The collapse in part-time and mature students studying at universities in England threatens social mobility and economic performance and must be urgently addressed, according to a report into the effect of raising tuition fees.
The Independent Commission on Fees said raising the cost of undergraduate tuition to £9,000 a year has led to “a significant and sustained fall in part-time students and mature students”. It added: “We believe that the new fee regime is a major contributory factor.”
While researchers have long suspected that the government’s decision to treble tuition fees in 2012 has been behind the sudden fall in part-time and mature student numbers in England, the commission’s conclusion is the bluntest statement to date.
Will Hutton, the chair of the commission and principal of Hertford College, Oxford, said that while a greater proportion of disadvantaged students were going to university under the new funding regime, he was concerned about the sharp fall in mature and part-time students.
“Since many of this group come from less advantaged backgrounds, the fees hike is potentially having a serious and detrimental impact on their social mobility,” Hutton said.
Peter Horrocks, vice chancellor of the Open University, has argued the government should allow graduates to take out student loans to study for a second undergraduate degree, to help address the decline that has hit the OU particularly hard.
The commission called for the House of Commons business, innovation and skills select committee to urgently investigate the reasons for the severe decline, concluding: “This is a failure which threatens both social mobility and economic performance.”
The independent commission on fees was established in 2011 with backing from the Sutton Trust, to monitor the fallout from raising tuition fees to £9,000 and making repayments via graduate loans linked to income.
The commission also called for the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to examine whether the loan system in England offered value for money for both students and taxpayers, and analyse how the costs of higher education were being met by different groups.
It also recommended that the government “should be extremely wary of substantive increases in fees” because of the strain it would place on the new loan system.
“It’s absolutely vital that the OBR establishes what the knock-on effects of the student loan system will be in the future on both students and the national finances,” Hutton said.
Prof Anne West, director of the London School of Economics’s education research group, said the report raised serious concerns about the system of student loans, following the government’s recent decision to replace maintenance grants with more loans and higher debt levels for graduates.
“The planned changes to fees and to student financial support are likely to have far-reaching negative effects on students from disadvantaged backgrounds, who have been beneficiaries of maintenance grants,” West said.
“This is important as our research has found that more affluent parents are better able to shield their children from debt – by paying all or part of their higher education costs, by putting money aside for future property purchases, by being prepared to step in to support loan repayments or by using other financial resources to pay off the debt.
“Parents with lower household incomes are not able to shield their children from debt in similar ways.”
With the new funding system including a requirement for universities to spend more on outreach to disadvantaged groups, the commission said it was concerned about the effectiveness of university recruitment strategies, especially among disadvantaged groups.
