The aforementioned evidence implies that any attempt to make substantial improvements to social mobility in the UK is likely also to need to widen participation in higher education. Indeed it is for this reason that widening participation in higher education has been an important goal of education policy for a long time (CHE, 1963; NCIHE, 1997). However, running alongside this clear policy imperative is a parallel policy development: namely, the push to increase students’ contribution towards the costs of their higher education. On the face of it, these two policy goals appear to be contradictory: how can we reconcile our desire to encourage poorer students to enrol in higher education whilst reducing the subsidies paid to students for the costs of their higher education?
Certainly, the public seems to view these two policy aims as contradictory. The introduction of tuition fees by the Labour Government in 1998 was met with widespread opposition from students and parents while recent reforms resulting in much higher fees – averaging £8,389 in 20125 – have been even more vehemently
opposed – even by politicians. Much of the opposition has been expressed as a fear that fees will prevent young people from poor or middle income families accessing university. But it has also illustrated a clear desire that our system should be designed in such a way that students should not need to have high levels of income in order for that to happen.
However, policies aimed at widening participation and at reducing the subsidies paid to some students for their higher education are not necessarily entirely incompatible. On the tuition fee front, the design of the finance system is important.
Means-tested tuition fees and fees that only need to be paid back after graduation are one way to protect poorer (and indeed richer) students from the impact of the proposed financial changes. The UK currently has an income-contingent loan system for tuition fees, designed to ensure that students do not need to find the resources to pay their fees upfront. Poorer students, in theory, then, should not be deterred from attending university if they know that their degree is a good investment, one that will lead to a better job and higher earnings in the long run. Whether poorer students really are reassured by the income contingent loan system is a moot point, however – and debt averseness a serious issue (Callender, 2003). Furthermore, as the White Paper has recognized, many students lack good information about the value of different degrees in the labour market. Both problems – and their potential impact on the higher education participation rate of poorer students – have been acknowledged by the government so means testing to reduce their tuition fee burden consequently remains in place.
However, equally importantly, tuition fees are not the only form of subsidy received by students. Previously, students were paid a living expenses grant to assist them with the costs of studying and it has long been recognized that the costs they incur whilst doing so are an important factor in making higher education accessible to students whose parents do not have the resources to support them. In policy terms, what we have seen alongside increases in tuition fees is a decline in the level of support for students in the form of grants. The trend has not been linear, however. In fact there have been a number of changes to successive governments’ policies on the issue of student support. For example, the real value of grants was reduced systematically throughout the 1990s before grants were abolished completely, leaving poorer students with little in the way of financial support whilst they were at university. Current policy has actually reversed this position with a number of reforms to the system designed to increase the funds available to poorer students during their studies. Hence when fees were increased to £3000 in 2006, grants were simultaneously increased – an important and insufficiently discussed policy development.
Work by Dearden et al. (2011) has shown that whilst the introduction of higher tuition fees is likely to have a negative impact on higher education participation, it can be offset by the countervailing effect of improving the level of support available to students while they study. For instance, Dearden et al. calculated that a £1,000 increase in fees (at 2006 prices) would have reduced participation rates by 4 per cent. However, they also calculated that £1,000 worth of non-repayable support in the form of maintenance grants resulted in a 2.6 percentage point increase in participation. The White Paper has partially recognized this point and I discuss the proposed means to help poorer students with their living costs – and their limitations – in the next section of this chapter.
Before I discuss the White Paper’s specific proposals and how well evidenced they might be, I first consider some important policies that have previously aimed
to widen participation and discuss whether or not they have been successful. Calculating the impact particular policies have had on higher education participation is, of course, problematic. Many policy developments occur simultaneously and it is therefore difficult to untangle the impact of tuition fees from other policy changes. For instance, the recent abolition of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) scheme, in addition to the abolition of AimHigher, is likely to impact on attempts to widen participation. Such policy changes will then interact with any impact the increase in tuition fees in 2012 might have.
Certainly, since the Education Maintenance Allowance scheme was found to have increased staying-on rates amongst 16-year-olds from poorer backgrounds, it is distinctly likely that removing it will have a negative impact on the participation of such students in post-16 education. Whether this subsequently reduces the number of lower income students participating in higher education is unclear, however, although McNay (2012) has highlighted the small fall in the proportion of 16–18-year- olds staying on in full-time education beyond 16 in 2012. Any downward trend in post-16 participation amongst lower SES pupils might of course be countered by another recent policy: raising the education participation age to 18. While the policy will require students to undertake some education to age 18, its effectiveness will depend on whether it has any ‘bite’ – in other words, if it does indeed increase how much education or training young people participate in and how long they do so for. Evidence of how the AimHigher scheme impacted disadvantaged students’ higher education participation is rather more mixed. It is therefore far from clear that abolishing it will have a negative impact. Harrison (2012) suggests though that whilst AimHigher was not found to have had a major impact on the higher education participation of young people from poorer backgrounds, this might have been partly because it attempted to influence the aspirations of younger children not yet at an age where they could have progressed into higher education (Harrison, 2012). If the policy was successful in this regard, in the longer term its abolition may yet have a negative impact on higher education participation rates amongst the target group of more disadvantaged young people.
In any case, we need also to be mindful that one aim of introducing higher and variable tuition fees was to influence pupils’ choices. As I discussed previously, the economic benefits of a degree vary substantially both by institution attended and by degree subject. In other words, whilst higher education is potentially a route to improved social mobility, the choices graduates make when enrolling significantly determine the benefits they will reap from their degree. Widening participation will only improve graduates’ earnings and social mobility if poorer students enrol in high-quality institutions and on courses in economically valuable subjects. Following the introduction of higher tuition fees in 2012, then, students might think harder about which institutions they intend to study at and the subject they plan to take. Theoretically, therefore, the introduction of higher fees might encourage students
to make more economically rational subject choices, which could lead in turn to actual improvements in social mobility. Work by Walker and Zhu (2011) suggests this is only a theoretical benefit of the reforms, however. As their evidence indicates, even a large rise in tuition fees – such as what occurred in 2012 – is unlikely, in practice, to make a significant difference to the value of particular degrees since the economic gain for high-value subjects far outweighs the marginal increase in costs implied by the rise in tuition fees. Students, consequently, are unlikely to change their choice of institution or subject just because there are relatively small differences in tuition fees for different degree courses.
We also need to think further about the experience higher education affords poorer students – and particularly about the types of institutions such students tend to access. Poorer students are not only less likely to apply to and enrol in Russell Group institutions (or institutions with a similar research quality) compared to their equally qualified but more advantaged counterparts, they are also more likely to drop out of university (Chowdry et al., 2012; Vignoles and Powdthavee, 2009). It is therefore key for universities to help disadvantaged students make aspirational choices in terms of institution and indeed to help them remain in higher education until they have completed their degree. In the next section I consider how the specific policy proposals in the White Paper relate to the evidence I have just outlined and the argument I have put forward.