Read: Response from Rt Hon Justine to higher education policy statement and reform consultation
As a former Secretary of State for Education I took a particular interest in looking across the departmental brief at how all policy could be shaped to drive greater social mobility, and launched place-based approaches like Opportunity Areas and the Social Mobility Action Plan. These, and other steps, aimed at ensuring that ensuring our talent, that we said was spread evenly, would be developed consistently. I left Cabinet in 2018 to focus my efforts on driving equality of opportunity and launched the Social Mobility Pledge encouraging businesses to think strategically about how they could maximise the impact of their opportunities on transforming lives. That part of my work was about ensuring opportunity is spread evenly. The Social Mobility Pledge now has several hundred businesses working collectively to drive more opportunities to more people and communities. They are taking innovative approaches to driving grassroots levelling up.
However, additionally, a significant part of our Social Mobility Pledge work has included around 100 universities who have become involved and play their own role in the collective push to level up Britain. It is called the Levelling Up Universities Coalition. The work they do on the ground, both on widening access and participation but significantly beyond that, within schools raising attainment levels, across communities more widely as anchor institutions, using their procurement power to drive change and and also then on employability. In relation to employment, this is both in relation to building their links with employers, even when there are fewer major local employers in their locality compared to other parts of the country, and also in relation to entrepreneurship. They do much more besides that but in summary their work is truly transformational to extending opportunities in the way that levelling up requires. It is a strategic mindset that they bring to the challenge that goes well beyond simply delivering degree education.
I fully support the Government’s drive for “levelling up” which is of pivotal importance in today’s Britain and wider world. The oft-used phrase by Ministers of ‘talent is spread evenly, but opportunity is not’ absolutely reflects the wider social mobility challenge we face in our country but it also recognises a truism. Talent really is spread evenly. There is not a particular community, or part of society that is producing more innately talented people than any other. It is the development of that talent and its ability to connect fairly to opportunities, on a level playing field with those getting better starts and having more advice and connections that ultimately explains the difference between outcomes. It is in all of our interests to leave no stone unturned to see that talent and potential realised.
It is against that work with businesses and universities, and that approach and mindset of an ambition to deliver a Britain with equality of opportunity for the first time that I wanted to submit this response to the consultation document, and the policy areas that are highlighted for discussion.
In responding to the consultation, it’s important to understand how much we can draw from what can be narrow statistics on graduate outcomes used to judge university performance and student value in going to university.
Context matters. Invested resources in education matter. We should expect different results for the same child depending on whether they have a better supported start in both their wider development and education, perhaps even having the six-fold or so multiple of resource investment those educated privately might have. As the recent Levelling Up White Paper sets out, there are 219,000 children and young people in schools which have been rated as inadequate for 13 years or more. I doubt any policymaker would judge their academic outcome as necessarily a representation of their talent rather than the weak educational system they have the random misfortune to find themselves in. Our policy response to weak education in schools is to attempt, thus far unsuccessfully across successive Governments, to improve their education provision.
Yet, we take a different approach when it comes to the education system for these young people at higher education. The gaps can continue to close at higher education level, as my own experience showed, but the consultation fails to recognise that a poor initial education offering can persist into adult life in spite of higher education, not despite it. The solution presented by this consultation is not to improve what it describes as ‘poor’ education outcomes from higher education, but to deal with them by removing them entirely as a choice. Because it essentially is framed around an underlying concept that investing in education for these people is not value for money. It’s just too expensive for the state to help them later because it failed to help them earlier. As a result this consultation paper penalises them for that start and will end up preventing more people with more difficult starts from even trying to better themselves. It is the antithesis of levelling up.
Significantly, there is no analysis whatsoever of the alternative paths these graduates would have otherwise taken and the cost to the state of that. Or that for most graduates, a degree does pay back more in their earnings than it will cost. For universities who do outreach in Young Offender Institutions, or those reaching out to organisations like the the YMCA and turning around the futures of homeless people, it is actually a much better deal for the state to invest money in lives on track, being rebuilt through the chance to do a degree, than it is for the alternative of lives remaining offtrack. I recall Sir Nick Macpherson, then Permanent Secretary of the Treasury saying he felt the departmental risk was that it knew the cost of everything and the value of nothing. This is never more true than in higher education, and it is incredibly disappointing to see this so clearly reflected in this consultation document. Placing more barriers and actively restricting university for students who will be disproportionately from lower socioeconomic background people, penalising them for a more difficult start, by making options that could lie ahead harder, is a step backwards on achieving equality of opportunity.
Comments in relation to Part 1:
The Part 1 measures are not open for consultation but I believe that student finance needs more fundamental reform than adjustments to the existing system. The Equality Impact Assessment and Equality Analysis issued alongside the consultation shows the overall impact of the proposed changes when considered in the round and over the longer term for graduates. They are regressive in nature. They mean that the very highest earning graduates will benefit the most from them and the middle and lowest earning graduates will foot a higher bill. In no other area of the tax system would we see such a regressive stance taken. It seems deeply unfair and also counterproductive to the objective of seeing a wider talent base see university as accessible and affordable. Additionally, geographically they will impact future students and graduates in the very areas and parts of the country the Government more widely seeks to level up. It was hard to fathom the logic running through this document that decides to penalise people who are nevertheless trying to better themselves in spite of an unfair system.
As I know from my own personal experience, growing up in a household where both parents were in low paid roles and at one time unemployed, it is hard for young people from that background to visualise what a well-paid career might look like as a teenager making decisions on what path to take. For those with more privileged backgrounds and starts, there is no doubt much more clarity to judge the value of a university education as a stepping stone to a future career. These proposals further load up the perceived lifetime costs for the very high potential young people who are likely, as I did, to find it harder to see the high paid graduate role they can achieve at a young age. It was hard to relate to the casualness with which the consultation paper simply made a university path harder for such young people. This mindset is wrong and goes against removing barriers that prevent levelling up.
If the Government wants to reform student finance, and it should, I believe it must be on the principle that those who gain the most from university should pay the most, and developed proposals to do just that. These steps do the opposite of that. I would be happy to brief Ministers on a fairer, more progressive approach.
Response to Consultation issues in Part 2
Student number controls
The continued focus on improved technical education routes and on improving further education matters hugely but the objective for a government focussed on levelling up should be about creating better quality choices for all students and allowing them to decide, rather than a policy approach of student number controls that will restrict them for some students, generally from lower income backgrounds.
The reality is that in 2019/20, statistics showed that at present the proportion of young people going to university from higher socio-economic backgrounds (POLAR Q5) was at 58.3%. The comparable percentage from lower income backgrounds (POLAR Q1 was 29%, nearly half the levels. In relation to the principle of student number controls and that places must be essentially rationed, such rationing should discriminate against talent that is there but undeveloped, particularly when this is primarily and clearly the fault of the state. If we really do believe that talent is spread evenly, current higher education attendance suggests that there is an overrepresentation of higher socioeconomic background young people in our higher education system, that too many of them are choosing an academic route (because they can and going to university is a social norm for that section of society) but that choice cannot possibly be the right one for all of those young people, which would lead to a policy route of better advice for them to open up a better suited vocational route, as those pathways improve in quality. If the Government were to go down a policy route of restricting numbers then the question does arise of what is a fair approach on ‘rationing’. In fact, it would be crucial.
I do not support student number controls. The current high element of higher socioeconomic status young people’s representation in higher education suggests that if it is good for the most privileged in our society then it is good for the least privileged too. A more insightful approach would be about providing the right support and advice to students from all backgrounds to make decisions that are right for them rather than those they may feel are expected by society for success.
But if Government did seek to open up a debate about restricting choice then if talent is spread evenly, capping numbers would be most effective, as well as fair, done in a way that would see it apply across all sections of society, presumably be based on a contextualised approach and representative of society. I find it hard to visualise how the state would manage such a process and it would be a long way from the market approach pursued for the past two decades or more.
Minimum eligibility requirements
The attainment gap continues to close during a student’s time in higher education as well as in the years before. To judge higher education potential purely on grades is both an unfair and a narrow lens on potential, which is why so many universities have moved to contextual admissions. The introduction of minimum eligibility requirements goes against that sensible approach and puts in place an unnecessary and for many courses, irrelevant bar to limit access. This proposal is not for MER as applied in other countries but only for MERs for students needing finance. It would of course be unacceptable to see untalented but wealthy students able to attend university when talented but underprivileged students, let down through the state education system, were not.
As mentioned earlier, the Government’s Levelling Up White paper identified 219,000 young people as in schools that the state has persistently rated as inadequate for 13 years or more. It would be deeply unfair to prevent their progress, irrespective of their potential because of the inability of successive Governments of all colours over the years to improve their local education system. This approach when coupled with a similar approach for apprenticeships, and T levels would essentially write off the educational futures of swaithes of young people before they’d even reached their late teens, and often in the very areas we want to see levelled up.
If the Government seeks to use GCSE Maths as a benchmark, it should ensure it is a relevant curriculum or find a maths benchmark that is. It seems ill judged to stop someone progressing to university because they failed to master an element of ‘maths science’ in the current curriculum such as trigonometry that overwhelmingly young people never use again in their lives and may well be entirely unrelated to the area they wish to study at university. Clearly for those who are neurodiverse, for example with autism, it is in all our interests to have that undoubted talent developed, including at higher education level, especially as more employers now seek to introduce neurodiversity into their employee cohort.
In relation to other grades, at A level, it also requires thoughtful consideration rather than a blanket approach
If the Government does insist on introducing minimum entry requirements then they should be for all students, not simply those wanting a student loan to progress. Any approach would need to build in contextualisation, but crucially at both ends of the spectrum, adjusting for those with the least privileged starts, but also adjusting grades for those with the most advantaged starts that may lead to grades that mask a lack of suitability for higher education and the more independent learning it requires.
Given my concerns about the practicalities of MERs I agree with the proposals for groups suggested to be exempted.
Foundation Years:
These have been a key element of the strategy by many universities to drive practical levelling up on the ground and access to university. Given the high proportion of higher socioeconomic background young people attending university, it is clear these foundation years are necessary to address the earlier failings of an education system which impact lower socioeconomic background young people disproportionately. Essentially, the foundation year is there to help high potential students catch up the lost ground. It is important that these are able to remain in place. I am concerned about the proposal to reduce funding in what is a crucial stepping stone for many disadvantaged young people who wish to attend higher education. In relation to higher fees, I think we know these will be harder to pay back for students from lower income families and any such move should be considered carefully. These professions are already working hard to become more diverse, which is also crucial for improving health outcomes.
National State Scholarship
A key recommendation of the Augar review that I agreed with was the introduction of maintenance grants. It is disappointing that whilst adopting regressive measures on student finance proposed by Augar, the progressive measure that has been proposed, maintenance grants, has been left out. The proposed National State Scholarship scheme is welcome, but will clearly reach far fewer lower income background students, and at a time when they are faced with more onerous payback terms. Whilst better than nothing, it remains unacceptable that on average students from lower income backgrounds leave university with more debt than their better off counterparts whose parents can afford to subsidise living costs. This is also a key part of why we end up with some students finding it hard to pay off their student debt. Again, it essentially penalises them for their less privileged backgrounds. There was no rationale set out for rejecting the Augar proposal for maintenance grants, which is concerning. As a consequence, the Government will need to pick and choose which students are the ‘most talented’ and for which course, which will see such students direct their choice to get a scholarship perhaps at difference institutions rather than courses they would otherwise have chosen. Meanwhile students from privileged backgrounds have total freedom to choose. Again, it seems that there is a disconnect between Government rhetoric and understanding of what levelling up actually entails in practice, which is removing barriers and improving choices, rather than putting them up and limiting them.
Level 4 and 5 courses
Developing this offer is sensible as long as it doesn’t lead to a push from the Government for lower socio-economic status students to go less far in their education than others. In addition, regarding the development of lifelong learning entitlement, there will need to be a specific targeting for a levelling up objective, otherwise the likely outcome is that those with the means and capacity to take on loans and debt will do so, but those with more debt aversion will not and so we have to guard against the risk that LLE widens the inequality gaps rather than closes it.
Conclusion:
It is clear reading this consultation that the Government believes too many young people are now studying at higher education and this must be prevented, by raising the bar and making university more expensive for some. However, as impact assessments show, the strata of society to bear the brunt of that reduced and limited access is likely to be people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
I believe Ministers are conflating their efforts to make the lower rungs of the technical education and further education ladder better with the principle that everyone with talent should be able to climb up the ladder as far as they will go. They are not incompatible, as this consultation wrongly suggests. Policy should be about choice.
Nevertheless, if the Government really does have a unique ambition to limit study at higher education level it absolutely must ration higher education access fairly.
These proposals do the opposite and demonstrably, as modelled, bake in educational inequality to impact access to university. For students from lower income backgrounds they fail to introduce the living costs support that Augar proposed. Because this means they leave with more debt, these proposals then penalise them for that as well - given that they also mean they will pay off debts for longer. Added to that is the fact that far too many professions, including the very best paid roles in the City, are still too closed to many from outside the most privileged backgrounds. We know that less well attaining but privileged graduates still often earn more than their less privileged but stronger attaining counterparts. They benefit from a privilege premium due to connections and support, yet this consultation utterly perversely penalises those without it - a double whammy, alongside doing so to those who go into crucial public sector jobs on lower salaries. It implicitly suggests that because not everyone gets to pay off their student debt then everyone should have barriers to access raised.
Levelling up is about encouraging people to set their sights high and then empowering them to succeed. Instead this policy approach is bound up in a view that these people have set their sights too high and should be discouraged and prevented from even trying to achieve at higher education and beyond. Instead they must go down a further education route and stop before higher education.
This is anti-levelling up which takes us away from achieving equality of opportunity for our country. The argument of improving further and technical education will fail to have credibility so long as the most privileged in our society so often choose a higher education route for themselves and their families instead. It will be a ‘do as we say, not as we do’ policy. It is clear that many of those with that mindset are the decision makers in Government and whilst university was good for them, they are clear they do not believe it will be good for others lower down the social ladder. It means that whatever the rhetoric, there are too many in Government and Whitehall who do not believe talent is spread evenly and have lower ambitions for our people to succeed than is necessary. It is akin to being only able to see black and white in a world where everyone else sees colours. Their mindset is a strategic weakness on Britain’s behalf that will cost us dearly and badly delay the journey to a levelled up Britain.