Examination of Witnesses (Questions 217
- 239)
MONDAY 17 APRIL 2000
PROFESSOR GARETH
WILLIAMS AND
PROFESSOR MAGGIE
WOODROW
Chairman
217. I think if everyone is sitting comfortably
we may begin. First of all, can I say what a pleasure it is to
welcome Professor Gareth Williams and Professor Maggie Woodrow
to the session. I always make the point that whilst this is a
formal session of the Select Committee taking evidence, we do
try to hold these things in a relatively informal spirit, so please
interrupt as and when. I am not a hard Chair. I try to get the
discussion going between the questioners and the respondents in
a relatively free will way. So, Professor Williams and Professor
Woodrow, do bear that in mind. Can we kick off by saying that
I think you know very clearly why we are holding this inquiry.
This is in tandem with our full education investigation into higher
education and the student experience, but we thought that it would
be wrong of us as a Select Committee not to look at the implications
for the rest of the team over the United Kingdom of the Cubie
Report and the Scottish Executive's response to that. We are having
three sessions—and this is the last of the three—on
Mondays to see what those implications are for the rest of the
United Kingdom. So anything you can do to help us today, Professors,
will be most useful. Can I start by saying that we have a great
deal of evidence about that and have learnt a great deal. One
of the things that comes out from the evidence so far is the confusion
in the market and the view that in a sense there is a psychological
barrier between the student choosing to go in a certain direction
in higher education and knowing what the reality of that choice
will mean. In other words, the students and the CVCP representative
both pointed out this relative level of confusion about the facts
of the matter in terms of student finance and student support.
Can I ask you to think about that, Professor Woodrow and Professor
Williams, but perhaps start by indicating a little bit about your
current interests in this subject or current research?
(Professor Williams) My own current interest
is a fairly long-standing concern with the finance of higher education
generally and the changes which have taken place over the last
15 years or so. Student finance has been an extremely important
part of that. I have particularly looked at international comparisons,
but I have also looked at issues within this country too.
218. Thank you. Professor Woodrow?
(Professor Woodrow) My interest is more specifically
from the perspective of wider participation in higher education.
My research has been related to the participation or non-participation,
or under representation, of particular social groups. I produced
the From Elitism to Inclusion Report for the Committee
of Vice Chancellors and I am currently just about to start on
a follow up to that report, and student funding was seen as a
major barrier in that report. I am also currently part of a small
team which is responsible for co-ordinating the whole of the widening
participation strategies of the Higher Education Funding Council
For England.
219. You know that our remit extends to England
and Wales. Can you tell us what the main weaknesses in the system
are that you see at the moment? Let us start with a broad brush
and then get to the point in greater detail. What are the main
weaknesses in our system in your view?
(Professor Woodrow) From my perspective the main weaknesses
are a lack of co-ordination between the different aspects of student
funding, the failure to look at the system as a whole and the
tendency to look at fees, loans, access funds and grants as separate
pieces, instead of looking at it from the perspective of the parents
and of the student from a low-income family. That is one problem.
There is confusion between benefits, grants, loans and so on,
so that sometimes students are penalised, they lose money with
one hand and they gain it in the other. I think the system needs
much more co-ordinating. It also needs co-ordinating between further
and higher education so that students are able to progress much
more easily. At present though I think the main failing of the
system is that it is a very regressive system of funding. It benefits
primarily those from the most affluent groups who are the main
participants and who are heavily over-represented in the higher
education system. I feel that given the amount of public money
spent on our higher education system, there is a need for a much
fairer distribution of opportunities and resources. I would like
to see this approached as I did in my paper for the Cubie Committee.
I think it is a helpful methodology to look at different options
in terms of scales, so you can test whether something is going
to work or not by saying, "Is it going to help these affluent
groups, or is it going to help the poorer groups?", and,
of course, the balance in the middle. I think that is a useful
way of testing it. I think we need to weight our funding for students
towards those for whom the costs would otherwise be prohibitive.
I think if we are going to carry out the government objective
of widening participation, then this is really the only sensible
thing that we can do with student finance.
220. Presumably the Minister who will be interviewed
later this afternoon will say that that is already what the Government
is doing and intends to do in terms of the weighting?
(Professor Woodrow) First of all, it is borne out
by the results. We have a very persistent participation gap, but
I think the abolition in particular of the discretionary awards
was seen as a kind of negative targeting of low-income groups.
Western European countries—Belgium, Finland, Germany, the
Netherlands, Spain and I could go on—all have awards for
low-income students with a specific purpose of enabling them to
participate. Our response in this country has been to abolish
that award. I think, in terms of the award, it is not just a financial
benefit, it also confers status on those from low-income families
where there is no experience of higher education. There is a feeling
that, "My child is unlikely to succeed. No one else in our
family or friends has ever succeeded in higher education."
But once they get a government award they think, "Well, they
wouldn't have got this money if they had not been able."
It is a recognition, it is status. Somebody thinks that they are
worth £2,000 or £3,000 or £4,000. Maybe they really
have got a chance.
221. Thank you. Professor Williams, do you want
to add to that?
(Professor Williams) I would like to put a different
gloss on some parts of it. First of all, if I may take up your
point about the situation as it is now and not as it has been,
there was a big change in 1998 and I think that has not really
worked its way through the system yet. So comments and criticisms
and, indeed, things that have been found in that situation, as
it was up until then, we need at least to have an open mind about.
I agree absolutely that some sort of coherence between further
education and higher education needs to be made more apparent,
so that students do not suddenly have to have an entirely different
set of arrangements. I have read carefully your discussion with
the Cubie Committee, and I gave evidence to the Cubie Committee
and read quite a lot of evidence that was given to them in their
consultations. I have to say that my feeling was that some of
the criticisms which were being made were in bad faith, or lack
of information about the situation with regard to low-income students
in the present United Kingdom system. Many of the suggestions
that were made seem to me to be likely to provide even more for
the relatively well-off students and students from relatively
well-off families who, my colleague agrees, are already getting
too much of a lion's share of what there is. I would very happily
see a shift in student finance so that those who can afford to,
and those who can afford to, in particular, out of their subsequent
higher income, pay more than they do at present. I think that
to use the fact that there are some students and some potential
students, who may have been discouraged by present arrangements,
as a reason for using public funds to support large numbers who
in one sense can do very nicely out of the system is something
which you should look at very carefully indeed. Again, you are
much more aware of this than I am, but I would be very reluctant
to see a significantly greater share of the money which is available
for higher education, or money that potentially might be available
for higher education, being used for supporting students, as opposed
to some of the many other urgent needs that there are.
Dr Harris
222. You have effectively reiterated what you
put in your report to the Cubie Consultation Paper, where in response
to point B which they raise about the difficulty of raising participation
from some social groups—that is what remains of the manual
class and some ethnic minority groups—you said that you
do not think it is appropriate to base the whole system of student
higher education finance around this specific issue and that social
exclusion is not primarily a higher education problem. You would
say that in fact the Government's proposal, the post 1997 system,
would be the best system to promote access to further and higher
education, in your short answer to the Committee's question. What
research have you done to back up that quite clear assertion?
(Professor Williams) That was a statement of opinion.
The research, such as it is, or the evidence, such as it is, is
the enormous expansion of participation in higher education in
the past 10 years, particularly, of course, in the early 1990s,
and the fact that every year when clearing comes round for places
in higher education there are always large numbers of unfilled
places. So if there are barriers to entry, they are not in the
sense of availability of places. The evidence that people cannot
get into higher education and do not go into higher education
seems to me to be far more to do with, first of all, what happens
in their further education and their secondary education, but
also to do with the articulation between the two, which is not
to say that nothing can be achieved with targeted finance, but
it does not seem to me to be the central issue.
Helen Jones
223. I think that perhaps you were just touching
there on something which I wanted to ask both of you, if I may.
We would all accept, as a Committee, that the participation rates
in higher education from students from low-income families are
too low. What we would be interested to know is whether there
is any research that either of you have done on whether that low
participation rate is solely due to financial factors, and if
so, how much is due to financial factors, and how much is due
to other things—for instance, what happens in secondary
schools, lower expectation and so on? Is it simply and solely
financial or are there other factors here that we have to take
into consideration? If, as Professor Woodrow argues, we need to
change the system of student support to target it on students
from poorer families, could you tell us exactly in what way you
would envisage that being done?
(Professor Woodrow) I will take that last point first
while it is in my head. I would like the support allocated in
such a way so that a parent of a low-income potential student
would know exactly where they stood beforehand. Obviously, the
less money you have, the more carefully you need to plan. I think
parts of the system, e.g. the Access Funds are, well, all I can
say is, deplorable. It reflects a kind of 19th century philosophy
towards student funding, in that you take away your student benefits,
you take away your student grant, you take away your entitlements
and then you say, "Well, once you get into university you
can come along and you can make a hard case for poverty. You will
be competing with other students, but we might give you something
called a hardship loan." This is the pauperisation of students
and I really think that it is deplorable. I think a parent must
know in advance what is available. I have mentioned the point
about grants. I think grants are important for status reasons
as well as financial reasons. I am slightly concerned about their
replacement, bursaries, if those are to be attached to institutions,
because of course once a bursary is attached to an institution
you cannot take that into account in making the initial decision
as to whether or not you can afford to send your child to higher
education. You have to take that decision first and then once
you have said, "Let's have a go at it", and once you
get your application in, then you may be eligible for a bursary
from X institution; whereas with the awards you knew the situation
in advance, you knew you could count on getting X amount if your
income was X amount for whatever institution you had applied to,
because the award was attached to you and not to a particular
place at a particular HEI.
224. That is not quite the case, is it, because
parents did not actually know in advance, they did not know, under
the old system, until their income had been properly assessed,
how much their son or daughter was actually getting, and that
came after the application for higher education?
(Professor Woodrow) There was evidence from the LEA
situation that students below a certain income group were eligible
for an award. How much they would get was not clear, but their
eligibility was clear, I think.
225. But the amounts were not clear, were they?
(Professor Woodrow) Yes, yes.
(Professor Williams) I do not want to take words out
of the Minister's mouth in a little while, but my understanding
is that if you come from a poor family, you will not pay any fees,
and you know that you will get a loan that you will only pay back
if you get a reasonable income. So I do find it hard to see, particularly
when one sees the applications process, where these students are,
who in the post 1997/1998 arrangements, are not able or not willing
to go into higher education because of that.
Dr Harris
226. Is there any research evidence to back
that assertion that the lack of grant and the switch to greater
loan and greater debt has not deterred anyone? Would you recognise
that there is research such as Professor Woodrow's and indeed,
arguably, figures from Scottish UCAS to suggest that the opposite
is the case?
(Professor Williams) The evidence I have seen suggests,
if there is a problem, it is with the adult students which must
be a different issue than the parents we are talking about now.
There may be a problem with adult students in the new arrangements.
I have other things to say about that because I think probably
there was some kind of boom in adult student participation reached
in the mid-1990s and so we need to see for another year or two
whether the downturn in the last year was in fact a real downturn.
That is where I would look for there possibly being some effect
of the new arrangements which is adverse.
227. Professor Woodrow, do you think the research
suggests otherwise, the effect of absence of grant to lower income
groups?
(Professor Woodrow) Certainly the research I did for
the CVCP showed whether we talked to vice chancellors, to members
of staff in universities, to schools, to parents or indeed to
the students themselves, this was their prime concern and it must
be particularly so for them. The lack of money is only a barrier
if you have not got it. These are the people we should be talking
about. It is only a barrier if it is not there. I would like to
add something about the loans because this was the other finding
we had, about the deterrent effect of the loans. Whatever Mr Cubie
said about it being peculiar to Scotland, I do not think loan
aversion is restricted to north of the border and we did find
that the loans were quite out of proportion to the normal spending
for low-income groups. It is hard for us with our middle-class
backgrounds to put ourselves in this category where it seems a
vast amount of money and such a long way ahead. We did have parents
saying to us, "He can't get into that amount of debt before
he has even got a job." They do not know that the higher
education system is necessarily going to produce a higher income
and of course for particular social groups it produces a less
than higher income. For those who go to new universities, for
those who do HNDs, for women, for some people from ethnic minority
groups, graduate earnings are significantly lower so their return
on the loan would be significantly less, and the only advantage
they are given is the advantage of taking out a larger loan. I
just wanted to add that to your question about the advantage.
It is all very well for us to say, and it has been said to me
before, that the working class have mortgages and are used to
debt and so on but this is not the reaction we get from them in
the field. If we are the people who say we want more lower income
students coming into higher education, there is a top priority
to get these students in, should we not be trying to get them
in in a way that is sensitive to their cultural norms and not
just say, "They will get used to it." Their attraction
to the idea of entering higher education is not so great as to
enable them to overcome those class sensitivities. I think it
is for us to take that on board, not for them.
Chairman: Shall we move on. Michael, I think
you have a question.
Mr Foster
228. When we last met the CVCP they mentioned
that the failure to complete rates had been pretty consistent
over the past 30 years. Has there been any evidence of any recent
change to that particular rate?
(Professor Williams) I do not have any evidence that
the CVCP do not have, but what I read is that the "failure
to complete" rate, if by which one means people who start
a university course and do not have a degree a certain number
of years later, has been increasing. This is complicated by the
fact that many of the earlier figures were for what we now call
the "old" universities, only whereas now the figures
are for all universities including the universities that became
universities in 1992, and it is probable that non-completion rates
were higher in that sector for a lot of perfectly good reasons.
Certainly I would interpret the evidence, I assume it is the same
evidence as the evidence which has been produced by the Higher
Education Funding Council, that non-completion is beginning to
be a problem which we have to take seriously into account in this
country, which we have not had to do so far.
229. Within that rate of about 18 per cent,
which is what the CVCP quote, are there any variations you know
between different groups of students, between the group As and
group Bs for example?
(Professor Woodrow) The HEFCE performance indicators
which were set for the first time to include wider participation
indicators also include retention rates. There is a correlation
between those universities with high participation rates of low-income
students and high non-completion rates. I would not say it is
a substantial correlation but there is some correlation there.
There is also evidence that low-income students are, not surprisingly,
more likely to cite financial problems as a reason for non-completion.
There is also evidence that low-income students are twice as likely
to undertake paid employment during their course of study as those
from higher income groups. One thing I did value in the Cubie
Committee was their concern for the effect of paid employment
on students' academic progress and the suggestion that there should
be regulation of this as there is in some western European countries
already.
Helen Jones
230. Can I follow that up because, quite rightly,
we did hear evidence from the Cubie Committee about the amount
of paid work being undertaken by students and I wonder if you
have any particular evidence to give us, either of you, of the
effect that is having on students' studies. Is there any evidence,
for instance, that it is tied to the non-completion rate and any
evidence that the level has increased over recent years?
(Professor Williams) As I said a moment ago, I do
not know of evidence that the CVCP did not have, but my reading
of that evidence, and it is something I have looked at year by
year, is that it is increasing not very dramatically. It is an
extremely complicated issue to look at because many courses are
modular, now and there is a huge growth in credit transfer, so
knowing when students have ceased to study as opposed to taking
time out for one reason or another is extremely difficult but,
as I say, the figure that I find most useful is students who have
not completed a course after a certain length of time. That varies
considerably between subject but also varies—and again I
was not prepared precisely for this question—part-time students
are particularly likely to not complete courses, or to not have
completed courses by a certain point in time, so again to the
extent one can ask "does having to work affect students'
studies?" people study part time often because they are working,
I think one could say yes, there is some evidence that this is
so. But on the whole we are anxious to encourage part-time students.
Chairman
231. Are we being presumptuous in terms of—this
is really a question to both of you—linking this failure
to complete purely to new financial arrangements or even any financial
arrangements? Could it not be if one looked at the difference
between institutions' retention rates that poorly managed institutions
that do not provide good teaching and do not provide good linkage
to their students and follow through on student courses lose students
at a greater rate than better institutions? In other words what
is the evidence that it is purely financial that this relatively
high percentage of students drop out? Can we tease away the financial
from the other factors?
(Professor Williams) The Higher Education Funding
Council did sponsor a large-scale study of this and there was
a wide variety of reasons for failure to complete, leaving courses.
Changes in family circumstances was an extremely important one.
Finance was certainly there as a stated reason for discontinuing
the course but it certainly was not the only one. From memory,
this report tends to identify the concept which is very widely
used in the United States of an at-risk student, the characteristics
of students who are at-risk of failing to complete the course.
Being marginal in a variety of senses, of which funding is one,
is associated with being at-risk. This raises all sorts of interesting
questions about access because, in a sense, by definition if you
are going to increase access you will increase the number of marginal
students because those that are less marginal—one can use
marginal to mean all sorts of things—are already there.
I think there is evidence that a direct consequence of increasing
access is to increase at-risk students. What higher education
should do about improving at-risk students, certainly improving
teaching. I would be happy to agree with that as a proposition.
232. Professor Woodrow, you mentioned a number
of other countries, comparable countries to ourselves, which have
much better rates of participation of socially deprived people
or their children. Do we score worse than these other countries
in terms of retention rate as well? I always had the feeling—this
is not based on any research at all—that there were high
drop-out rates in some of the continental universities, for example.
(Professor Woodrow) That is true.
233. Much higher than ours.
(Professor Woodrow) Yes, in countries like Italy enormously
higher than ours. If I can just follow up Professor Williams'
comments. I do not go along altogether with his idea of a marginal
student. If a student has been excluded from higher education
because the relevant and appropriate funding has not been made
available to her then this does not make her a marginal student,
it makes her someone who cannot afford to go into higher education.
I am sorry, Gareth, if this is not what you were suggesting, but
I do not like the idea that any sort of talent or ability is associated
with particular income levels and that we are now starting to
scrape the barrel. I am sure nobody here would go along with that
but I just want to make that quite clear. As to your earlier question,
I think the point is that obviously student funding is not the
only reason, it cannot be the only reason. It is such a complex
mix of different types of institutions, different types of approaches
and different types of educational backgrounds, it cannot be the
only reason. The point is it should not be a reason at all. There
should not be any reason why somebody from a poorer family has
to struggle harder once they get into being a higher education
student to make the grade by having to work longer low paid hours
when they may already be trying to compensate for a less advantageous
educational background. The financial problem for drop-out should
not be there at all.
Helen Jones
234. Is there any evidence that the increase
in paid work is linked to changes in the financial support system,
or has it been on the increase anyway?
(Professor Woodrow) I think it has been on the increase,
although if you put me against the wall and ask me to quote chapter
and verse I could not do it today, I will tell you that. I think
it has been on the increase since the failure of the grants to
rise and them being held back. I think it has been a gradual process
prior to the grants being abolished, but then the grants were
held down for so long that I think it was a gradual increase.
I will try to find you some hard evidence, I do not have it today
I am afraid.
Dr Harris
235. Just before we move off completion rates,
I am really struggling to follow Professor Williams' logic because,
Professor Williams, you have not argued with the assertion that
based on evidence, according to Professor Woodrow, low-income
students are twice as likely as others to undertake paid employment
during their course and that they are more likely to cite financial
problems as a reason for non-completion and that a higher rate
of non-completion is also associated, although not necessarily
due to, with those universities that take more students from low-income
backgrounds. Presumably you do not argue that I think it is a
mathematical fact that removing a grant from someone who previously
qualified for a grant and giving them a loan instead makes low-income
students more low income or reduces the income of students during
their student time. Does that not suggest to you that the financing
of students does have an impact, leaving aside access for the
moment, on completion rates? Is that not an empirical deduction
that one can make based on the evidence?
(Professor Williams) Presumably it is an empirical
deduction that if more money were available and students got more
money and were paid to stay in higher education at a level which
is competitive with other things they might do they are more likely
to stay, that point one could not argue with.
236. That might apply more to low-income students.
(Professor Williams) It may be the case that the students
we are discussing in the institutions we are discussing are in
much larger classes, have much less good libraries, and so on.
Whether spending an equivalent amount of money on raising the
financial support for students, and the students we are talking
about are not paying anything anyway at present remember, I could
not be drawn to say if we gave them more money that would be more
effective than giving them better libraries or smaller classes.
237. It would be logical to take the money that
used to be spent on grants for low-income students and if you
diverted it almost entirely to better resources for those universities
that took low-income students presumably then that could be a
rational approach?
(Professor Williams) Maggie Woodrow has already said
the students going out to work is a long-term trend which far
preceded the recent changes we are talking about. There probably
have been questions asked in this House about this, but I am not
aware of changes in the last year in student work which could
be said to have been affected by the recent changes in student
funding. Certainly in the long-term there is no question about
it, it probably is the case this has that effect, but whether
the situation we have at present is having that effect I would
be doubtful about.
238. Although Cubie thought so. I will put that
as a question. Do you not think that Cubie thought that low levels
of overall loan was one thing and the lack of grants did make
students more likely to work and work such hours that might damage
their education?
(Professor Williams) Cubie certainly thought this,
yes. Cubie was also confronting an extremely delicate problem.
The committee recommended a fairly marginal amount of additional
support for students from low-income families and we shall see
whether that does have an effect, I agree.
Mr Marsden
239. Taking up this issue of funding but also
the issue of access, which you have touched on as well, Maggie,
it seems to me from what you were saying, and certainly what you
were saying, Gareth, that some—not all—of the resistance
or problems that we are seeing at the moment may be a matter of
the psychology of the students coming from poorer income non-traditional
backgrounds in terms of being worried and concerned about what
their level of indebtedness might be. I think Maggie would not
disagree with this although perhaps would put the emphasis elsewhere
overall. We have had it suggested in evidence to us that the way
in which the system is now extremely complex for students to negotiate
and navigate in HE is a factor as well. I wonder if you have any
views, or for that matter any empirical evidence of this and whether
simplifying the system of financial support, which would be a
solution, would then make it more difficult to target support
on those students who face particular barriers to participation?
(Professor Williams) I will give a response to that
in a slightly oblique way because I am not convinced that simplifying
the system would alleviate that problem. What I think would alleviate
the problem is, there are lessons from the United States in this
respect, which we must remember has by far the biggest participation
rate in the world. There the system is in fact extremely complicated;
so complicated that each institution has its own student adviser
whose job it is to advise students on the best financial package
for them taking account of the loans and grants that are available.
I myself would think we would get more benefit—and if you
like Cubie has to some extent by introducing another piece of
complexity started moving in this direction—if we were to
see the need for probably the institutions (although it could
be done in other ways) to actually advise individual students
on the best package of measures that is available for them.
|
