Higher Education

Baroness Prashar Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Prashar (CB)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for securing this important debate and for his very thoughtful and pertinent remarks, particularly about the role of education in opening minds and meeting aspirations. I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, amplified that too.

I will focus on the university sector in all its diversity, and two interrelated issues affecting the sector: funding and international students. Our universities are a success story and one of our major assets. They are essential not only for education for education’s sake but as the bedrock of our science, research, innovation, creative output and much more. At present, universities face many challenges and unrealistic expectations. Some of them have been mentioned in the course of the debate. Of course these need to be responded to, but without making what I call inconsistent compromises. Otherwise, we are in danger of frittering away our comparative advantage and damaging our major asset. The comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, were pertinent in that context.

As we have heard, domestic undergraduate tuition fees, which are the main source of funding, have been frozen for the past decade. Meanwhile, inflation has driven up universities’ operating costs. To make ends meet, universities have become reliant on attracting international students. The recent negative and ill-informed rhetoric around immigration, and linking it to international students, has had the effect of reduced demand from international students, as shown by figures produced by Universities UK. Work by PwC shows that this could put four-fifths of universities in deficit. We have had what has been called a yo-yo approach to international students. We closed the post-study work route in 2011, reversed that in 2019, and now we are applying the brakes again, making it impossible for universities to plan ahead. This is the consequence of continuing to count international students as part of the immigration figures, thus creating a perception that they are a burden, which we all know is far from the truth.

Blaming international students, and not taking positive steps to present accurate information about the benefits they bring to this country, is disingenuous and not in our national interest. This is a policy failure for which we are making international students scapegoats and, in the process, hurting our universities and, in effect, shooting ourselves in the foot. Unless the funding issue is addressed, it will lead to cutbacks in research and affect salaries, learning and facilities. It also risks the potential for innovation and will blunt our competitiveness. Easing academic entry requirements for international students is not the answer; it will actually compound the problem.

In a very thoughtful paper published recently, Professor Shitij Kapur, the vice-chancellor of King’s College, argued that universities are trapped in a “triangle of sadness” between students burdened with debt, a stretched Government who have allowed tuition fees to fall far behind inflation and beleaguered staff who feel caught in the middle. He says that the fate of our universities cannot be left to the vagaries of the decisions of overseas students. He argues for inflation-related uplifts in student fees, as planned under the Theresa May Government, linked to quality, and he questions whether a single funding framework is suitable for all needs.

I am not suggesting that that is the only solution. We have had reference to the funding model; indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, talked about a possible commission to look at funding. My fundamental point is that we need to address the question of funding if we are to reap the benefit of this national asset we keep talking about. If we want universities to continue to make a significant contribution, we need to address the question of funding universities and their sustainability. Therefore, I ask the Minister whether there are plans to settle the uncertainty around our policy with regard to international students and take them out of the immigration figures. Has any consideration been given to setting up a commission to look at funding?