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Morning Line: Why our broken university system needs a radical overhaul

Too many students, too many institutions and too often poor quality teaching – new universities minister David Willetts is right that the system needs radical change.

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by Tony Bonsignore on Jun 10, 2010 at 12:05

Higher education was always likely to be an easy target for post-election spending cuts, whichever party won the election.

The question was whether the new government would simply look to squeeze more out of the current set-up for less cash, or instead use the opportunity to undertake a radical restructuring of the university system.

Today’s Guardian interview with the new universities minister David Willetts suggests the new coalition government is considering the latter, and that the higher education sector might be on course for its biggest shake-up in two decades.

Provocatively describing students as a ‘burden on the taxpayer that had to be tackled’, Willetts suggests that higher tuition fees should be seen less as a debt burden and ‘more as an obligation to pay higher income tax’.

Students currently pay tuition fees of £3,225 a year with graduates paying the money back once they earn more than £15,000 a year.

The previous government had ‘catastrophically failed’ to explain the existing system to students, Willetts said, before going on to argue that current funding arrangements were ‘unsustainable’ and in need of radical change.

‘It is not a matter of simply changing the fees,’ Willetts said. ‘The system doesn't contain strong incentives for universities to focus on teaching and the student experience, as opposed to research.’

Students should be encouraged to consider apprenticeships as a potential route to a degree qualification, the minister added, while more universities should offer distance learning options.

Willett’s comments have already attracted some fierce criticism. The National Union of Students pointed out that students were currently graduating with average debts of £22,000 - a burden that feels ‘very much like debt to them’.

Universities, meanwhile, have repeatedly argued that degrees are already being provided on a shoestring, and that any further cuts could prove disastrous for students and institutions alike.

Willett’s comments could also prove problematic within the coalition government, with the Liberal Democrats promising to abolish ‘unfair’ tuition fees altogether in their election manifesto. How they would feel about any plan to further crank up student debt remains to be seen.

These objections aside, though, one can’t help but agree with Willetts that our university system is need of radical change. Raising fees alone will not be sufficient; there are fundamental problems within our universities that are a direct result of the relentless expansion of the higher education sector over the past two decades.

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9 comments so far. Why not have your say?

The universities need to be placed in different leagues (with promotion and demotion) and be allowed different scales of charges based on their league, quality and results. The league and position in that league would be a compulsory entry on the graduation certificate based on the year of graduation.

This will enable students to clearly understand what they should get and allow employers to distinguish between the truly academic and the fraudulent techs which now have the temerity to call themselves universities

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Whilst I agree with John Lacey in principle I wonder what raft of beaucracy would administer the league tables and at what cost? Wouldn't it be easier to just rename Techs as Techs?

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Well quite, Ian, what was the point of turning polytechnics into universities and then saying that we need more vocational courses when that was what polytechnics were for? Was it a misguided attempt at social equality - hopefully the new government can overcome that sort of political correctness? On the subject of a graduate tax, what do you do about those graduates who move abroad?

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Yet another script from The Thick of It.

MP's... all there good for is raising their self importance.

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I was lucky enough to graduate in the last year of students which received grants and did not have to pay tuition fees. However, I still ended up with huge debts, (I dare anyone to try and live on £1,800 a year!).

It seems to me that the politicians like to talk about getting the disadvantaged (like myself) into University. But from what I saw they did this by making it far to easy to get in, by increasing funding for places rather than providing financial support to genuinely poor students. I knew plenty of people who got in to former polytechnics with only two D grades or less at A-Level.

The focus should be on quality, insist that all undergraduates have at least 3 A -levels with at least one Grade C. Cut out all the mickey mouse courses.

This would reduce the number of mediocre students (including the thousands who drop out every year) and improve standards.

Then provide meaningfull support to bright but underprivileged students.

While I'm at it bring back Grammar Schools! Having been educated in a comprehensive where you got beaten up for actually doing your homework I think it's time we gave underprivileged children who want to learn a chance and stopped worrying about those who don't. After all not every job requires a degree including many which are very worthwhile and vital to society.

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Bring back polytechnics.....HNDs/HNCs were good practical courses and people could get jobs at the end of it.

Equally, as MC says, bring back Grammar Schools so the bright poor children have a chance to learn. Equally bring back good secondary mod equivalents. My sister went to one and got 5 good O levels and could then go on to Grammar School to do her A-levels. Her school provided courses based on talent and all got jobs at the end of the day, whether catering, hairdressing, secretarial or whatever....but all employable at the age of 16......

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I found a PhD was a worthless qualification unless I wanted to continue in a poorly paid inward-looking research environment. So I forgot I had it and went into industry to earn a living in 1968.

Universities should be devoted to developing the most gifted students and encouraging research - not creating worthless paper qualifications that commercial companies have no use for.

Scrap 70% of the courses, make entry available only to the cleverest, make U/graduate courses free and ensure research is funded by commercial interests except for the most esoteric disciplines that bear on national security, mathematics, physics, chemistry and natural sciences..

That means we will end up with an affordable bunch of just 20 universities and the rest can revert to polytechnics - which is what they still are. A university degree is a privilege, not a right; and the country should make everyone who wants one earn their entry to the course by using intellectual market eceonomics, not a free-for-all clamour that must be funded by a Willets balls up resulting in absurd costs and worthless qualifications.

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Blair wanted 50% of all children to go to university whether up to it or not . Many went for useless , mickey mouse subjects , like Media studies and Beckham studies and Diana studies and the like .

A lad in our village told me he was doing a surfing degree . I assumed this was to do with surfing the internet . But no , he was off to Penzance to do surfing . I ask you , what a joke .

This nonsense definitely needs sorting out .

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Patrick Moore

Jun 11, 2010 at 14:43

No university should be able to charge fees unless they can show that the degree they are charging for has a solid track record of securing employment which takes the student immediately out of the minimum wage bracket, probably £20k a year and prospects. Too many students are being sold useless degrees which have no employment potential except in minimum wage jobs. This means that they will never pay off their loans and the debt will revert to the tax payer. What has the system achieved by doing this? It keeps mediocre academics in a job at the expense of a lifetime of debt for the HNC (max) qualified student.

Willetts get a grip of it!

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