Examination of Witnesses (Questions 103
- 119)
MONDAY 10 APRIL 2000
PROFESSOR RODERICK
FLOUD, PROFESSOR
JOAN STRINGER,
MR DAVID
CALDWELL AND
MR TONY
BRUCE
Chairman
103. Can I welcome Professor Floud, Professor
Stringer, David Caldwell and Tony Bruce. Because time is so precious
I am not going to stand on ceremony and ask you to introduce yourselves,
we know all of you well. Can I start by asking you, you just heard
the students giving evidence to this Committee, what do you think
of their point of view?
(Professor Floud) I think they gave a very coherent
set of answers, if I may say, to your questions. In many respects,
in particular on the need to maintain a unified higher education
system in the United Kingdom and on the need to address the problems
of under funding in the university system, we are in considerable
agreement with them.
104. Would anybody else like to comment on the
evidence you have just heard?
(Mr Caldwell) If I can add that from a Scottish perspective
one of the interesting features of the debates that we had on
Cubie, and subsequently the Scottish Executive's response to Cubie,
is the extent to which COSHEP together with the NUS and indeed
the AUT were able to share a common line.
105. Although, interestingly enough, from the
evidence we just heard when it came to the push they would adopt
a Scottish system where the pain would still have to be contained
within the system.
(Mr Caldwell) I think there are some interesting aspects
of the Scottish Executive's proposals in response to Cubie and
it would be as well to say that there are two very good aspects
of the proposals in our view. The first is that it is a genuine
contribution to assisting students from poorer families to get
into higher education. That is the first very important point.
The second important point is that it preserves the principle
that those who benefit from higher education should make a contribution
towards the cost of it. A good feature of the Scottish outcome
is that the contribution is made after graduation, when those
that have benefited have started to earn. That is a very good
aspect. The aspect, which I have to say causes us a little concern,
is that it once again makes the institutions in Scotland very
heavily dependent on the public purse for their funding. The independent
income streams which tuition fees provided has gone. We have an
assurance from the Scottish Executive that they will replace the
income from tuition fees that is lost, and that is a very welcome
reassurance in the short term. We do have to have some concerns
about the long-term funding of institutions, it goes back to the
debates in Dearing and Garrick about the serious under funding
of the sector and the need to develop alternative income streams
that address that difficulty. We are happy with the short-term
assurances but we are concerned about the long-term position and
in particular about whether there will be enough finance available
for the necessary expansion in the system.
Chairman: Thank you.
Mr Foster
106. On the point about trying to lever-in some
more independent sources of finance, do you believe that business
and industry should contribute more towards the cost of higher
education?
(Professor Floud) Business and industry contributes
already to a considerable extent in terms of funding research
activities and funding individual students, particularly part-time
students. They also contribute by providing sandwich course placements
and other work placements for student and paying students to take
advantage of those opportunities. Of course we would welcome further
contributions from business and industry but we recognise that
they have pressures on them to make profits and run their businesses,
and so on, and that their contribution comes through means. I
think we are not hopeful of the view that there is substantial
extra cash to be levered-in for, if you like, the general purposes
of university from business and industry.
107. Have you had any discussions with any industrial
or business representatives about ways of levering-in additional
cash?
(Professor Floud) We have regular consultation with
the CBI and the Council for Industry and Higher Education about
the link between business and the universities. We have not expected
them and we would not expect them to fund the core activities
of higher education institutions.
(Professor Stringer) I think a similar situation arises
in Scotland between the Scottish CBI and COSHEP in discussions.
This was looked at quite considerably in the Dearing and Garrick
committees and Dearing did recommend a compact between the main
beneficiaries of higher education and indeed the Government. Beyond
what Professor Floud has said, Dearing found it difficult to find
ways in which additional funding could be levered-in to the system
from business.
Chairman: We have often heard people speaking
to this Committee informally and formally wishing that the American
system could be translated. It is a very different culture, is
it not?
Mr Marsden
108. I would like to come back to Professor
Joan Stringer on this point, really to express a slight concern
on my part that your view about the possibility of gaining additional
money from business is so fatalistic. You both mentioned Dearing,
it is true that Dearing makes comments about the funding, with
referral to part-time students, but that takes no account, does
it, of the situation of those students in arts and the social
sciences? Many would argue that those particularly miss out. Are
you saying that the current system if it does not receive additional
funding will address the needs of those students?
(Professor Floud) We are certainly not confident that
higher education is properly funded. What you are asking about
is different methods of funding for higher education. With respect,
drawing on the American experience can be rather facile. It is
certainly true that there is a number of institutions in the United
States, although relatively small compared to the totality of
American institutions, which receive substantial funding from
alumni and contributions from business. That has never been the
position in this country, partly it may be because of the different
tax regimes, although I know that is changing. The HE institutions
in this country have made very substantial efforts over the past
ten or fifteen years to raise additional funding from alumni and
business. Those have been more or less successful in different
institutions but not anywhere like the scale that has been secured
by the ten or fifteen, and it is that out of several thousand
HE institutions, in the United States. The majority of HE in the
United States is funded by the state and by private tuition contributions.
I do not think that on that basis we are really very sanguine
that there are substantial extra funds to be levered-in for core
activities. Obviously there are specific research projects and
there are specific activities, named chairs, and so on, to carry
out particular purposes but those are not going to make a substantial
difference to the core.
109. Would you extend the lack of sanguine-ness
to the possibility of business contributing to student funding
in the way that was discussed in the previous session with ILA?
(Professor Floud) I believe that there is a substantial
possibility for businesses to contribute in a variety of ways
to student funding, particularly in the form of support for part-time
students, which has been the case, but, as you know from your
own experience, that has not always been the case, not all businesses
have supported students in undertaking part-time training and
actually in some cases have discouraged that. I think there is
a lot that can be done by business to recognise the value of the
kind of training that can be provided both by further and by higher
education and to give very substantial support to that. Whether
that will extend to the support of full-time students, if that
is what you are suggesting, I think is much more dubious, it certainly
has not been the case in this country. Businesses may well ask
whether they should be concerned with the support of people who
are not, and perhaps never will, working for them.
(Mr Bruce) Over the last two or three years particularly
universities, with the support of the Funding Council, have been
giving much greater priority to understanding the processes of
knowledge transfer between universities and businesses and increasing
interaction between the two. In our submission to the Spending
Review we have argued that those funds should be increased further.
I would expect out of that increased interaction and increased
understanding that funding benefits could flow. Once business
becomes more aware of the kinds of products of universities, both
in terms of individuals and research results, and their applicability
to industry of all kinds can be demonstrated more clearly I think,
and I hope, that more investment by industry will follow from
that.
Chairman
110. That is very interesting, it is something
that is close to my heart. Can I go back to the really fundamental
point that this particular line of inquiry is about, whether there
is particular student hardship out there, whether there are real
gaps in funding and help for students financially. Do you see
this having an effect in your institutions? Is there a remarkable
effect? Are we having real problems with students dropping out?
What is your view of the gaps in student funding as at this moment?
Is it a crisis?
(Professor Floud) I would not describe it as a crisis.
I think it is undeniable that there is substantial student hardship
and that has been recognised by the hardship and access funds
which we receive from Government and disburse on behalf of Government
to students. Clearly the situation varies in different institutions.
In my own institution, which caters particularly for students
from London and particularly students from East London, that is
London Guildhall University, we are experiencing a very large
number of students worried about financial problems, a very large
number, into the hundreds and indeed thousands, of enquiries each
week to our student finance unit about student financial difficulties.
I think one could not deny that there are difficulties. It is
expensive being a student. Nor do we consider that the current
access and hardship funds are fully adequate.
111. Does anybody else want to join in on this?
(Mr Caldwell) I was very struck by the
NUS evidence about the amount of work being done by students during
term time which I think is a trend which has been observed in
institutions across the board. We do lose a certain number of
students every year who drop out or who do not pass their exams.
It is very difficult sometimes to demonstrate exactly what the
reason is, whether it is for financial reasons or whether it is
a simple case of academic failure or whether it is personal reasons.
It is very often a complex mix between a range of factors. I think
what is very significant is that the amount of work that some
students are having to do in term time because they are short
of money does seriously impact on their studies. I think we have
evidence within Scottish institutions certainly that is a problem
for a significant minority of students and I think that is one
of the reasons why the outcome of the Cubie Inquiry is generally
welcomed in that it does provide some welcome assistance for these
students from the poorer off families.
(Professor Stringer) I want to simply come in in support
of my colleagues. Over the past ten years increasingly there has
been a problem of student hardship and one of the difficulties
with the introduction of tuition fees was the abolition of some
form of maintenance grant for those students from less well off
backgrounds in particular. I think the whole issue of fees, or
the concentration on student tuition fees, rather lost sight of
that and that is why we are particularly pleased in Scotland to
see the re-introduction of some form of maintenance award that
will enable those students who can access and can benefit from
higher education to take advantage of that.
(Mr Bruce) There is a problem with the perception
of the cost of higher education. Successive studies have indicated
that prospective students do not have a very clear understanding
of what the cost of higher education actually amounts to. There
is continuing confusion over the means testing arrangements and
students who are not actually eligible to a payment think that
they are. I think there is more work to be done both by the Department
and other agencies to ensure that there is a greater understanding
of what the costs of higher education are and how they can be
met.
Charlotte Atkins
112. I wanted to ask whether there was a particular
problem, as evidenced by the NUS, with medical students, particularly
medical students coming from poorer backgrounds?
(Mr Bruce) I am not aware of any particular difficulties
in that area.
113. I think the NUS were saying that one of
the problems is they have less capacity to take on part-time work
because obviously they do more contact hours. I am sure that is
certainly the case for other students as well but medical students
were particularly raised as an issue. Certainly in my own constituency
I have found some students from non-traditional backgrounds who
have found it daunting to go into the medical profession.
(Professor Stringer) I think instinctively one might
concur with that as a view but I am not quite sure that the evidence
exists to suggest that there are significantly greater problems
other than what we heard just now from the NUS about students
undertaking those disciplines than others. I think it is just
as difficult for students from less well off backgrounds, less
traditional backgrounds, to undertake higher education whatever
the discipline and there is this issue of perception of cost acting
as a deterrent.
Mr St Aubyn
114. As you may have seen today, according to
research by the Sutton Trust, Britain's universities have become
even more exclusive since the Government came to power. Do you
think this is primarily due to changes in the funding for students?
Do you think, particularly bearing in mind Professor Stringer's
comments, that the abolition of the grant in conflict with Dearing's
recommendations is also in conflict with their stated aim to widen
access?
(Professor Floud) I am not sure that I accept that
interpretation of the Sutton Trust proposals which, like most
of us, I have only seen in The Times rather than having
seen the document. It is undeniable that different universities
in a diverse system have concentrated on different types of students.
Some universities have far more students from disadvantaged backgrounds
than others. However, I believe very strongly that we have a national
system of higher education with national systems of quality assurance
which provide that the education that students are receiving at
all those different universities, despite the different social
mixes of those universities, remains the same and that seems to
me to be the crucial issue.
115. You think that whatever university you
go to the quality of the course is pretty comparable to any other
university?
(Professor Floud) I believe that very strongly. That
is assured by at least two features of our current system. First
of all we have, and have had for many years, a very strong external
examiner system by which external examiners from different universities
right across the spectrum look at examination papers and certify
to the university authorities, certify to me in my case, that
the standard of the awards is appropriate and that of the rest
of the university system. On top of that in the past few years,
as you know, we have had an extremely rigorous system of quality
assessment and audit through the Quality Assurance Agency and
its predecessor bodies. I think we can certainly claim that the
British higher education system has a more rigorous system of
quality assurance than any other system in the world, including
the United States. What that has shown is with very, very few
exceptions, a very small proportion of cases where there have
been problems, the quality of the education that is being provided
is being maintained.
Mr St Aubyn: And yet in the marketplace—
Chairman: I want to keep to student finance,
we are straying.
Mr St Aubyn
116. But in the marketplace different universities,
different degrees, are rewarded, if you like, differently in terms
of salaries, so could it not be said that you are perpetuating
social disadvantage and those who do not have access to some of
the best co-ordinated universities in the marketplace are going
to carry on being less well off than those who are lucky enough
to do so?
(Professor Floud) I would be foolish to deny that
there are perceptions about the quality of the education that
is provided by different institutions and these perceptions affect
employment and recruitment from those institutions, of course
that is true. All I am really pointing out is that I think it
is a mistake to infer from that that there are indeed very significant
differences in the quality of the education that is provided.
Let me say one other thing, it is also certainly true that the
whole nature of the student experience is very diverse across
the country and has changed very greatly across the country. I
think when I was fortunate enough to go to university in the 1960s,
to one of the elite universities, I was very well supported by
the state and educated in a very attractive and beautiful environment.
The experience of students in many of our universities today is
very different from that and you should not deny that fact. What
I am saying is the quality is maintained by the efforts of university
staff and university students to make up for the very significant
decline in the unit of funding which is taking place, particularly
over the last decade. Therefore students and staff are having
to work that much harder and work for money that much harder in
order to maintain the quality of the learning experience.
Helen Jones
117. Can we look in a bit more detail at the
amount of paid work being undertaken by students and what you
attribute that to? I think it was said earlier there is a lot
of confusion about the costs of going to university and the financial
support available to students. Would I be correct in saying you
cannot attribute the increase in paid work simply to tuition fees,
particularly when you are talking about the most disadvantaged
students, because they do not pay tuition fees? To what do you
attribute it and has it increased substantially in recent years?
What guidance is given to students on the amount of paid work
they should undertake?
(Professor Floud) I think it has increased over the
past twenty or thirty years very substantially. I think it is
an inevitable feature of recruiting from a wider range of social
groups in this country. We are now recruiting from people whose
parents and whose families do not have the financial resources
that were common/normal, if not absolutely true in all cases,
with students twenty or thirty years ago. You are dealing with
students who are having to live at home in order to save money,
having to find jobs in order to support themselves because their
resources are not such as to enable them to do otherwise. In terms
of how much it is, I think it varies a great deal, again according
to the financial resources of the student. In my university we
believe that approximately 80 per cent of the students are undertaking
work during term time and that ranges in terms of hours from five
hours and in some case up to twenty hours a week. That is obviously
undesirable in the sense that one would like students to concentrate
on their studies, however we recognise it is a necessity and an
inevitable consequence, I believe, of widening the range from
which we recruit.
(Professor Stringer) Just to add to that, I think
that over the years obviously one has seen a gradual decline in
the amount of support available to students through the reduction
in the maintenance grants in real terms and also in the introduction
of loans. If one looks back over the past ten or fifteen years,
gradually there has been an erosion in the amount that is available
in support for a student to support themselves with. The issue
of costs is an interesting one in terms of costs of maintaining
themselves whilst at university, which is not always the same
as expenditure. Cubie actually did a lot of work looking at both
costs and expenditure of students while they were at university
and I think probably came up with figures not dissimilar to the
ones that we had from the NUS here today. I think that one of
the issues that Cubie did try to tackle was how much does a student
need to live on whilst they are at university, what is the total
package and try to come up with the combination of loans and bursaries
and so on that would enable a student to access higher education
without having to undertake paid employment if at all possible.
In other words, to provide more choice for students while they
were at university. I think one might regard that as an ideal.
Certainly I think it is an aspiration that many would look for.
Chairman: We thought that was a valuable exercise.
Helen Jones
118. Can I take you a little further on that?
I would like to know what evidence you have, if you have any,
that it is largely the students from the poorer families who are
undertaking the largest amount of paid work. To follow on from
that, if you wanted to solve that, what sort of level would you
have to set a maintenance grant, bearing in mind that maintenance
grants were always means tested? Speaking as a steelworker's daughter
whose parents had to pay towards the maintenance grant, how would
that resolve the problem of recruiting more students from what
you call non-traditional backgrounds?
(Professor Stringer) Can I just add one thing, which
picks up on what I previously said? I think there is a difference
between costs and expenditure. Students do make choices while
they are at university and it is definitely not just students
from less well-off backgrounds that undertake paid employment.
Students from better-off backgrounds choose to take employment.
I think the key word there is choice. I think quite often those
from less well-off backgrounds do not have that choice.
Mr Marsden
119. What is abundantly clear on this whole
issue is, rightly or wrongly and for whatever reason, a substantial
amount of students are undertaking a substantial amount of paid
work. When you add that to the needs of other part-time students
in terms of child care, woman particularly during the day, and
mature students coming in this is a significant shift in the pattern
of the student experience. What I would like to know is to what
extent the universities' memberships of CVCP have adjusted themselves
in terms of their working day and their teaching structure and
everything else. I know of some good examples from colleagues
in the new universities—it would be invidious to name them—but
I would like an overview from you.
(Professor Floud) Universities are faced with very
different situations and have adapted differently to the circumstances
you describe. You are dealing predominantly with a student body
that is housed in halls of residence on campus in areas of the
country where it is difficult to get paid work. Then another factor
comes in, the availability of work for students. Then you have
to make less adjustments to these particular problems than you
do if you are in a big city university. It may be invidious but
I can mention my own university and say that in the centre of
London we have to adapt ourselves to the commuting patterns of
students because 85 per cent of our students do not live in halls
of residence, we have to adapt ourselves to the timing and the
use of particular forms of travelcards. Above all, we have to
adjust ourselves through having modular structures and flexible
structures which allow students to combine study with work for
both part-time and full-time students.
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