University Tuition Fees

Debate between Mike Hill and Margaret Greenwood

Monday 27th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 182953 relating to university tuition fees.

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Sir David.

Tuition fees were introduced in September 1998 under the then Labour Government as a means of funding tuition for undergraduate and postgraduate students at universities, with students required to pay up to £1,000 a year in fees. Over the years, those fees have rocketed, with some courses costing £9,250 for a typical three-year period. That is something the Chancellor is seeking to address and cap at a lower rate, while the Labour party has pledged to abolish tuition fees altogether.

Some observers argue that tuition fees have helped to improve the higher education sector and offer, by generating much-needed income for universities and allowing extra resourcing into education, improved facilities, research, student support services and high-quality staff. Others argue that tuition fees are simply plugging a £3.3 billion gap between the cost of research at universities and the revenue it generates. Whichever way we look at it, the issue of tuition fees and the provision of student loans is controversial. People being put in debt before they even start a career is rightly not popular with students, irrespective of the threshold of earnings required before repayment.

According to the Sutton Trust, eight out of 10 students will never fully repay their tuition fee loans, and the decision to raise the minimum earning level at which loan repayments kick in from £21,000 to £25,000 means that 81% of graduates will not pay back what they owe. Its report, “Fairer Fees”, identifies that typical debts on graduating are around £46,000, rising to £52,000 for those entitled to take out maintenance loans to cover the costs of living. The report also shines a light on the implications of Brexit. Currently, EU students studying in the UK are entitled to the same tuition fee loans as British students, and figures for last year show that 11%, or 8,600 people, remained in arrears. The position after Brexit remains unclear.

Universities, safe in the knowledge that virtually guaranteed income streams from tuition fees would rise every year, thus giving them financial stability, have been accused of paying eye-watering salaries to vice chancellors and the like, and are very much on the back foot as tuition fees have been put under intense scrutiny politically. The petition that we are debating puts the whole subject into sharp focus, and I believe that this debate is timely, given cross-party unease with things as they stand.

Back in the day, when I accessed higher education, we were provided with a grant, which had to be topped up through parental contributions. My folks did what they could but could not afford their full share, so like many other working-class kids from low-income backgrounds I struggled to get by—but I did, and at least I did not end up burdened with too much debt. Personally, I am uncomfortable with the fact that people—usually young people—have a financial noose placed around their neck on graduating, especially with the figures showing the high level of debt that remains unpaid.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing this really important debate. I apologise for the fact that I cannot stay for all of it because I am meeting a group of schoolchildren from my constituency shortly. Does he agree that at a time of low productivity it makes absolutely no sense to have disincentives for people to progress to higher education, which would improve their skills educational attainment?

[Mike Hill]

I absolutely agree, and that is especially the case for people from low-income backgrounds. I would prefer to see the end of tuition fees and a return to a grant-based system or alternative method of funding.