A prominent vice-chancellor has questioned whether students without A-levels should be eligible for government-backed student loans, as part of an effort to solve England’s university funding crisis.
Adam Tickell, chancellor of the University of Birmingham, said universities face an “almost existential challenge” and a decline in public support that requires a radical review of higher education funding.
Tickell told a conference in London: “We have a system where more state money is coming in, students are in more debt and universities are on the brink of failure.
“In terms of the taxpayer, the provider and the student, the system is just not working… I don’t think tightening the margins is really going to fix things.”
Tickell said a review should look at qualifications such as A-levels or equivalents that students need to successfully undertake a university degree, and said loans should not be available to those who lack the qualifications needed to complete their courses.
“We’re getting students without a single A-level or equivalent access to the student loan book,” Tickell said, adding: “We’re investing a lot of money in people who… aren’t really capable of graduating.”
Tickell is the first major higher education figure to publicly question the policy of automatically giving domestic students access to government-backed loans now averaging £53,000 per graduate.
Any first-time student in England admitted to a university is eligible for loans to pay tuition and fees, and around a third of all school leavers go straight to university. But successive governments have allowed tuition fees to be eroded by inflation, causing universities to suffer significant losses in teaching domestic undergraduates.
The tuition and board loan system since 2012 has also suffered a backlash from graduates saddled with mounting debt, as the government tweaks repayment terms amid a sluggish job market.
Speaking at a British Academy conference, Tickell said: “Now is the time to ask: what do the public want from universities? How do we want to fund it? How many people do we want to go to university? And I think those are really difficult questions, because as providers, it’s difficult enough.”
Universities had attempted to repair their budgets by accepting more international students, using the higher fees to subsidize domestic teaching and research. But government visa restrictions have made it difficult to attract international students, creating more financial headaches.
Tickell said: “We could have a government that is completely hostile to the sector and unless we have some answers we could be in real trouble.”
Philip Augar, who led the 2019 review of higher education funding in England, told the conference that tuition costs should be split between students and the government, as planned in 2012, when university fees were first raised to £9,000 a year.
“Some graduates now pay 70% in loans, others pay 83%; this is not 50-50, this is the privatization of university education,” Augar said, describing the situation as “unfair and wrong.”
But Vivienne Stern, chief executive of Universities UK chancellors’ group, said she did not want another review of higher education funding, given the government’s recent white paper on post-16 education.
Stern said: “It’s too feverish and unpredictable to open a Pandora’s box when we don’t know what we’re asking for… If we’re going to end up with a review, then the focus should be strictly limited.”
