Higher Education: Funding and Student Finance

Debate between Lord Richard and Baroness Wilcox

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox]

The proposals are a good deal for part-time students. Institutions with large numbers of part-time students, such as Birkbeck and the Open University, have been poorly treated in recent years because of, for example, the previous Government’s block on second-chance education. We share the conclusion of Lord Browne’s report that the exemption from up-front charges should be extended to part-time students, who have been unfairly discriminated against hitherto. We will therefore implement his recommendations.

This is very good news for part-time students. I was a part-time student once, and you had to pay everything up front. I was able to do that, but for several people with me it became too much. It was a shame because we lost such talented people at that time. We are looking forward to implementing the proposals.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, I have a fairly simple question. How on earth do you empower a student by doubling his debt?

[Baroness Wilcox]

You empower a student by allowing him or her to go through the whole of their university time without fear or worry for money. Only after they have started to earn more than £21,000 a year will they even start to pay back anything.

In fairness, we are looking at a very different way of thinking. The money will be returned as the people earn a great deal more. As we all know, anybody who has been to university will earn a lot more during their working life than if they had not. Very often, the money that has enabled students to go to and enjoy university has come from people doing jobs that do not pay a great deal, but those people are paying tax that feeds through to students. I refer to people who work in any one of a million jobs but who have not benefited from a university education. The money comes back eventually—slowly—through the system, and the next set of students go to university. It is important to look at this in the round.