Scrapping tuition fees: an expensive and unproductive ploy to students

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Alexandra Hill argues against Labour’s proposals to ban university tuition fees.

In 2010, under the newly-elected Cameron administration, tuition fees for UK students tripled from £3,000 to £9,000, with a further £250 increase being introduced in 2016.  At the time, such a radical policy change was controversial: student protests, in some cases violent, swamped the capital, with much of the blame laid squarely not on the shoulders of the Prime Minister, but his second-in-command – Nick Clegg. Clegg had, before the election, made a solemn vow not to raise tuition fees from their existing level and had made a manifesto pledge to scrap them altogether. Whilst he can hardly be blamed for failing to achieve the latter, his consent to the Tory proposals of tuition fee hikes amounted, in the eyes of enraged students, to be a downright betrayal.  

The anger felt by students in 2010 is understandable, both in terms of the large increase in fees and the betrayal by a politician who presumably would have benefitted electorally off the back of his vow. But scrapping them now, as proposed both by Labour and the Greens, is both unproductive and financially unviable. Whilst this statement is likely met with horror amongst some fellow students, who may well perceive the £50,000 debts that they will be burdened with, alongside their hard-earned graduation certificates, to be tyrannous and wretchedly unfair, it is imperative that we inject some reason into the debate.  

It would be, of course, utterly disingenuous to pretend that £50,000 is a meagre debt burden, but the nature of the debt is a vital consideration that is too often neglected by Labour politicians.  Martin Lewis, the ultimate financial god of the people, provides much-needed reassurance to terrified graduates and students who login to their student fee portal for the first time (don’t do it!) and are met with a startling sum with a disconcerting number of zeroes.  He explains that the debt is more akin to a graduate tax – you pay 9% of what you earn above £2,143 every month and nothing if you earn below that amount. To add further consolation, the debt will be wiped off after 30 years for students starting higher education after 2012, meaning a huge proportion of people will never have to pay it all back. 

Given this, to describe the fees as a burden, as Corbyn has frequently done, is hugely misleading and frankly a fear-mongering tactic.  

Still, for many of us, the flagship Labour manifesto pledge is of substantial appeal even if we can concede that the current system is not quite as frightening as it appears at face value. After all, students love freebies. The trouble is, the proposals are highly unrealistic. It would cost the taxpayer an extra £8bn a year, according to the IFS – definitely not a meagre sum. Equally, to ask the taxpayer to foot the bill for higher education, when many have not benefited from it, does seem ludicrously unfair. Graduates do, after all, benefit from an earnings premium that over the course of their lifetime will likely far exceed the fees they do incur during their degree.  

At this stage many will be quick to point out the possibility that tuition fees act as a ‘barrier’ against students from underprivileged backgrounds. However, perhaps surprisingly, since 2010, there have actually been increasing numbers of underprivileged students going to university according to the Sutton Trust, and in 2018 it was reported that “record numbers” of these demographics were entering higher education. This apparent paradox arises because in introducing tuition fees, caps on student places have been removed, making education generally more accessible to all.  

The debate surrounding tuition fees has undoubtedly been enlivened given the commitments made in the manifesto, but too often it is tainted by fear-mongering about debt and arguments often highly distanced from the realities of higher education and its accessibility. The reality of tuition fees is far less haunting and in many ways has been a positive contributor to improving higher education access.

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This article was revised on 9th December 2019.