13 October 2010
University values
Charles Seaford
Head of the Centre for Well-being
In the recent proposals for university fees reform, Lord Browne wrote; “The return to graduates for studying will be on average around 400%”. In this world view higher education is an economic investment. If his recommendations are adopted there will be even greater pressure to study only for a high paying job – and a strong deterrent to potential students who are uncertain that they can command the salaries needed to cope. Indeed, according to this world view it would actually be inefficient for graduates to take lower paid jobs: the market, as manifest in salary scales, is, according to Browne, the best way of allocating scarce resources.
This economic model of higher education is crowding out a more rounded view – and as a result damaging the well-being of the nation as a whole. Is there really nothing more to life than the bottom line? Don’t we need qualified people prepared to take relatively low paid jobs in the public and voluntary sector? Don’t we value the personal and intellectual development universities provide for its own sake – and want to make it available to as many people as possible rather than just those aiming to make lots of money?
Of course, it is reasonable to ask why non-graduates should pay for graduates through the taxation system. But that is not the alternative. The real choice is between a graduate tax on all graduates, past and future, and Browne’s proposals, which lays the burden fairly and squarely on future graduates alone. Just as with the looming pensions crisis, it is the younger generation that is being made to pay for the older generation. That is hardly fair – even before you consider the psychological damage that we know a large debt burden can create.
Like the recently beatified Cardinal Newman 158 years ago, Lord Browne also has an “idea of a University”. Newman valued ‘the force, the steadiness, the comprehensiveness and the versatility of intellect, the command over our own powers, the instinctive just estimate of things as they pass before us’. Browne values discounted cash flow. Which is better?
In 2008, nef published University Challenge: Towards a well-being approach to quality in higher education. A shorter version of this article appears on the letters page of today's Times.
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Comments
13 Oct 2010 at 14:42
Eloise
I disagree with the third paragraph. Non-graduates should pay for graduates through the taxation system, in the same way that the healthy should pay for hospitals, and the childless should pay for schools, and so on. Through a fair taxation system (i.e. one in which the rich pay proportionally more), society as a whole - rather than splintered into factions based on its educational status or anything else - should pay for the things it considers important. And in any half-civilised society that should include education, at all levels, and of the highest calibre.13 Oct 2010 at 14:42
Eloise
I disagree with the third paragraph. Non-graduates should pay for graduates through the taxation system, in the same way that the healthy should pay for hospitals, and the childless should pay for schools, and so on. Through a fair taxation system (i.e. one in which the rich pay proportionally more), society as a whole - rather than splintered into factions based on its educational status or anything else - should pay for the things it considers important. And in any half-civilised society that should include education, at all levels, and of the highest calibre.12 Nov 2010 at 12:04
Henry Cox
Where are the controls on the "value", the "calibre" of graduates - relative to other routes through learning? Is "qualified" capable? There used to be various routes through which capable youing people could learn, but now fewer who "do well" in school avoid University. Eg Chief Engineeers of ships used to work and get there through success in cadet and junior posts. Later some wanted a shore life and were notable as capable people. Though one was refused entry to a PhD he wanted to do writing up what he had designed: as he had not got a 1st degree. Empirically a graduate may be a clever and capable person who would have been better or as good without the 3 years in university (if a firm would employ them). I once heard a PhD described as a "somewhat shopsoiled good graduate". If schooling is compulsory, and scholastic categorisation by exams is somewaht accurate, to get first class brains you have to employ a graduate. Discuss. Broadly, what proportions of a population should go through scooling of (a) secondary; (b) undergraduate? Even if wanted (para 2), what can be affforded?