Employers should help shoulder the cost of student tuition fees

The high cost of university tuition fees and the student loans scheme are problems that are not going to go away. In the recent general election, students resoundingly registered their dissatisfaction with the present arrangements by voting Labour, because of its willingness to tackle these problems. The issue is now firmly back in the political arena because the Conservatives cannot afford to ignore it.

Successive British governments have introduced and expanded schemes that have led to the present system of student loans, because they could no longer adequately finance the universities except by increasing taxation.

Dr Colin Byrne

Both Labour and Coalition governments judged this politically  difficult and economically undesirable. A major part of the problem is that the number of students enrolling on degree programmes has increased enormously.

The overall participation rate in higher education has increased from 19.3 per cent in 1990 to 48 per cent (by age 30) in 2014. The participation rate for 18 year olds was 21 per cent in 2006, but 26 per cent in 2014 and rising.

It was once true that a degree virtually guaranteed a substantially increased income over a working life. It was therefore plausible that those who would benefit should shoulder the cost.

But with greatly increased student numbers, a much smaller fraction of graduates can expect to benefit to the same extent as before; and that is before we take account of the poorer employment prospects since 2008.

Those who challenge this statement need to consider a recent report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, which found that almost eight in 10 graduates will never pay back their full student loan under the new tuition fees system .

According to a 2015 report, 58 per cent of graduates were working in jobs deemed non-graduate roles. The report also referred to over-qualification being at “saturation point”.

The current debate seems to be whether the student or the taxpayer, or some combination, should shoulder this cost, with strong arguments on both sides. There is, however, a third possibility.

How would the funding landscape look if employers were required to contribute? After all, they benefit from hiring graduates and it is reasonable that they should take an interest in what the universities offer. All proposed solutions are going to be criticised; none are going to please everyone.

The way forward might be a compromise involving the taxpayer, the employer, and the student (via loans where necessary).

Dr Colin Byrne

I cannot offer a complete solution. It is, however, clear that looking for ways of reducing the cost should be on the agenda.

One way of doing this would be for the universities to offer school leavers different kinds of degrees from those at present available.

Although universities must retain their function as preservers of knowledge, we must realise that students who attend them do so with a wide range of aims. Some want to become researchers or teachers, and others want to go into specialised occupations such as engineering, medicine, law or architecture.

Most students are not committing large sums of money only to become academically cultured. They are doing so because they believe that their education will benefit them in the jobs market. And so it should. They want to survive and, if possible, to flourish. Many, however, would find that shorter programmes better fit their aims and their circumstances.

I propose that universities should introduce new programmes that differ in their aims, content, breadth, depth and – critically – duration.  

Dr Colin Byrne

Universities should continue to teach many existing courses, but should package these into different programmes, with some lasting for only one or two years. New courses could be added. Students who wish to study a group of courses that, at present, lead to a degree could continue to do so.

Upon the satisfactory completion of any programme, students would still receive a degree, their academic accomplishments being distinguished by an accompanying statement of what each had learned and could do.

Students would choose to enroll in programmes in line with their aims. Some students could choose programmes that are highly specialised but narrow (e.g. telecommunications engineering) whilst others might choose programmes that are broader but not so deep (e.g. ones that might better suit primary and lower secondary school teachers than more specialised programmes).

These shorter courses would be more affordable than a full degree programme and more relevant to the employer’s business. The shorter a programme, the less would be the cost for whoever has to bear it; also, the sooner the student can become productive and begin earning, which could be important to some. If many students enrolled in shorter programmes, a substantial overall cost saving would result.  

For those who continue to pursue programmes that, at present, lead to a degree, there would be no saving in cost, so the problem of their funding remains. But if we can reduce the number of these students then we would reduce the total cost of higher education so that the problem of their funding becomes a little easier for the government.

Too many students are being encouraged to pursue programmes leading to degrees that are unlikely to serve either them or our country well, but will saddle them with large debts.

Degree programmes have become rites of passage. Degrees function only as a broad screening device for employers, when what is needed is much more information on the content that students have mastered and what they can do.  

Degrees merely rank order students in competitive assessments in relation to vaguely defined bodies of knowledge but each university does this differently and has different standards. Nobody knows what degree holders know and can do, even amongst those with good degrees. Degrees are not even very good predictors of future success.

The current system treats students who drop out of a degree programme as failures, even though they may have been successful in parts of their programme. This outcome is often because they are required to take courses that are irrelevant to their aims. And these courses, which they do not want to study, waste time and money.  

We need to move to a system that permits students to enrol in programmes that better fit their aims and interests, and at the end of which they receive an award stating what they have achieved.

We should no longer insist that students choose only between programmes which are of the same duration, and which are supposed to give them broad knowledge of a subject or field of study. If we do this, we will not only have universities that better serve our society but we will have saved money. For many, that matters.

Dr Colin Byrne is a Visiting Scholar at Wolfson College, Cambridge.