How to make fees fall
Students, lobby groups tell commission about need for talks
WE ARE aware feefree higher education by itself cannot resolve the contradictions wrought on society by corporate global capitalism and its social consequences.
We regard these proposals as important both symbolically and in practice because they provide an alternative framework for thinking about the role of education in society, and give content to a set of “transitional” demands that can widen access to higher education – especially to working class and rural communities.
To that extent, they can be useful in prising open the possibilities for achieving the broader social goals envisaged here and push back the dominant neo-liberal approaches to policy and practice.
No student who meets the requirements for admission to a university course should be excluded for financial reasons. Students need to be funded for the costs of study which should cover registration and other fees, accommodation, costs of meals, travel and books.
Universities should receive a subsidy per student from public funds.
A determined state could reasonably rethink (for instance) the structure of personal taxation which could be levied for the top 10 % of income earners in the country.
As Thomas Piketty observed in his recent Nelson Mandela memorial lecture, the share of total income going to the top 10 % of income earners in South Africa is between 60 % and 65 % of total income.
His income bracket could generate a substantial increase in available public revenue.
For instance, in supporting this sort of extension to progressive taxation, Joseph Stiglitz (2015) has suggested, in his latest book, that a 5 % increase to the tax rate of the top 1 % of earners in the US would raise as much as $1.5 trillion over 10 years.
An approach which concentrates on the structural aspects of inequality and uses tax revenues for the purpose is preferable to the idea of a differentiated approach to the rich and poor.
It supports the idea those identified with the top “networth” pay for their children’s education through taxation, and the distribution of public funds, rather than through an individually-based “wealthy user pays” model.
Contrary to the dominant view, user-pays mechanisms are consistent with market-led approaches to the commodification of education. They do not equalise the costs of education between rich and poor and are punitive to the poor.
The view that the rich can afford to pay fees obfuscates the larger issue of transforming social relations.
The approach we suggest is also a more democratic model of public interest and public funding than individual philanthropy or subsidy.
We do not set out the more detailed arguments around approaches to taxation, but would refer in this regard to the ideas set out by Forslund and Rudin.
For Forslund, “to further increase revenue the Treasury could reintroduce the 45 % tax bracket for incomes above R1 million.
It would yield R5 to R6 billion (based on the 2014 Tax Statistics).
An important point must be made about our millionaires.
In 2013, there were about 4 200 individuals registered for an income of R5m or more.
Their average income (3 337 tax forms assessed) was R9.5m, and the tax they paid was R3.7m per person. Cap Gemeni’s “New World Wealth” 2014 report estimates there are about 48 800 high net worth individuals (HNWI) in South Africa.
Implication
A HNWI has an income of more than R7m, or R70m in accumulated wealth. If only 10 000 of these HNWIs paid income tax like the 3 337 income millionaires did in 2013, instead of hiding outside the tax system, this would yield an additional R37bn in tax revenue.
The further implication of this approach is all students are regarded as beneficiaries of public funding, and participants in a system prioritising the public good.
As such, students should be expected to contribute to society when leaving university – possibly through community service and by working in public institutions after graduation.
In effect, equal participation in the benefits of public funding by virtue of citizenship would support the cre- ation of socially cohesive attitudes among students.
Such an alternative approach to that seeking to differentiate between rich and poor students would have consequences for far reaching structural and systemic change.
The government needs to increase the funding by at least an aggregate amount equal to the ratio achieved in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries to address the issue of the chronic underfunding of the higher education system.
In 2011, South Africa’s state budget for universities as a %age of GDP was 0.75 % (DHET 2012g), which is more or less in line with Africa as a whole (0.78 %).
When compared to OECD countries (1.21 %) and the rest of the world (0.84 %), South Africa lags behind in this regard.
Consideration must be given to the difference between a “progressive realisation” of the goal of free higher education for all, relative to a deliberate or “gradualist” approaches.
In the first case, as we have seen from the number of legal cases on this issue, too much reliance is placed on the untrammelled judgements of political decision-makers alone.
As opposed to this in what might be called a more deliberate gradualist approach, a determination is made about the exact time frame for the achievement of fee-free education for all, together with the relevant milestones to be achieved for that purpose.
In other words, such an approach will ensure a set of binding covenants about the achievement of free education “for all”, the effective mechanisms by which this would be achieved and the process for its monitoring.
Here the approach adopted in Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is instructive.
Article 13.2 recognises not only the availability of free education in the primary education, but also that secondary education in its different forms, including technical and vocational secondary education, shall be made generally available.
Although the relevant section refers to “progressive introduction”, it speaks of a free education that is “accessible to all”.
In any event, the idea of “progressive” should be interpreted more meaningfully as we have suggested – and not left up to individual policy decision makers without reference to a deliberate approach.
Dedicated research must be undertaken about costs of quality public education and especially to facilitate and open debate.
This should be used to show what democratic choices could be made informing fiscal and other policy decisions about providing education and other public goods; a well as the potential sources of such funding – including through a system of wealth taxes but not limited to it. Such research could examine these issues comparatively.
To place the right to free education for all in its proper social context, serious consideration should be given to the idea of responsible public service and citizen work by the recipients of its benefits.
This could, if applied consistently, create greater social consciousness about the important relationship between knowledge and society and especially its role in resolving some of the intractable social and environmental issues facing all societies.
Such a “fellowship” would not only develop forms of social solidarity, but develop a new consciousness beyond the narrow and largely self-interested limits imposed by the requirements of the formal job market.
We do not pretend these goals are achievable tomorrow.
The approach adopted towards the stated goals – democratically and socially driven – would be based on a process to get there and be dependent on the social and political agency required.
Especially important would be the avoidance of choices left to “experts”, “advisers”, “consultants” and the agents of global institutions.
The failure to reckon openly with the extraordinary power and dominance of global corporate interests in shaping Section 13.2.5 and the agenda for public education and the values which these foster and reproduce, would result inevitably in a continuation of social inequality, oppressive relations and catastrophic environmental effects.
A wider socially engaged exploration of the alternatives to the present fiscal and selective affirmation approach is essential.
In this, the perspectives of those most affected by the policy choices related to higher education as a public good must be properly engaged.
This would call for colloquia, dialogues, workshops and debates across the country at a variety of different layers.
This is an edited version of a submission Education, the State and Class Inequality: The case for Free Higher Education in South Africa made to the Fees Commission. It appeared in the educational pamphlet Pathways to a Free Education.