Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240
- 260)
MONDAY 17 APRIL 2000
PROFESSOR GARETH
WILLIAMS AND
PROFESSOR MAGGIE
WOODROW
240. Basically you are putting the responsibility
back on the institutions in this new market, if I can put it that
way, to develop more comprehensive financial advice and support
services to their students?
(Professor Williams) Yes, a student counselling problem.
241. Maggie, would you share that view?
(Professor Woodrow) I would definitely like to see
a more simplified system. As I say, the way the lack of benefits
trips them up all needs to be brought together. It needs to be
a more simplified but less regressive system. More simplified
on its own is not enough. It should be a system that will stop
penalising those from low incomes. If you look what happens to
them, if they do not stay on at school at 16, they are straight
into earnings or straight on to Jobseekers' Allowance, they have
no debt at the end of it, and if you try and put yourself in the
shoes of those students and their parents why on earth would they
want to go into higher education?
242. The Government would argue of course that,
with the introduction of education maintenance allowances which
was piloted and which the Chancellor has now expanded, this problem
will diminish.
(Professor Woodrow) Yes it will diminish provided
it is carried through into higher education and the awards are
available there as well. There has to be a consistency. There
can be a drop out rate at 18 plus as much as 16 plus so the continuity
needs to be there.
243. That leads me to a final question then
specifically to you although Gareth can chip in if he wants to.
You have made in your submission to the Committee quite a plea
for allowances to be encouraged beyond that level. What more do
you think could be done to develop support systems for students
in FE and if I can use the immortal words of Mrs Thatcher "Where
is the money going to come from?"
(Professor Woodrow) It seems very curious to me that
when we are talking about social classes one and two having 60
per cent of places in higher education nobody seems to jump up
and down too much and say where is the money coming from. The
Cubie Committee has already suggested that there could be a greater
contribution from the more affluent groups in society and I think
this needs examining more closely. But when we come to considering
how we can get poorer children into higher education, we are immediately
told does this mean we will have less money for our libraries
or does this mean we could not afford to pay our female staff
or does this mean all kinds of things. It seems very curious that
it is the poor who are supposed to pay for this. We are looking
at it totally the wrong way round. We need to say who is benefiting
from higher education, which is a national system funded by taxpayers'
money. The people who are benefiting from it are the most affluent
groups in society and we know why, because it is the passport
to higher lifetime earnings, status and so on.
244. You would argue therefore, and I am not
trying to put words in your mouth but summarising basically, for
good old-fashioned redistribution, banging up the contributions
from social classes one and two, and the extra money the government
gets in is either hypothecated or it is pledged to go into funding
in this case students in FE to level three perhaps.
(Professor Woodrow) I think that is an over-simplification
of what I am saying.
245. If it is an over-simplification how will
this be delivered? If I went along to the Treasury Minister with
your formula, that is the question they would ask, how do you
intend to deliver this?
(Professor Woodrow) I think there is a need for an
overall greater input of finance into higher education across
the board as well as a redistribution.
246. So it is a mixture?
(Professor Woodrow) Yes, it is a mixture. We have
students whose parents, as we all know and there is nothing wrong
with it, are paying something like £3,000 or £4,000
a term for their children to go to independent schools and they
come to higher education and they are faced with a bill of £1,000
a year. There is no consistency here. At the same time we have
children who cannot afford this education who are often in schools
in very disadvantaged areas with very low GCSE grades who then
cannot afford to get into higher education because the cost of
maintenance is prohibitive. It is a public system of higher education.
(Professor Williams) What Cubie has in effect done
in a very, very small way would be simply to raise fees to a higher
level but continue and perhaps increase the number of people who
do not pay fees at all. That would be one way of achieving this
objective. It would be for you to decide whether that was politically
possible.
Chairman
247. What Cubie tried to do, surely, was look
at the overall package the student had to face in terms of both
support and fees. Hearing Mr Cubie giving evidence, the impression
of some of the Committee was that he had this rounded approach
to try and assess the impact on the student in the round. I think
that was a valuable lesson. What I am trying to get out of you—and
you have only got 15 minutes left of the evidence, so some short
sharp questions and answers so we can get maximum value out of
you—is would you like Cubie, the original proposals, implemented?
Would that help, Professor Woodrow, to achieve your ambition for
a greater spread of education among the lower social classes in
higher education or would the Scottish Executive's compromise
help to do that? Are they stages on the right road or not? What
do you think?
(Professor Woodrow) Firstly, it is not my ambition
for a fairer distribution of places in higher education, it is
the Government's ambition and as far as I can see, it is the ambition
of all political parties. Do not lay it all at my door. I am in
favour of it as well but it is not my idea. I would have thought
that the original Cubie proposals did go a long way. One thing
I liked was that they abolished the Access Funds, kept them down
to a very small amount for emergencies, and put the money into
grants. I thought that was progress. I also like the comprehensiveness,
bringing the benefit system in, bringing things like childcare
in, bringing regulations about employers in. It was a very comprehensive
package.
248. What about actually putting it into operation
politically then, the difference between Cubie and the Scottish
Executive?
(Professor Woodrow) I think the hardest thing to swallow
was the reduction of the £25,000 to £10,000 with the
endowment scheme.
249. Reading between the lines that seemed to
be what worried the committee the most.
(Professor Woodrow) It made it on a totally different
principle, did it not? That 25 per cent was carefully calculated
on graduate earnings. To put it in another game altogether really
was very sad.
250. What is Professor Williams' view on this?
Would Cubie or the Scottish Executive compromise applied to the
rest of the United Kingdom be healthy, useful, positive?
(Professor Williams) What Mr Cubie did was, having
been asked to look at fees, look at the student maintenance component.
I think there is a case for arguing the case that more money can
be put on graduate earnings rather than being paid up front. There
is a case in equity to be made for that. But my reaction to Cubie's
proposals is that in fact it will be the middle-class families
who will be quite happy about that.
(Professor Woodrow) That is true.
(Professor Williams) They have been relieved of some
of the costs that they have in England and Wales now, so it is
the relatively well-off families.
Chairman: A last couple of questions. Evan Harris?
Dr Harris
251. Professor Woodrow discussed the shortfall
at the repayment threshold from £25,000 recommended by Cubie
down to the £10,000 of the current loan package and regretted
that. Would you say that the Scottish Executive's proposals, as
far as your aims are concerned, in as far as they go because they
cannot deal with benefit, are an improvement on the system in
England in terms of access and indeed completion, or do you think
they are no better?
(Professor Woodrow) I think they are better but I
do accept Gareth's point, and I am sorry I did not make it, that
the abolition of fees, as I have said in these notes, is actually
a regressive step because you are abolishing them for middle class
families. I have a reservation about the abolition of fees, I
would like to see them increased for those who can afford it.
I could have afforded it but nobody asked me for the money.
Chairman
252. So you come back to it is support, not
fees, that is your emphasis?
(Professor Woodrow) Yes, that is right.
Dr Harris
253. Would you argue that the higher parental
contribution sought by both Cubie and, indeed, the Scottish Executive's
proposals is effectively a higher contribution from the better
off, or do you think it should be the son or the daughter of the
better off who should find a way of paying it rather than the
better off parent?
(Professor Woodrow) I have not quite followed the
question.
Chairman: Evan is talking more about whether
a graduate tax would be fairer.
Dr Harris
254. Let me be clear. Cubie recommended that
the total package should be higher, whether it is made up of loans,
grants, whatever, and to fund some of that parental contributions
for the rich should be significantly increased, some of them are
going to private school and paying quite a lot anyway. An alternative
is to say that it should really come not from the better off parents
but should come in some way from the students who will be better
off later, or a student of better off parents who will be even
better off later. I was just asking whether you felt that those
are much of a muchness or whether there is a preference?
(Professor Woodrow) I have not worked this out scientifically
but there may well be a case for both, for having a higher parental
contribution in the first place plus an endowment fund where the
graduate who is earning a reasonable amount, something like £25,000,
pays it back. There may well be a case for that.
Chairman
255. Are you a champion of the graduate tax?
(Professor Woodrow) I am not against a graduate tax
provided it is recognised that different graduates from different
social classes, including women, earn less. So a fair graduate
tax which does not—
Chairman: Progressive.
Dr Harris: A graduated graduate tax.
Chairman
256. Progressively graduated.
(Professor Woodrow) Yes, thank you.
257. What about Professor Williams?
(Professor Williams) My view is that the more that
the cost of attending higher education can be put forward so that
it is paid for out of a higher subsequent income, the more I would
approve of the system. I notice that Cubie said he hoped that
Individual Learning Accounts would be looked at far more closely.
It seems to me, in effect, that is one possible way in which Individual
Learning Accounts would work. In other words, people's lifetime
income would be what was paid for so that people would, in fact,
have the money that was needed for study and they would incur
a responsibility to pay. The trouble with the word "debt"
is it raises people's concern. In other words, the notion of an
Individual Learning Account does seem to be one which really does
deserve much greater consideration than it has had so far. There
are pilot schemes in operation but it seems to me this is one
way of looking at this whole issue.
258. Would Professor Woodrow go along with that?
(Professor Woodrow) My way of going along with anything
is to stick it in my scales and to say who is going to benefit
most from this. If it is going to increase those who are already
at an advantage I would say no. I think that is your methodology
of looking at anything, it is a nice, simple way.
259. We are over-running our time. The last
question must be the Government hopes to raise the participation
of higher education to 50 per cent, do you think it is possible
to do so under the current arrangements?
(Professor Williams) I just want to be clear. The
problem with 50 per cent is it is 50 per cent of what.
260. Being involved in higher education.
(Professor Williams) Because it is not difficult to
do sums which show that participation now is 50 per cent if you
include all the students at the Open University, all part-time
students and so on. It really will depend on how the figures are
calculated. Yes, it is a perfectly reasonable target and a very
desirable target.
(Professor Woodrow) It is only a desirable target
if it does not mean more of the same. At present as the participation
rate has increased, so the marginalised groups have got more marginalised.
Because it is far more common to have a degree than it used to
be, so the ones without it are in fact more singled out by the
fact that these social groups are not graduates. Unless there
is a fairer system of funding which benefits all social classes
I think even if we have a 50 per cent participation rate we shall
see the same groups marginalised that are being marginalised today.
Chairman: Professors Williams and Woodrow, thank
you very much for your evidence, I only regret that it has been
so brief. Thank you.
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