Call for two-year degrees to cut student debt

UNIVERSITY degrees should be cut to two years to ease the debt burden on students, says a report backed by two former cabinet ministers.

Tory Owen Paterson and former Labour minister Lord Adonis accused universities of acting “like a cartel” to charge the maximum £9,250 a year.

The report, by Mr Paterson’s UK2020 think-tank, claimed the biggest winners from the current system had been university vice-chancellors, whose pay and perks now average almost £280,000.

In a joint foreword to the report, Mr Paterson and Lord Adonis backed the original concept of charging tuition fees, saying they were meant to put universities on a more independent financial footing. In return, universities were supposed to deliver better teaching, innovate and compete. But “for universities, growing the quantity of students and the money they get from them appear to be the key objectives – at the expense of quality.”

The report said total student debt would reach £1trillion in cash terms by the 2040s, with the taxpayer picking up the bill for unpaid loans. Student debt “has the potential to turn into a kind of Ponzi scheme”, the report warned. English students are “the most indebted in the world”, owing on average £50,000 by the time they graduate.

Calling for the “rapid and widespread introduction of two-year degrees” rather than the standard three-year courses, the report argued it would help “defuse the ticking time bomb of student discontent” about the cost and quality of courses.

“Many courses offer so little teaching they could easily be completed in two years,” the report said. “Motivated students could… go into the workplace a year earlier with debts up to £20,000 lower than their classmates.”

Sir Anthony Seldon, vice-chancellor of private institution Buckingham University, which offers two-year degrees, said: “The traditional model of three years at university is becoming a relic of the past.”