Jo Johnson:
Higher education providers need to show their critics that they offer excellent value for money
In recent weeks, the UK’S universities have found themselves squarely in the public eye – and much of the attention they have received has not been favourable. Some critics have called for the end of tuition fees and for a return to a system fully financed by the state. Others have said that the expansion of higher education has been a mistake, and that far fewer people should go to university in the first place.
Both these back-to-the-future visions are mistaken. But like many bad ideas, they contain an element of truth: ones that our universities would be well advised to heed. Let us take each argument in turn.
The call for an end to fees is intended by its supporters to make it easier for students to go to university, and to improve access for those from the poorest backgrounds. Paradoxically, it would have precisely the opposite effect. It is only by charging fees that the Government has been able to remove caps on the number of students, which has in turn allowed a big increase in the number of disadvantaged young people attending university. Ending fees would throw this progress into reverse.
Other critics argue that the expansion of higher education has been bad for students, and that having more young people doing degrees is bad both for their own earning potential and wasteful for the economy at large.
It is right that higher education should justify itself on economic grounds. But here, too, the evidence is strong. A university degree continues to be an excellent investment for students, increasing average lifetime earnings by £168,000 for men, and £252,000 for women. And more students going to university is good for the wider economy: a 1 per cent increase in the share of the workforce with a degree raises economic growth by between 0.2 per cent and 0.5 per cent. A return to the days when only a tiny minority of the population could attend university would be bad for young people, and bad for the country.
But this does not mean that Britain’s universities should ignore their critics or shun scrutiny. As the incoming director of the London School of Economics, Dame Minouche Shafik, wrote this week: “Too many of the messages coming out of universities sound self-serving.”
The best way for universities to respond is by showing, beyond doubt, that they offer excellent value for money to their students and by working tirelessly to address areas where improvement is required. Above all, with students making one of the biggest investments of their lifetimes with the decision to go to university and with so much public money at stake underwriting them when they are there, our highereducation providers must embrace accountability, not reject it.
These principles sit at the heart of the reforms that I have been working on for more than two years. They will guide the work of the Office for Students, the new regulator we are establishing to oversee the sector, and the new regulatory framework that we are putting in place.
If universities offer patchy teaching that does not seem to justify students’ fees, or degree courses that end up with significant numbers of graduates in non-graduate jobs, critics of the sector will feel the wind in their sails. That is why we introduced the Teaching Excellence Framework, which for the first time holds universities to account for student outcomes. And it is why we have set out legislation that makes it easier for universities to offer the two-year courses that so many students want.
Today I will be speaking to vicechancellors at the annual Universities UK conference. I will set out the next steps in our university reforms, with measures to strengthen the Teaching Excellence Framework and tackle worrisome degree inflation. I will also set out plans to restrain the spiralling growth in senior pay and boost confidence in the work of remuneration committees.
We have the opportunity to build on the achievements of the past 25 years and create a high-quality, diverse, innovative, inclusive and sustainably funded higher education system for the next generation. It will be a system that embraces accountability and can confidently stand up to the most acute scrutiny. It could be the envy of the world. It is vital that we address the concerns I have raised if we are to grasp that prize, which is so essential for the future of Britain.