helping to sustain the long-term financial health and viability of the sector.
“Since they were introduced, student numbers have continued to rise, along with the numbers coming from lower-income backgrounds.
“This is an important piece of work that will require extensive consultation with all who would be affected by any changes, including current and potential students.”
Lord Mandelson added that he had discussed the review’s membership with David Willetts, the Conservative Shadow Universities Secretary, and that both parties were “committed to ensuring its independent nature”.
The review will make its recommendations to the Government next summer, after the general election.
Steve Smith, the vice-chancellor of the University of Exeter and president of Universities UK, said he was pleased that the review was getting under way.
“First and foremost, this review must be about how the introduction of fees in 2006 has impacted on students, how this additional income has been used and how the university sector’s funding needs will be addressed in the future,” he said.
“It is about more than simply the level of the fee cap in England.”
He added: “Our position is that our universities must receive sufficient funding to remain world class and any changes to the current fee regime must also take account of the implications for widening participation.”
john.gill@tsleducation.com
• www.independent.gov.uk/hereview
Readers' comments
If the government can bail out the banks, why can't they bail out our universities and give them the investment they need! The UK must be the only country in the world to cut rather than support education funding in a recession!
Looking at the membership of this joke panel (I don't mean that it can't do serious harm but even then you have to laugh), I am particularly struck - aside from Lord Browne, about whom Mary Beard wrote in The Times, at http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2009/11/do-universities-need-a-consumer-revolution.html - by the presence of the "UK board member of the Big Lottery Fund". What better qualification for advising on matters of university governance than someone specialized in organizing an activity in respect to which no-one has the slightest idea whether his or her investment is going to pay off or not. I suppose that the panel, given this membership and considering its remit, is intended to be an open insult to all academics and to scholarship. It is also fascinating to see that two "vice-chancellors" have agreed to collaborate.
I just hope the review has the backbone to recommend giving universities the autonomy to set appropriate fee levels. If we do not allow out universities the freedom to generate non-politicised income and create better incentives for students to make degree choices we will end up with an internationally uncompetitive system that is no longer conducting cutting edge research or providing most undergraduates with the instruments for achieving their long-term potential.
“First and foremost, this review must be about how the introduction of fees in 2006 has impacted on students" So where is the student voice?
Why wasn't there someone representative of academic staff, other than at the senior management level, appointed to this panel? And why not a UCU official? How about a representative of the NUS? No, they were not appointed to the panel because their views are not welcome. This increase in fees will be rammed through irrespective of the consequences for the range of stakeholders.
“First and foremost, this review must be about how the introduction of fees in 2006 has impacted on students" So where is the student voice?
There is not one person on this panel who speaks for either students or taxpayers. There are many words for this, but "independent" isn't one of them. The outcome of this review (hike tuition fees and slap on commercial rates on loans) is already written, it just won't be delivered until after the election, so we won't be able to vote on it. We will just watch as they sell our children's future for today's greed.
This is a joke. Where is the NUS representation? This cannot be said to be an all-encompassing review without it.
It's so reassuring to see there's a banker on the panel.
It is appalling that women are underrepresented on this group. Not only do women make up the majority of students in higher education, but the top up fee system has a disproportionately negative effect on women.
Oh, did someone redefine independent while i wasn't looking?
So, the chair of this review is a disgraced former chairman of BP whose only link to universities is that he attended one forty years ago, and that he is a chum of Mandelson? This is the latest in a rapid succession of stories that has appeared in the press in the last few weeks which makes it clear that the unelected tsar is hell-bent on destroying the higher education sector before his party is forced out at the general election. It's a shame that students and academics are so much more supine in the face of Mandelson's vandalism than their fellow-sufferers at the Royal Mail.
Perhaps the only two Vice Chancellors in the country about whom anybody has a good word to say are on the panel - prophetic one would hope!
NUS do not desreve to have representation they are no more for saving students money now then the government is....as for the student voice for anyone who can make it at 3.50pm on 10th (today) Aston Students and University of Birmingham Students will be holding apeacful protetst outside their respective buildings to show the VIce-Chancellors how they feel.
Eastwood is a vote already tied up. Real independent voices are needed
I have to say that this panel is an absolute disgrace and a slap in the face to all right thinking members of this country (and students). It is deeply dispiriting to see that Michael Barber has yet again found his way into a position of influence - few people have done more to ruin education in this country over the last fifteen years than that individual. Mckinsey's 'Global Education Practice' is a bubonic wart nestled in the armpit of the business world, spreading poison throughout education internationally. 'Enlightenment economics' is the organisation that ritualises the mutual mastrurbation of the elite classes of casino capitalism. It is difficult for me to read the names of the panel without wretching. I am in agreement with the NUS and Mr Streeting - it is repulsive that no student representative has been included - this government of 'all the philistines' has yet again produced a fait accompli - and we are powerless to challenge it without widespread industrial action. There must be a national general strike now to stop the perpetuation of further crimes against all notions of intergenerational justice. To argue that UK Higher Education 'needs the money' and therefore 'must have higher fees' will instrumentalise real education out of existence. Yours, ever, Hoggie.
Apart from the comment "It is about more than simply the level of the fee cap in England", there is nothing in your article to indicate that the review of HE and the fees review are about universities in England. The review of higher education in Wales concluded earlier this year: http://www.hefcw.ac.uk/about_he_in_wales/wag_priorities_and_policies/review_he_in_wales.aspx
Julia King has made her opionon on this pretty clear too. I guess everyone at Aston now knows exactly why she was so eager to have Mandy round for tea and cake in the spring. At the same time the members at Aston are said to be reeling that her next term of office has been given a shoe-in by the governing body - the constitution of which she has re-written since her arrival, and whose ranks are now filled with new-labour's local darlings. The review of low carbon emissions turned out to be a flop but the extent to which some will go for a KBE is astonishing.
Lord Browne, the Vice-Chancellors and maybe even your readers need reminding that the only fees currently 'capped' in UK (or rather, English) universities are those for home/EU students pursuing a full-time undergraduate degree. But this is a tiny part of the fees equation. Fees for graduate students, fees for overseas students and any other kind of student can be set at any level that institutions wish. Second, income from these fees is not ring-fenced - it can be (and is) spent on anything from improved teaching, books for the library, to the redecoration of the cricket pavilion, the increase of faculty salaries or pension funding. Third, institutions currently receive more in funding from the Funding Councils than directly from students (this year £3225 per home/EU undergrad but some £4,300 from the Funding Councils). There is no ring fence around this total, so, an increase in tuition fees could be wholly offset by Funding Council reduction (or vice versa). Not least, by how much have UK universities improved since the imposition of the current levels of top up fees? And see my website http://www.publicgoods.co.uk for detail of fees for the 'uncapped' masses in the current academic year.