"In the last decade, in spite of rising tuition fees, students are more likely to apply for university, poorer students are more likely to apply for university, and the inequality gap – while still a problem – has closed."
That's just ridiculous. What we are actually seeing is a very strong sheepskin effect where not having a university degree pretty much guarantees you a menial, low paying job. The poor push for a degree but that does not "the inequality gap has closed", because there is still strong inequality among degrees themselves.
People go to university not to learn (that's just a side effect, in some schools, for some students) but to signal to society and to a future employer they are the type of person willing to commit themselves to a career in the field, by irreversibly burning money and years of their lives doing busywork. So clearly, a more expensive or exclusive school is a better signal. Everybody goes to university nowadays but that does not mean degrees are equivalent.
I agree throwing public money at this mess is not a solution, we have to devise more efficient ways for people to signal their competence and willingness to learn.
The mess should and could be optimized. But as said, what the uni. degree is for employers, students and society is an arbitrary yardstick for the general quality of a person within a given field, what other option do we have then throwing public money at it? Private money just distorts these yardsticks towards capita, not competence.
There's no definition on disadvantaged / advantaged areas. Might be that the given figures: 72% 63%, 39% and 36%, just reflect the relative populations. Combined with the ongoing trend of people getting more educated, this might account for all of these figures.
Also the article simply dismisses the size of tuitions. A tuition of say < 10000 £ / a year probably won't be a strong inequalizer. But the whole notion that Ivy league tuitions vs. no tuitions wouldn't effect the possibilities of people is foolish.
The second point / infograph was more interesting though, and might bare more fruit for thought. Resources probably would be better allocated to pre uni. times.
I'm relatively convinced that tuition fees don't promote inequality, based on stats I've seen over the last 10 years or so. Also, as a student, some of the richest people I knew didn't pay tuition fees due to creative accounting of their parents' personal finances.
That said, £27,000 for a bachelor's degree represents terrible value for money in most cases. The UK's old targets of getting everyone into higher education have had a terribly negative effect on universities; they now chase student numbers and have a 'grow or die' mindset.
The improvement of apprentice systems over the last few years is a step in the right direction, but I fear the damage has been done. Students don't want a challenging experience for £27k, they want the piece of paper they've paid for. For best value for money, I personally would rather take out a student loan without attending an institution and undertake self-guided learning at a slightly later age.
The increase in faux apprentices in the last few years is down to Mc Job employers(coffe shops and supermarkets) gaming the system and using apprentices as cheap unskilled labor.
Hell they haven't manged to increase the number of trade apprentices chipy sparkies etc
I'm not convinced the "evidence" is suggesting anything without further data, and this article is glossing over "correlation != causation". Without a baseline (a situation where, over the same years, tuition fees weren't introduced/raised), how do we know what the equivalent situation would be? Perhaps there would have been even more people from poorer backgrounds applying.
It is evidence. No need to put it in scare quotes. We can debate the correct interpretation and applicability, but it's certainly evidence of a sort.
It's impossible to run the kinds of controlled large scale socio-economic experiments you describe. If we ignore the evidence that doesn't meet your high standards, we'll have no real world data.
* No comparison with other time periods, and their respective tuition fees.
* No comparison with other countries, and their respective policies.
* No data on where these students graduate from, or in which subjects, or with which grades, or what their average salary is X years later, or whether they'll actually be able to pay back the loan.
It's missing a huge amount of important information; you really can't justify the conclusion "tuition fees are good" from this alone.
That a reasonable amount of tuition combined with manageable payment options does not deter low-income students (at least not statistically) is not new [1].
That said, the potential deterrent effect is not the only thing to be considered. We also have to look at fairness.
Normally, a fixed [2] benefit paid out of flat or progressive taxes is itself progressive (because it provides proportionately more financial relief to low-income recipients).
However, in the case of free tuition, middle- and high-income households are more likely to be recipients; this makes it potentially regressive and is one of the major arguments for not having free tuition; you might end up with low income households paying tuition disproportionately for high income households.
Yet the UK's system (paying back tuition as an additional tax on your income, but only if you earn enough) does not really fix it; while it addresses the low/middle income disparity, it creates a regressive bump in the middle of the income scale; the cost hurts middle class students the most. Once you hit a point where you will pay your entire tuition, it's a fixed cost that is borne by everybody and then it becomes regressive.
Creating a flat or progressive hypothecated tax for college graduates might address the issue of social fairness, but at this point it's not clear whether it's worth the complexity or whether just financing tuition (and also other forms of tertiary education) out of a sufficiently progressive income tax might not be easier. After all, governments do a lot of things that are likely to benefit richer people more and we don't create convoluted hypothecated taxes for all of them.
The article is of course right that the problems that cause unequal access to college occur a long time before you worry about tuition, but this is really not an either-or situation. Free or affordable tuition isn't all that expensive (by the standards of the budgets of Western countries), not to mention that investing in human capital is generally a good idea. And, obviously, providing options for tertiary education and careers other than college is also a primary concern.
[1] That said, I'm pretty sure that on an individual level, there are still plenty of cases where it does deter potential students – I know some myself – and there are other detrimental effects, such as the financial burden on dropouts.
[2] Tuition varies by university, of course, but on balance it's close enough to a fixed expense to call it that.
Completely agree that subsidizing university tuition is a regressive policy - taxing all of society to benefit the 33% of the population or so who go to college.
However, upfront fees of course are a big deterrent to poorer students, and that's not the only way to charge for tuition.
I like Milton Friedman's proposal to tax a certain percentage of future earnings of students in exchange for paying for their fees. Australia has a similar income-contigent repayment system which has been very successful.
I think it's fair that college graduates pay for the bulk of (all of?) their education, but I think it would be much better for college graduates (and society) if those fees were collected later in life and didn't cause crippling debt.
> In England, 18 year olds living in disadvantaged areas were a staggering 72% more likely to apply for higher education in 2015 than in 2006. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the figures were 63%, 39% and 36% - lower, but still a huge increase.
As other commenters have pointed out, students from Scotland who are studying for their first undergraduate degree at a Scottish university don't pay any tuition fees.
Does anyone know what percentage of these loans are being repaid? I recall that a couple of years ago the press were quoting figures like 85% will never be repaid.
How about looking at countries which actually have no tuition fees and learning by example, instead of guessing what might or might not happen? Scotland is the most obvious example, but if you want a larger one, Poland does not have any fees for higher education eiter. I know a few people who started from really poor families and went on to become doctors and engineers, mostly because education didn't cost them anything.
In Poland there are public universities and private universities, and on both there are some paid courses. If you get good enough result at final high school exam you can study at public university on a free course. If not (or if you prefer to study at evenings and weekends) - you have to pay. Roughly 30-50% of students study for free. The stereotype is that free education is better (because the paid courses set bad incentives to teachers to let pass everybody, and because they will admit anybody who pays).
The effect is - in general kids from well-off families do better at school and don't have to work when they are 18 - so they study for free and get a degree that's worth more in labour market.
Others pay for studies and often have to work during the day, and study at evenings/weekends, and in the end they get a degree that's "second class".
IMHO it's still a better system than USA (I'm not familiar with UK system so can't compare), because the competition for students means that universities can't charge outrageous prices like in USA. Almost everybody can afford university in Poland. But it's not the ideal system some people think it is.
Also the primary and middle school is important. In Poland the default for every kid is to go to university, and teachers teach basing on that assumption.
Russia: reasonably accessible tuition fees with free education easily available based on entrance exam scores. Compulsory military service as a main motivation for degrees for males.
High graduation rate, but _horrible_ education quality exactly because of these factors. Judging by my personal experience, a CS graduate from any not first-rate (and there's about 5 of truly first-rate places left) Russian uni/college is, on average, significantly worse than a self-taught programmer.
Also, incredibly high corruption: professors extorting bribes at exams (not just accepting bribes from low-perfoming students, but actually extorting bribes from students who would able pass tests otherwise) isn't something far out of the ordinary.
Interesting premise given Britain now has the most expensive public university system on the planet:
"While student fees can be higher at many ivy league and other top colleges, the £9,000 annual charge for attending an English institution pushed the British average above the US’s public colleges for the first time, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said. OECD data showed that fees for a bachelor or equivalent degree on average in public institutions was $9,019 a year in the UK compared with $8,202 in the US. Fees at private institutions – attended by 40 per cent of students -- in the US are on average $21,189 a year."
I was curious, looked up the numbers for the US vs UK:
UK annual tuition: $9,000 - $13,440 (the max for public) [1]
US avg annual tuition, public: $9,410 [2]
US avg annual tuition, private: $32,405 [2]
It's possible fees might not matter too much up to a certain range... investing in yourself could be justified economically up to a certain amount, after which the fees could be too much to justify (unless you have wealthy family to help out).
The argument here is that highschools are underfunded, therefore any money that would have to be spent on scrapping university tuition should be spent on highschools instead. This would be a sound idea if the government weren't conservative and hadn't elevated austerity to a quasi-religion.
No real mention of Scotland here which is interesting because it doesn't have tuition fees (I think). So surely it would stand as an example that either supports or disproves the theory in the article.
IT does make small mentions of them: "“In 2006 advantaged UK 18 year olds were 3.7 times more likely to apply that disadvantaged 18 years olds.” By 2014 the ratio had fallen to 2.4. “A similar fall is seen for each country of the UK.”"
I see a lot of talk in the piece about applications to university but no data on attendance or graduation. I'd be more interested in those numbers. Does it really matter how many people apply?
Completely agree. Yes many people from less educated households have realized they have the chance to improve their situation by pursuing a degree, hence the increase in applications from that segment. But how many of those actually attend university and graduate?
I am currently enrolled in the EIT Digital master school. Funded by the EU, with scholarships for both EU and non EU citizens there was a huge amount of applicants from outside the EU, mainly "poorer" countries. Turns out, of those very few remainend and mostly those that got a full scholarship.
I am leaving UK mainly because of tuition fees.
It's really expensive for overseas, I am just a regular software engineer and someone from my family wants to finish the studies.
[+] [-] cornholio|10 years ago|reply
That's just ridiculous. What we are actually seeing is a very strong sheepskin effect where not having a university degree pretty much guarantees you a menial, low paying job. The poor push for a degree but that does not "the inequality gap has closed", because there is still strong inequality among degrees themselves.
People go to university not to learn (that's just a side effect, in some schools, for some students) but to signal to society and to a future employer they are the type of person willing to commit themselves to a career in the field, by irreversibly burning money and years of their lives doing busywork. So clearly, a more expensive or exclusive school is a better signal. Everybody goes to university nowadays but that does not mean degrees are equivalent.
I agree throwing public money at this mess is not a solution, we have to devise more efficient ways for people to signal their competence and willingness to learn.
[+] [-] quqqo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petewailes|10 years ago|reply
Evidence?
[+] [-] quqqo|10 years ago|reply
There's no definition on disadvantaged / advantaged areas. Might be that the given figures: 72% 63%, 39% and 36%, just reflect the relative populations. Combined with the ongoing trend of people getting more educated, this might account for all of these figures.
Also the article simply dismisses the size of tuitions. A tuition of say < 10000 £ / a year probably won't be a strong inequalizer. But the whole notion that Ivy league tuitions vs. no tuitions wouldn't effect the possibilities of people is foolish.
The second point / infograph was more interesting though, and might bare more fruit for thought. Resources probably would be better allocated to pre uni. times.
[+] [-] MatthewWilkes|10 years ago|reply
That said, £27,000 for a bachelor's degree represents terrible value for money in most cases. The UK's old targets of getting everyone into higher education have had a terribly negative effect on universities; they now chase student numbers and have a 'grow or die' mindset.
The improvement of apprentice systems over the last few years is a step in the right direction, but I fear the damage has been done. Students don't want a challenging experience for £27k, they want the piece of paper they've paid for. For best value for money, I personally would rather take out a student loan without attending an institution and undertake self-guided learning at a slightly later age.
[+] [-] spacecowboy_lon|10 years ago|reply
Hell they haven't manged to increase the number of trade apprentices chipy sparkies etc
[+] [-] Pitarou|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] im2w1l|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spacecowboy_lon|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spxdcz|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Pitarou|10 years ago|reply
It's impossible to run the kinds of controlled large scale socio-economic experiments you describe. If we ignore the evidence that doesn't meet your high standards, we'll have no real world data.
[+] [-] tom-lord|10 years ago|reply
* No comparison with other countries, and their respective policies.
* No data on where these students graduate from, or in which subjects, or with which grades, or what their average salary is X years later, or whether they'll actually be able to pay back the loan.
It's missing a huge amount of important information; you really can't justify the conclusion "tuition fees are good" from this alone.
[+] [-] rbehrends|10 years ago|reply
That said, the potential deterrent effect is not the only thing to be considered. We also have to look at fairness.
Normally, a fixed [2] benefit paid out of flat or progressive taxes is itself progressive (because it provides proportionately more financial relief to low-income recipients).
However, in the case of free tuition, middle- and high-income households are more likely to be recipients; this makes it potentially regressive and is one of the major arguments for not having free tuition; you might end up with low income households paying tuition disproportionately for high income households.
Yet the UK's system (paying back tuition as an additional tax on your income, but only if you earn enough) does not really fix it; while it addresses the low/middle income disparity, it creates a regressive bump in the middle of the income scale; the cost hurts middle class students the most. Once you hit a point where you will pay your entire tuition, it's a fixed cost that is borne by everybody and then it becomes regressive.
Creating a flat or progressive hypothecated tax for college graduates might address the issue of social fairness, but at this point it's not clear whether it's worth the complexity or whether just financing tuition (and also other forms of tertiary education) out of a sufficiently progressive income tax might not be easier. After all, governments do a lot of things that are likely to benefit richer people more and we don't create convoluted hypothecated taxes for all of them.
The article is of course right that the problems that cause unequal access to college occur a long time before you worry about tuition, but this is really not an either-or situation. Free or affordable tuition isn't all that expensive (by the standards of the budgets of Western countries), not to mention that investing in human capital is generally a good idea. And, obviously, providing options for tertiary education and careers other than college is also a primary concern.
[1] That said, I'm pretty sure that on an individual level, there are still plenty of cases where it does deter potential students – I know some myself – and there are other detrimental effects, such as the financial burden on dropouts.
[2] Tuition varies by university, of course, but on balance it's close enough to a fixed expense to call it that.
[+] [-] surfmike|10 years ago|reply
However, upfront fees of course are a big deterrent to poorer students, and that's not the only way to charge for tuition.
I like Milton Friedman's proposal to tax a certain percentage of future earnings of students in exchange for paying for their fees. Australia has a similar income-contigent repayment system which has been very successful.
I think it's fair that college graduates pay for the bulk of (all of?) their education, but I think it would be much better for college graduates (and society) if those fees were collected later in life and didn't cause crippling debt.
[+] [-] gabemart|10 years ago|reply
As other commenters have pointed out, students from Scotland who are studying for their first undergraduate degree at a Scottish university don't pay any tuition fees.
[+] [-] Toenex|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gambiting|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ajuc|10 years ago|reply
The effect is - in general kids from well-off families do better at school and don't have to work when they are 18 - so they study for free and get a degree that's worth more in labour market.
Others pay for studies and often have to work during the day, and study at evenings/weekends, and in the end they get a degree that's "second class".
IMHO it's still a better system than USA (I'm not familiar with UK system so can't compare), because the competition for students means that universities can't charge outrageous prices like in USA. Almost everybody can afford university in Poland. But it's not the ideal system some people think it is.
Also the primary and middle school is important. In Poland the default for every kid is to go to university, and teachers teach basing on that assumption.
[+] [-] golergka|10 years ago|reply
High graduation rate, but _horrible_ education quality exactly because of these factors. Judging by my personal experience, a CS graduate from any not first-rate (and there's about 5 of truly first-rate places left) Russian uni/college is, on average, significantly worse than a self-taught programmer.
Also, incredibly high corruption: professors extorting bribes at exams (not just accepting bribes from low-perfoming students, but actually extorting bribes from students who would able pass tests otherwise) isn't something far out of the ordinary.
[+] [-] the_mitsuhiko|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adventured|10 years ago|reply
"While student fees can be higher at many ivy league and other top colleges, the £9,000 annual charge for attending an English institution pushed the British average above the US’s public colleges for the first time, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said. OECD data showed that fees for a bachelor or equivalent degree on average in public institutions was $9,019 a year in the UK compared with $8,202 in the US. Fees at private institutions – attended by 40 per cent of students -- in the US are on average $21,189 a year."
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/62a1d4e0-9213-11e5-bd82-c1fb8...
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/nov/24/uk-has-high...
[+] [-] surfmike|10 years ago|reply
UK annual tuition: $9,000 - $13,440 (the max for public) [1]
US avg annual tuition, public: $9,410 [2]
US avg annual tuition, private: $32,405 [2]
It's possible fees might not matter too much up to a certain range... investing in yourself could be justified economically up to a certain amount, after which the fees could be too much to justify (unless you have wealthy family to help out).
[1] http://www.topuniversities.com/student-info/student-finance/... [2] http://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-table...
[+] [-] jld89|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lyschoening|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adaml_623|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlphaSite|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arethuza|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lunchladydoris|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peteretep|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] derEitel|10 years ago|reply
I am currently enrolled in the EIT Digital master school. Funded by the EU, with scholarships for both EU and non EU citizens there was a huge amount of applicants from outside the EU, mainly "poorer" countries. Turns out, of those very few remainend and mostly those that got a full scholarship.
Applicants != graduates;
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] aprdm|10 years ago|reply
£24k p.a...
[+] [-] jld89|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lyschoening|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]