Higher Education (Fee Limits for Accelerated Courses) (England) Regulations 2018

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackstone (Ind Lab)]

My Lords, I very much support the notion of accelerated degrees. Most of the criticisms that the noble Lord speaking on behalf of the Government went through do not stand much scrutiny. I accept his argument that the criticisms do not merit abandoning the idea of accelerated degrees. I also accept that the cost of providing them will be somewhat higher for universities than would be the case if they were simply teaching all their degrees on a normal three-year pattern—although I suspect that there may be some exaggeration of how much greater the costs will be. Imaginative universities will find ways in which to provide some of their courses in combination with students on three-year degrees, so they will not be taught entirely separately from those students.

However, my concern is different. While I accept that one has to incentivise universities—I heard the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Luce, that the additional funding may not be enough to do so, and there are of course very few such courses—my concern relates to the demand for them. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, that the demand is already small. It will be even smaller if we put the fees up. Surely the Government are aware that mature students are more debt averse than any other category of student. Most students who are likely to join these programmes will be mature students.

My view, as a former vice-chancellor and head of an institution that took many mature students, as well as being vice-chancellor of a conventional university, is that these degrees are unlikely to be suitable for most 18 to 22 year-olds, who will want to spend a little longer as undergraduates. They will benefit from doing so and from all the other things that one can do. Of course there will be mature students who want to go through faster and are able to do so. However, why put the fees up again when one knows that many people have decided not to become undergraduate students—or master’s students, for that matter—because the fees are so high and they do not want to take on the additional debt?

Why, for heaven’s sake, do the Government not consider an alternative, much more effective route of providing universities that are putting on these courses with some grant, paid directly by the Government, rather than simply loading up the cost of the course on to the graduate? Only then will demand for the programmes be maintained. The Government need to think again about the fee aspect of these regulations.

--- Later in debate ---

Quite a few other questions have been raised. I will look at Hansard and check what I have not answered, and I will certainly write a letter to all noble Lords.

[Baroness Blackstone]

My Lords, the Minister, as is his wont, has very courteously answered most of the questions put to him. I am feeling a bit miffed, because I put a question to him that he has not touched on. I argued that it is of course legitimate to incentivise universities to provide more of these courses, but there is more than one way of incentivising them. Why choose a route that disincentivises the students from taking these courses? Higher fees are likely to lead to mature students looking at the up-front fee and thinking, “I don’t want to do this programme”. Why not pay a government grant? You then avoid having to put the fees up. Fees are already very high and there is a huge amount of criticism out there, as the Minister is fully aware, of the size of fees and the amount already charged. This is an example of going yet higher. Could the Government come back to look at whether a government grant could be paid directly to universities, having considered carefully how much extra cost they are having to sustain, rather than laying it on the students to pay a higher fee? It is a simple question.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

It is indeed, but I cannot give a simple answer to that one this afternoon; I can only say that I very much noted what the noble Baroness said about seeking grants. As I said earlier in response to a question from my noble friend Lord Willetts, I suspect this is a matter that Philip Augar will look at in his review. The bigger issue is whether it should be tuition fees, grants or a mixture of the two. I am not in a position to answer that question today.

However, I would like to go further, because the noble Baroness raised an interesting point about mature students. It might be helpful to say that we hope and envisage that mature students will look at these proposals seriously. Points have been raised about the cost involved for mature students. It depends on how you define “mature”, but I would imagine that it is those who have had several years in employment, who perhaps are not particularly comfortable in that employment and want to make a change, and for whom a two-year degree at a total cost of £22,000 might just be within their scope. Some people might say that is quite expensive, but we think there could be some demand for that. The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, raised the point that it would be more applicable to mature students, rather than younger students setting out from school. This may be the case, but as I said earlier, it is early days and I think we need to see how this is rolled out and how universities and providers grab the opportunity and market it. We then have to monitor it carefully, not just in three years but over the period up to three years, when we can have a proper review. I hope that helps, but I am not in a position to answer the noble Baroness’s first question.

Today’s debate will continue to inform and help us to meet the wider challenges of expanding higher education provision. It will also help raise awareness and understanding of accelerated degrees for providers, potential students, employers and the wider public. I commend these regulations to the House.