On Friday, the Guardian published an article pointing out that a lot more public money than expected will have to be contributed to tuition fees loans.
This has been greeted with a certain amount of glee by the usual suspects. On some level, I can understand the excitement, but nevertheless, it looks like a case of trying hard to have this particular cake and keep eating it.
People who used to shout about fees are now upset that after all, the state is putting more money into the system than scaremongered at first: not that this is actual news to anybody who managed to have a calm, rational look at the system ever since it was set up.
So, either you want the state to contribute more, or you don’t: which is it to be?
Granted, there may be better ways of making this contribution, but following the Browne Review, there was hardly a chance to overhaul the system completely. One reason for initiating that review (under the last Labour government) was to address underfunding of universities which was getting precarious, while also avoiding having to put in more public money.
Of course, in the event, the measure was presented as a way of cutting public expenditure, combined with a way of making higher education no less affordable for students (or, in actual fact, the graduates who were going to pay later on).
Ultimately, this happens when you try to reconcile (1) fees, or, per Browne Review, increased fees, (2) not contributing more public money to higher education and research, (3) funding universities at least reasonably well and (4) trying to make it easier for students to pay back their loans. These four aims are not reconcilable.
Something’s got to give, and frankly, I am happy that it may just be (2) more than the other items on my list.
I am not sure how far this was deliberate: it is presumably a fairly inevitable by-product of trying to reconcile (1), (3) and (4), while also producing more graduates, which was always likely to lower graduate salaries.
Of course, with my cynical hat on, I understand that this is mostly about campaigners desperately trying to hold on to a favourite campaign issue after reality has made it lose most of its teeth (as some people predicted all along).
I had been wondering how this was going to be kept on the agenda for 2015. I guess now we know. Unlike many of the complaints about the system ever since 2010, this particular line of attack has the virtue of being in line with reality – but how far do we really want to complain about the state contributing a bit more money to higher education while making it less difficult for graduates to pay back their loan?
It’ll be very interesting to see what solutions are going to be suggested, particularly what Labour might come up with. Perhaps it would be best to start over and design something new from scratch – but if that’s not possible, it’s either higher fees or an acceptance that a wealthy country should contribute more to research and higher education.
* Maria Pretzler is a Lecturer in Greek History at Swansea University. She blogs at Working Memories , where ancient Greekery and Libdemmery can happily coexist.