Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120
- 139)
MONDAY 10 APRIL 2000
PROFESSOR RODERICK
FLOUD, PROFESSOR
JOAN STRINGER,
MR DAVID
CALDWELL AND
MR TONY
BRUCE
120. Are you happy and are you persuading your
teaching staff to work, say, five until nine rather than nine
until five?
(Professor Floud) We teach in my university from nine
until nine and we are increasingly putting on courses at different
times of the week and, indeed, at weekends both for the full-time
and the part-time students in order to accommodate these changing
patterns.
121. Do you think that is becoming commoner?
I would not expect you to say common, but commoner?
(Professor Floud) Certainly more common, yes.
Chairman: Could I ask for brevity because we
have precious moments left.
Dr Harris
122. It was proposed in an earlier round of
questions that greater indebtedness could be compensated, as in
America, by higher starting salaries for graduates. How do you
think the public sector, for example universities, would be able
to cope with the need to offer significantly higher starting salaries
to attract the same level and quality of graduates as you do now?
(Professor Floud) I think we would have very considerable
difficulty. As is clear from the submission we have made to the
Government through the Spending Review, and indeed the submission
we have made to your Committee, we believe that there are significant
difficulties in funding higher education generally. Sixty per
cent of our costs arise from staff costs and we will find it very
difficult to respond, for example, to the Betts Committee's recommendations
without additional funding. I think pressure to put up starting
salaries, although we might welcome it as far as the individuals
are concerned, would cause difficulties.
123. Finally, are you having difficulties in
recruiting the people you would like to recruit because of the
higher level of indebtedness that exists or is perceived compared
to joining bonuses offered in the private sector to the sort of
people you would like to keep on in research and academia?
(Mr Bruce) We have just completed and published a
study on recruitment and retention of academic and other university
staff which we would be happy to let the Committee have a copy
of. It does indicate that there are emerging recruitment problems
particularly in a number of specific subject areas. One of the
explanations for those recruitment difficulties is the under-payment
that the Bett Committee identified.
Dr Harris: My final point is drop-out rates
of up to 30 per cent. Presumably you are concerned about that.
If a political party lost 30 per cent or Marks & Spencer,
they would be doing exit surveys like mad to try to identify factors.
What research has this sector commissioned to really pin down
whether it is more women than men, poorer students than others,
people who are doing more work outside?
Chairman
124. Could we have the 30 per cent validated
before you answer that?
(Mr Bruce) I think the actual figure is about 18 per
cent.
Dr Harris
125. I think it varies. It is up to 30 per cent
in some institutions.
(Mr Bruce) There are variations between institutions
but the average national figure has not changed significantly
throughout the period of expansion, for 30 years.
(Mr Caldwell) I think we should emphasise the international
comparison. The drop-out rate is one of the lowest anywhere in
the world. We still want it to be lower still and institutions
are working very hard and researching very carefully into the
reasons why certain students do not complete to try to ensure
that figure drops even further. I think it is very important to
put it in the context that it is one of the very lowest drop-out
rates in any higher education system anywhere in the world.
(Mr Bruce) I believe that the Department for Education
has recently commissioned a study on the causes and consequences
of current drop-out rates with the intention of identifying what
the causes are and what further action can be taken. I think that
will be a useful study for the sector to consider later.
Chairman
126. You are saying, Tony Bruce, that it is
not getting very much worse even though we have changed the funding
system for students?
(Mr Bruce) Overall the position is remarkably constant
although, as I said, there are variations between institutions.
Any action that can be taken even to reduce that 18 per cent figure
would obviously be of benefit because that represents waste and
resources to some extent. Anything the sector can learn from research
about how to reduce that figure would be welcomed.
127. Are some of these figures of 30 per cent
alarmist then, that there is a terrible crisis and drop-out? Are
they alarmist calls?
(Mr Bruce) I think they reflect variations across
the sector. I think in part it is a consequence of the move to
mass higher education where there are students from different
backgrounds, where there are problems of finance and so on. The
overall story is still a positive one.
Charlotte Atkins
128. We heard from the students what their policy
is on top-up fees, what is your policy?
(Professor Floud) Our policy is unchanged. We support
the current system. We have been engaging at the suggestion by
the Secretary of State in his Greenwich speech in reconsideration
of the whole issue of funding. We believe that top-up fees or
a proposal for top-up fees have to be seen within the overall
context of the proper funding for higher education and proper
funding for students within higher education. We are about to
establish a review group which will take up the Secretary of State's
invitation to examine it.
129. Even the elite would not support top-up
fees for those particular colleges.
(Professor Floud) We will be discussing this further
at the end of this week at a meeting of the United Kingdom Board.
We expect all universities will be in favour of having the kind
of review we are talking about.
Mr St Aubyn
130. Look at top-up fees in the context of widening
access, do you think there is a case for top-up fees where the
graduates do earn more in the market place in order to fund bursaries
and other help to other students?
(Professor Floud) That is the exactly the kind of
issue we believe would benefit from rigorous examination and comparisons
with the United States, which tend to be sometimes rather facile.
One of the comparisons that is often made is that we could emulate
and look at Yale or Harvard and have the systems you describe.
I do not think we are persuaded those systems do give proper funding
to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. There is some evidence
that, for example, Harvard has a significantly lower proportion
of students from working class backgrounds even than Oxford. As
a social scientist I know that comparing the working class in
America with the working class in this country has its problems.
There is a real need for a rigorous examination. Dearing, to a
certain extent, did that within a different political and economic
context but we believe we should do it again.
(Professor Stringer) I would just like to add, I do
believe the debate about top-up funds is also a response to the
sector feeling that gradually it has become under funded and it
is in that context that the top-up fees issue is currently on
the agenda. Whilst it may be an option in some circumstances if
one believes, as I think the sector does, that there is a funding
gap currently, then top-up fees would not resolve that particular
problem for the sector as a whole.
Chairman
131. Can I push you on that, it seemed to be
common parlance in universities and discussions over the last
five or ten years that there is a real problem of funding for
higher education. We spend just as much as any other country per
capita as our great competitors across the world, we spend about
the same amount per capita but a very significant percentage,
a much greater percentage, flowed to students support. I have
heard that from vice-chancellor after vice-chancellor. In a sense
what we are facing now is a changed system to confront that. What
has gone wrong or has anything gone wrong? Are we on track to
getting a better balance than the one people complained about
recently?
(Professor Floud) Certainly the reduction in the efficiency
game cut—which was imposed for most of the 1990s—1
per cent per annum, which emerged from the Dearing Committee Report
and was then accepted by Government, was a very welcome one.
However, we actually believe that it itself
is causing severe difficulties and will continue to cause greater
difficulties for the university system in a variety of respects.
In particular we believe that although the Government has done
a great deal to support the research infrastructure through the
joint infrastructure funding, and there has been a really significant
input into the sector for research facilities, we face a significant
problem of providing for the teaching infrastructure. If there
is a continued cut in the unit of resource in the way that is
currently envisaged then that will impact very severely on the
teaching infrastructure of universities.
132. Professor Floud, as you know we will be
coming back to that in the major inquiry. What I am looking to
you for a response on is you are not unhappy about the fact that
students now are being called on to make a much bigger contribution
than they were in the past, are you?
(Professor Floud) I can only begin by speaking for
myself. I came from a background where I was dealing with part-time
students who were paying their own fees, therefore I do not see
it as a principle that students should or should not pay fees.
We believe that it is a necessity for the current higher education
system that students should make a contribution in order to provide
for the needs of the system. I see this as an unfortunate necessity.
Of course it would be nice if students did not have to pay fees
but we believe that is an important contribution to the welfare
of the system.
(Mr Caldwell) I would want to come back to Dearing
and Garrick because it is terribly important that we do not forget
this point. These committees identified very serious under-funding
of higher education. They reached the conclusion that the only
way this could be satisfactorily addressed, given that we now
have a mass system which is therefore bound to be costly to the
public purse already, is to ensure that a contribution is made
towards the cost of the system by those that benefit from it.
I think in that context we have to say yes, indeed, we do subscribe
to that mechanism. It has to be seen in the context that the payments
are being made by those who genuinely benefit but the argument
runs as follows: graduates have higher lifetime earnings than
non-graduates and, therefore, it is reasonable that they should
make a contribution. It can then logically be argued that the
time they make a contribution is the time at which they begin
to enjoy the benefit of these higher earnings. There is a certain
attraction to the contribution being made post graduation at the
time when earnings reach a certain level.
Chairman: I am conscious I have not brought
Valerie in on this section yet.
Valerie Davey
133. I want to ask very specifically, you have
looked at all the options but you have not come forward today
with any other option than those that have been discussed over
many, many years. Are there any other areas that you would like
to be exploring for funding to bridge this gap and to support
students or not? Is there anything else that ought to be on the
table?
(Professor Floud) That is exactly what this review
will look at. We intend to look at all of the potential options
that are put forward and we will very much welcome the views of
your Committee as to the things that you have been enquiring into.
Chairman
134. The Cubie Report does exist, it did a lot
of work and we do not want to keep on doing lots of work, do we?
One of the reasons we have latched on to it is because it is extremely
useful work and we value their evidence. Would you like a Cubie
type solution or a Scottish Executive type solution? Would it
solve your problems of student finance?
(Professor Floud) My colleagues from Scotland should
perhaps speak on that.
(Professor Stringer) We already have a solution.
(Professor Floud) I think we remain very concerned
about two aspects. The first, as Dr Harris pointed out earlier,
is the very substantial cost of applying the Cubie solution to
the rest of the United Kingdom. The second is the necessity, we
believe, for a guarantee that the funds raised by the Cubie type
system do actually go into funding higher education. We remain
concerned on behalf of the UK CVCP, if I can put it that way,
at the fact that we do not have that assurance. We have good intentions
from the Scottish Executive but we would regard it as absolutely
essential that money should go into the core funding of higher
education institutions.
135. The one thing Cubie could not suggest,
as we understood from Mr Cubie, was a graduate tax, so anything
that came up had not to have the word "tax" in it. Would
you prefer a graduate tax or are you in favour of a graduate tax?
I think a graduate tax is one of the options which we will be
examining. It has been examined by Dearing and it has been examined
by different systems in Australia, and that is exactly what we
would like to look at.
Mr Marsden
136. I am really going to press you on this,
it is an open secret that some members of CVCP are more enthusiastic
about the concept of top-up funds than others. I accept you do
not have this great review and everything. You told us that you
do not think that there is a pot of gold from business necessarily
out there. You have told us you are not happy with the present
situation. Focusing on this issue of student finance and the gaps
and disparities we heard about today, where on earth is the money
going to come from to bridge that gap if you do not go down the
top-up fees route?
(Professor Floud) Clearly increasing the sum from
students is one option, increasing the sum from the public purse
is a second option and there may well be others.
137. Do you think it is realistic to expect,
given the targets for expansion into education will involve extra
money coming from the public purse, a per capita increase from
the public purse?
(Professor Floud) I believe it is, for the very simple
reason that all of the studies that have ever been undertaken
on the economics of higher education suggest that there is a very
high social as well as private return to investment in higher
education and it is appropriate for the public purse to provide
enough to ensure that that return is forthcoming.
Mr St Aubyn
138. It is exactly a month from today until
the launch of Year Out group—which is promoting the idea
of a structured gap year for school leavers before they go to
university—do you recognise the value of such a year out,
particularly for those from less well-off backgrounds and do you
see that as part of helping the widening access agenda?
(Professor Floud) I am taken by surprise by that.
Chairman
139. So am I. I think it is by way of advertisement.
(Professor Floud) There is a lot of evidence that
some students do benefit from that gap year. I think students
probably benefit even more or at least as much from structured
work experience during their courses. I hope that one of the ways
business could indeed contribute in the way you are describing
is by allowing us to get somewhere close to the Dearing aspiration,
that every student should have a period of work experience during
their courses. It is not universities who are preventing that
happening, it is the lack of placement opportunities from business
that is making that so difficult to achieve.
| 
