- Below, Nick Hillman (HEPI Director) recaps on the HEPI / CDBU symposium on ‘Fairer Funding’ held in mid-January 2025. His opening remarks for the day can be read separately here.
- Contributions from other speakers during the day will be added below.
This morning’s main session showed, I think, there is a consensus that the current student funding system is not working so well, though my own opening remarks argued that could be fixed relatively easily (but then I am often in a minority of one…).
The panel members chaired so expertly by Baroness Wolf – Dr Tim Leunig, Rose Stephenson, Johnny Rich and Professor Steven Jones – all of whom I’ve had lively debates with on HE funding before, focused on different areas. But all of them were united that the current maintenance arrangements are not working. That is confirmed by work we produced in 2024, including the HEPI / TechnologyOne Student Minimum Income Standard, which shows students need far more income to live with dignity than the maintenance support system assumes, and also the HEPI / Unipol Accommodation Costs Survey, which shows the average rent in London is now higher than the maximum maintenance grant.
The afternoon helicoptered out to a wider European perspective on performance-based funding by Pedro Teixeira, who was until recently the Secretary of State for Higher Education in Portugal. This suggested to me at least that England’s approach to higher education is not as exceptional or as individual as we sometimes like to believe but also that, in other respects, we do sit – as on other issues – somewhere between the United States and the European mainland.
Lars Cornelissen then gave us a rattling tour of the victory of neo-liberalism – Hayek, Friedman and Barr were portrayed as the unholy Trinity behind the shift. It was fascinating but I promise you that back in 2010 to 2012 we were not thinking much about AR Prest of Arthur Seldon – we were thinking more about how we could get more money to universities without cutting student places when an austerity-inclined government had just come to office. So perhaps the impact of such figures was indirect rather than direct. (Intriguingly, despite Lars’s fascinating evidence showing some IEA-inclined academics were sanguine about the prospect of institutional failure, they actually ended up increasing the number of universities by helping found the University of Buckingham [where to declare an interest, I am on the Council].)
Then Paul Bou-Habib argued for higher fees, underscored by progressivity, and a real material contribution from many employers. His step-by-step analysis was persuasive in many respects on screen but brought back to mind some of the concerns we heard earlier in the day from Tim Leunig and Baroness (Alison) Wolf too. Specifically, Tim’s point that the furore about the current National Insurance rises and the resultant growing business pessimism may have changed the likelihood of employer contributions happening … and Alison’s worry that any new system should maintain the link between funding and the specific student / course / institution.
Towards the end of our day, Alison Payne focused on the uniquely Scottish situation – unique in UK terms that is – and the rather closed and stultifying policy conversations in recent years north of the border. Every system will be gamed and Alison strikingly spoke about people moving south to England and then paying full fees as off-quota students as a way of Scottish people accessing Scottish universities. She also usefully reminded us of the importance of electoral cycles and the fact that these can work out differently across the UK, with eyes in Scotland particularly focused on the elections to the Scottish Parliament in 2026.
Following this, there were stimulating discussions on:
- the fact that neo-liberalism is not the same as Conservatism and this is important to remember when interpreting recent policy changes;
- the response of the Russell Group and their members to the removal of student number caps – while the Russell Group’s was initially opposed to the liberalisation, many Russell Group members came to take maximum benefit of the policy; and
- sharia-compliant student loans, which I pointed out had first been promised in 2013 to coincide with an Eid event at Number 10 Downing Street and which have been worked up within the Department for Education but which is still a policy searching for a legislative vehicle and parliamentary time.
My final reminder on the funding model we have is that it allows there to be more students and this might in turn open up new options. If we get to 70 or 80 per cent participation in higher education, to South Korean levels as we heard, then perhaps universal funding models could come back into play. The problem now is the challenge from David Cameron (mentioned by Steven Jones) of why the shop assistant should pay for the education of the future lawyer plus the rationing of places in ‘free’ models. But if nearly everyone comes to benefit from higher education, in the way that most people use state-funded schooling and the NHS, then the arguments for taxpayer-funded higher education might be stronger than when only around half of people benefit.
I am grateful to everyone who contributed during the day. Please do consider writing for HEPI and / or the CDBU if you want to continue this important conversation.