By Joe Rukin
Aparently a week is a long time in politics. Well it seems so, because after months of sitting on our hands over student funding, it all kicked off the week that the NUS mass lobby of parliament took place. Mininster for HELL (Higher Education & Lifelong Learning) Maragaret Hodge had decided to do a runner as her constiuency surgery was to have been picketed by angry students, but there was no need as when she did turn up, both for the NUS lobby of parliament and the Simon Mayo show on Radio 5, she left those involved asking just why she bothered to come. She decided to stick to the usual 'Nothing, has been ruled in and nothing has been ruled out', refusing to say anything which might preempt the student funding review, depsite David Blunkett saying just before the election in February 2001;
"I can now make the Government's position quite clear, that in the next parliament there will be no levying of top-up fees if we win the next general election."
Despite the NUS lobby having specifically meant to have been a 'mass' lobby, just 125 turned up, after NUS had recomended unions bring 'Two people, with maybe a third to take notes'. They were easily lost in the crowd of mental health & stop the Stansted Airport extension campaigners. This clear failure had seen Mandy Telford & Chris Weavers threatened with a vote of censure at NUS NEC, but handily Telford broke up the meeting before this motion was reached. Other members of the National Executive Committee were not impressed.
Faz Velmi said;
"This was meant to be a mass lobby with students, but no publicity went out and consequently a handful turned up, 90% of which were union officers. We thought this year would be different. Mandy & Chris looked us in the eye and said things would change from previous years. There is a lack of political will in NUS to have a decent education campaign that can take advantage of the political climate which has seen anti war protests and a increase in trade union activism"
"We had an emergency NEC meeting at NUS convention, and we decided there would be a 'mass' lobby, so where was the 'mass'? This clearly broke the NEC mandate. For this campaign to work, we need to be having meetings to decide action on a week-to-week basis, but at the moment, most of the elected members on the NEC do not have a voice. The NEC is only meeting once every six weeks and last time Mandy closed the meeting after just and hour and a half. This is no way to run a union, and definately no way to run the National Union."
The day of the lobby itself brought one of the biggest education stories in the press for a while, which at first glance at least, had little to do with student funding. Blunketts sucessor as Secretary of State for Education, Estelle Morris decided she would quit, as she 'Hadn't done as well as she might like' in the post. Now there are lots of different ways to look at this. With two scandals under her belt in quick sucession (though again it was Blunkett who said he'd quit if literacy & numeracy targets were not hit), and the reporting that the student finance review had been put back to get the pressure off her, she may be seen to be getting out while the goings good.
If student finance came out now, the focus on her would make it easier to fight it, as the media would be more interested, especially if calls for her head grew. Also if it went through, or she quit, she would be far more tarnished than she is now- she has plenty of years now to come back. But of course the other reason might be that she simply doesn't agree with plans for student finance and that she was being told to implement. She has said she hasn't done as well as she might- but that mean she wasn't allowed to do what she wanted to do.
The theory that she didn't want to screw students was backed up in the Independent, saying she wasn't happy being told what to do by Tony Blair's chief policy adviser, Andrew Adonis, who had been sitting in on her meetings. The paper reported;
"Mr Adonis, who heads the Downing Street Policy Unit, is a powerful supporter of a plan to allow universities to increase their income by introducing top-up fees for students. The idea is bitterly opposed by traditionalists like Ms Morris, who fear it will deny students from poor families a place at prestigious universities. One insider said the row was "the straw that broke the camel's back", triggering her decision to resign."
Tony Blair acted swiftly, knowing if there was someone who would be ruthlessness enough to push through a bill which will increase student debt and open up education the the free market, it would have to be one of his cohort of ex-NUS President MPs. And so ex-NUS President & Education Minister was given an ex-NUS President Secretary of State in the shape of Charles Clarke (incidentally, ex-NUS President Andrew Pakes is reportedly now 'Head of Rebuttal' at Millbank, though he'll probably rebut that).
Clarkes arrival has apparently pushed back the student finance review (again) to January/February, though in reality he is likely to put of less of a fight against it -whatever 'it' is- than Morris would have, probably meaning this will be the last delay. But don't take that as set in stone, it is obvious the Government either don't know what they will do, or think that what they want to do will be that bad, we need more distraction from it.
Although top-up fees are being demanded by the Russel Group, with Imperial at the head of the line, touting about £10,500 per year, the only way this will get approval is if the Universities themselves decide they no longer want any state funding and go private. This at the moment at least is unlikely as universities would not just say goodbye to government contributions on tuition fees, but also a whole host of other grants. Although the Universities may want this as a long term goal, they know it is proably too much to ask in one hit, so something that gets them 'along the way' to more money for now has to be found as a compromise.
If any top-up fee is to be levied, and my bet is on simply changing the levels for current fees- (say the £4400, of which full fee paying students pay 25% is wrong and should be higher, or maybe move the 25% to 30% eg Australia, or charge 25% of the cost of your course instead of the average cost of tuition) which would not technically be a 'top-up' fee, graduate tax is sure to accompany it, as even if the full touted top-up fee of £10,500 came in, there is no way the government could get away with charging more money upfront. Crucially whenever NUS President Mandy Telford talks about fees, she always says she is against Upfront tuition fees
Graduate Tax is still quietly hiding behind the curtain, while all of us stare at top-up fees, it is ready to make an entrance as a 'compromise', after we have alll been petrified by the idea of tuition cost of £30,000. Grad Tax, if it can get over the initial period of waiting for cash while the first cohort graduate, will be a boon for the treasury. But that intitial period is the crucial point, if the initial cost can be withstood, and Gordon Brown doesn't like the sound of it, at least in the short term. Grad Tax is the current post-Cubie system in Scotland, but the 'tax' is called an 'endowment'. The thing is of course, that at the moment in England about a third of students pay full fees, with a third paying nothing and a third paying something in between. This is due to fee levels being based on parental income, which especially now european human rights legislation has been incorporated into British law, leaves the government on shaky legal ground. Of course if the payment of fees was shifted to after graduation you would not only get over this, but EVERYONE would pay, a move which of course would hit lower-earners the hardest, as their repayments would be lower, but of course the total would acumulate more interest.
Basically with Grad Tax, and even the current system of student loans with 'preferential interest rates', what you are saying is the less you earn after graduation, the more you will owe and the longer you will be repaying. It is a system set to serve the purposes of business, to change the profile of graduates from one which some gradautes are motivated just by pay to one that all have to be for the matter of simple economics.
The way of paying for HE through progressive taxation, whereby a high earner will pay more just because they are a high earner continues to be replaced by one in which students are taxed as a group and the high earners will be rewarded the most by having to pay the least. You also set a worrying precedent of a direct tax for a specific service. If Graduate Tax were to be the norm, how long before 'Operation Tax' will be considered?
