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Environmental Presentation

By Leander Jones

Is the Browne Review “the best way, and perhaps the only way” forward? :

A reply to Vice-Chancellor Professor David Eastwood

By Jack Copley

This short article will address the main points made by Vice-Chancellor Professor David Eastwood in his email to University of Birmingham students on October 11^th 2010, in which he explained his endorsement of Lord Browne’s Independent Review into Higher Education Funding and Student Finance (Browne Review). This article will respond to Professor Eastwood’s claims that the Browne Review is socially progressive, guarantees quality higher education, and is the ‘only alternative’.

In his email to the Birmingham student body, Professor David Eastwood argued that the Browne Review offers affordable, flexible university education, especially to those who are less well off. However, Lord Browne’s proposal to raise maintenance grants for poor students by just £350, as well as increasing the income students have to earn before starting their repayments from £15,000 to £21,000 a year, does little to offset the massively regressive nature of the rest of the review. Interest rates on student loans are rising from basically zero (equivalent or less than the rate of inflation) to 2.2% above the rate of inflation, higher than the typical mortgage rate. While students from wealthier families will be able to instantly pay off this debt, avoiding any negative effects from the increased interest rate, students who earn over £21,000 but not enough to quickly repay their loans will face continually mounting debts for 30 years following their degrees. Ian Cowie, personal finance editor for The Telegraph, wrote that students who achieve average earnings following their degrees “will not only start their working lives burdened with bigger loans than their parents took out to buy their first homes – but may well end them with even bigger debts.” Furthermore, a Sutton Trust report (major research institution promoting educational equality) in 2008 highlighted the fact that about 60% of students from poor backgrounds who had decided not to go to university, had been ‘much’ or ‘very much’ influenced by the prospect of mounting debt. This research was carried out in the context of a tuition fee cap of £3,290 with zero real interest. With the proposed tripling of this cap, as well as the increase in interest rates mentioned above, it is hard to see how this will have a ‘progressive’ effect on students from less well off backgrounds, and will instead likely make high-cost university courses “off limits for youngsters from non-privileged homes”, as the Sutton Trust argued in October.

In Professor Eastwood’s email he also writes that student choice will increase under Lord Browne’s proposals, as well as a guarantee of information and teaching quality for all students. It is hard to see how he came to these conclusions considering that the Browne Review has recommended cutting university teaching grants by up to 80% - with only ‘strategically important courses’ (medicine, science and technology etc.) continuing to receive state funding. Arts, humanities and social science courses would suffer a 100% cut in government funding and would have to radically reform the way they are funded, in order to continue to provide quality of service. While Lord Browne has proposed a levy on universities that charge more than £6,000 (in order to deter the institution of excessively high fees), the Institute of Fiscal Studies has concluded that due to the slashing of university grants, universities will have to charge at least £7,000 in order to make up this lack of government funding. Courses that are not deemed ‘strategically important’ will, therefore, be far more expensive than the courses that continue to receive state funding. In fact, The Economist reported at the beginning of November that should these changes be implemented, England will be one of the most expensive countries in the developed world to study. The social effects of this funding proposal could well be that students who do choose to go into the much more expensive social sciences and humanities, will be discouraged from going into lower-earning, socially beneficial careers (such as social workers). Social workers on average earn between £21,000 and £31,000 a year, meaning that they will have to repay these massive loans at a rate of 9% of their income (and possibly the full interest rates - 2.2% above the rate of inflation) – the same as people who go into careers which earn over £100,000 a year. This displays a dangerous disregard for a low-paying but essential sector of our society. The chief executive of the British Academy (the UK’s national academy for Humanities and Social Sciences), Dr. Robin Jackson, has said that this move will “damage academic excellence and quality of life”. Considering the immediate effects to education and the probable long-term social effects, it is difficult to argue that this is an exaggeration.

Professor Eastwood concludes his email by stressing that public expenditure cuts to higher education, alongside a large increase in tuition fees, is “the best way, and perhaps the only way” to maintain the quality of our universities, and to follow the example set by the United States’ superior universities. His reference to the US system is interesting, as implementation of the Browne Review will indeed likely lead Britain down a similar path. Since the 1980s, state funding of US universities has declined, with tuition fees rising much higher than the rate of inflation in order to make up for this. In this time, among developed nations, the US went from being ranked second in terms of ‘percentage of the population with a university education’ to being ranked fifth. Furthermore, the gap has widened between poor and wealthy students in terms of university enrollment. Among the top 146 US universities in 2006, 74% of students came from the wealthiest quarter of the population, while only 3% came from the poorest quarter. Instead of following this model, why couldn’t the UK choose to learn from the Scandinavian countries? These countries’ university performance consistently rank amongst the highest in research and development, access to university education, and social mobility, all at the same time as having zero tuition fees and some of the highest rates of public investment in higher education (see International Handbook of Higher Education - 2006). While Britain shouldn’t necessarily conform to the Scandinavian model, this example is meant to illustrate that there are definitely more, and better, alternatives than Professor Eastwood suggests with his bleak rhetoric about the “dire” future (British debt is actually lower than its historical average).

Contrary to Vice-Chancellor Professor David Eastwood’s conclusions, the Browne Review does not appear to offer the best path for Britain’s higher education system to follow. It is socially regressive, economically unwarranted, and overwhelmingly ideological. In light of this, Professor Eastwood’s view that popular student opposition to the review is a result of ignorance, on their behalf, to its true ‘progressive’ nature is insulting. The future of Britain’s universities under Lord Browne’s proposal, is one which is damaging to the vast majority of students and society as a whole, and because of this we should make it absolutely clear that our Vice-Chancellor is not representing the interests of his students when he supports this review.

An Analysis of the Coalition Cuts Narrative: Cuts and Tuition Fees

By Simon Furse

Since the Government came in to power in May of this year, their PR teams have been working overtime to create a narrative that goes something like this:  They arrived in power to find a country on the brink of “bankruptcy” because the previous government had lived far “beyond its means”. In order to save the country from meltdown the government’s only course of action is a massive cut in spending.  These cuts, while difficult, will be “progressive”, “fair” and will “hit those with the broadest shoulders hardest”.  All sensible and knowledgeable commentators accept the fact that cuts are necessary, and that those who disagree are short sighted, irresponsible “deficit deniers”. The country will ultimately accept the short term pain of cuts safe in the knowledge of our bright future.

This story is very plausible, very persuasive and very wrong.  Despite what the coalition tells us Britain is in no danger of bankruptcy. Our national debt as a proportion of GDP is below that of France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US and the interest demanded on government bonds is at a historic low. The government constantly uses the analogy of a household in debt to argue that the sooner we cut spending the better. The only problem is that the government is not a household. A far better analogy is that of an investor who borrows money at a rate of interest as long as he can invest it productively. There is a huge amount of productive investment that the government could make that would justify the 3% of GDP it currently spends on interest payments (vocational training, universities and science funding and green technology to name but a few). Ultimately the deficit will have to be reduced but the timescales and methods of reduction vary widely. Given time a growing economy and inflation naturally bring down a deficit. Even if you decide to bring it down over a shorter timeframe there is still a choice between raising taxes and cutting spending. The reason the government has chosen the path of austerity is not economic necessity but an ideological commitment to shrinking the state.  

The well respected and independent think-tank, the Institute of Fiscal Studies, declared that (despite the government’s claims) its October spending review would hit the poorest hardest. This is before you even factor in that the poor rely most heavily on public services and are most affected by unemployment. The two other groups that will be most seriously affected are women and the young. Around two thirds of public sector employees are women and many of the cuts to benefits will fall heavily on mothers. This means that women will be doubly squeezed by rising unemployment and falling benefits and that gender inequalities are likely to rise. Young people are, by far, the group most affected by unemployment with around 20% of 16-24 year olds out of work. The government is slashing benefits, cutting training programmes, cutting university places, education funding and increasing fees.  All this will create a lost generation who cannot afford university have no job prospects and realistically have no chance of getting out of their parents house. The government’s claim that we are all in this together is farcical when you consider that 76% of the cabinet are millionaires, 66% went to private school and 86% are male.

The government regularly cites the letter of 35 leading business men to the Telegraph to show that the experts are on their side. However the motivation of these business men is questionable. For example one of the signatories (Ruby McGregor-Smith, chief executive of the outsourcing company MITIE) in his annual report states: “"The public sector faces the prospect of considerable pressure on expenditure in the coming years. We believe that this will create significant opportunities for the outsourcing market as contracts will tend to become larger and broader in scope”.  In reality almost all independent opinion criticises the government’s plans including: among others three Nobel laureate economists, Barack Obama, the chairman of the Federal Reserve and the chairman of the Federation of Small Business.  The most important falsehood in the government’s narrative however is that austerity will lead to a brighter future. Confidence, the supposed objective of the government’s austerity has collapsed as each cut was announced. Unemployment is set to increase and growth is decreasing. This means that benefits will rise and tax receipts will fall so the deficit may not even be cut by that great a margin. I can put it no better than the Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman: "The best guess is that Britain in 2011 will look like Britain in 1931, or the United States in 1937, or Japan in 1997. That is, premature fiscal austerity will lead to a renewed economic slump. As always, those who refuse to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it."

Why Students Should Act

By Sebastian Egerton-Read

“The Government and University have already made up their mind.” “We can’t win.” “Demonstrations don’t make a difference.” “I can’t make a difference.” You may have felt one, some or all of these things at some point while thinking about the possible rise in tuition fees.

This is a policy that will affect so many people, even if it doesn’t affect current students directly. The next generations of children from poorer families will not have the opportunities of Higher Education. This policy subverts fairness and justice, two things which are always worth fighting for. A student movement and a university united against these cuts are essential to preserving the opportunities that we have enjoyed.

Sixty years ago it would have been hard to predict the significant advances Britain has made in tackling sexism, racism and homophobia. From the introduction of the Equal Pay Act, the legalisation of homosexuality in 1967 to the Race Relations Amendment Act in 2000, huge steps to tackle discrimination have been achieved and Britain is a more tolerant society as a result. There is still a long way to go and we must defend the progress that has been made. Given the chance the Tories will roll back what has been achieved like they did in the 1980s with measures like the introduction of Section 28 which made it illegal for teachers to discuss homosexuality in schools. There will always be cynicism and those who believe we can’t change the world: but history teaches us something different. In many ways it is amazing that there is still a battle to try and convince ordinary people that they can change things, despite these incredible social victories.

A common argument made is that just because there are a few outraged students about tuition fees, it doesn’t mean that they can have the same impact as the massive social movements of the last fifty years. However, it is rarely mentioned that these movements often had humble beginnings themselves. In 1965, two dozen people took to the streets on Trafalgar Square to protest for Gay Pride, the protesters were arrested and beaten by the police, yet by the 1980s homosexual discrimination was being removed from all sorts of legislation and today we have civil partnerships and a much fairer world.

In the 1960s, hundreds of thousands of enraged Americans took the streets to try and stop the Vietnam War. They left those demonstrations feeling that they had failed, but recently released US documents actually later proved that they had averted something much worse. The military had put forward plans to both Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon to launch a nuclear strike on Vietnam to try and end the war, but on both those occasions the Presidents were deterred by the massive protests that were being staged outside their window.

So you can make a difference. We can make a difference. Acting empowers. Once you act, even if it is in a small way, you will feel more empowered to act again, you will want to act again, and you will encourage others to act. Small movements can have huge impacts, even in making actual changes in legislation. In 1968, at a Ford Assembly Plant in Dagenham, a group of women working as sewing machinists went on strike over the lack of equal pay between them and the male workers in the plant. The strike action halted car production, which won the women an increase in pay. This was a hugely important factor in forcing the introduction of the Equal Pay Act in 1970. The incident was even considered significant enough to dramatise in a recent film called ‘Made in Dagenham’. Yet the student national demo of more than 50,000 on 10th November shows that our movement against fees and cuts is massive and growing: imagine what impact we could have.

Getting involved with this movement and acting against this policy is very easy. There is already a large network of students mobilised on campuses, pooling their resources and ideas together. There are a lot of things going on in the coming period and a lot of students are involved; adding your name to that number is very easy. You can take part in this movement in so many different ways, whether it be taking part in demonstrations and sit ins, writing articles, contributing to and/or handing out leaflets, writing a letter to an MP,demanding further action from your guild or students’ union, demanding more from your Vice Chancellor, telling people about the facts of this horrible policy, or even simply advertising the movement on your facebook page!

So, get involved today. Don’t let anyone tell you that you cannot make a difference. A famous democratic campaigner Margaret Mead once said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”