As Britain slashes its higher-education spending, two vice chancellors debate what the future holds for universities.

Reductions Present Opportunities for Reform

By David Eastwood

England’s universities are a huge success story. They include 30 of the world’s top 200 universities and are second only to those of the United States in terms of reputation, quality, and impact. Despite this success, English universities now face financial cuts as public spending in Britain is reduced and attempts are made to develop a more-affordable education system for taxpayers and the government.

These are challenging times for our universities, and we must face up to the new financial reality. On October 20, the government announced that public support for universities will be cut from £7.1-billion (about $11-billion) to £4.2-billion annually ($6.6-billion), a reduction of 40 percent over the next four years. These reductions are part of £83-billion in government-spending cuts seeking to decrease Britain’s significant budget deficit. Our challenge is fourfold: to maintain the high quality of our research and teaching; to offer a world-class student experience; to promote business growth and innovation; and to sustain opportunities for all who can benefit from studying at a university.

We need to be bold and imaginative in seeking alternative solutions to maintain first-rate universities. The spending cuts herald a period of financial turbulence for higher education, but they also present us with an opportunity. The best-run universities will seize this opportunity to reposition themselves, to increase the impact of their research and teaching, and to compete with the world’s leading universities.

Lord Browne’s Independent Review of University Funding and Student Finance, commissioned by the British government, recommended significant reform to the financing of English universities. If the recommendations are adopted by the government, they will allow universities to stabilize themselves around a new system. In this new system, no one will pay fees upfront. Yes, the cap on tuition would be abolished, but graduates—not students—would contribute to the cost of their education, and only when they are working and can afford it. The proposals offer a very good deal for students. There will be a generous system of support for student living, and grants for the least well-off will be increased. When families can contribute, they will; when they can’t, students will receive grants. All students will benefit from loans that are repaid only when they can afford to do so. Part-time students will enjoy the kind of support both for tuition and for living that today’s system denies them.

They present a fair and progressive way forward that will enable universities to provide a high-quality education on an affordable basis. They open the way to substitute the cuts in government financial support with graduate contributions, allowing us to strengthen our position in the global higher-education market. The reforms give students the ability to make an informed choice of where and what to study, and quality will be enhanced through increased competition. These proposals will mean that universities must provide open and transparent commitments to guarantee students the right kind of information, the right amount of teaching, and the right type of learning.

Some have argued against raising the cap on tuition fees, while not understanding how a progressive system would work and not appreciating the dire alternatives. We could radically reduce the number of students attending universities as one “solution,” but if we did, we would be the only developed country doing so. We could reduce the spending on teaching students, but that would mean that students got less for bigger classes, taught less often, in poorer facilities. If we did this, we would fail Britain’s own students and choke off the flow of fee-paying international students. A British success story would become a failure more or less overnight.

Lord Browne’s proposals, including lifting the cap on tuition fees, are the best way for England to maintain a high-quality, flexible university system that gives all who can benefit from higher education the opportunity to do so. If the government adopts these progressive recommendations, we will achieve the university system our country needs and our students deserve.

David Eastwood, vice chancellor of the University of Birmingham, served as a panel member of Lord Browne’s Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance.

Tuition Increases Can’t Make Up for Devastating Cuts

By David M.A. Green

In his speech introducing Britain’s four-year spending plans, George Osborne, chancellor of the Exchequer, used the word “fair” 24 times. As far as higher education is concerned, the package of deep cuts his coalition government plans is anything but fair.

Chancellor Osborne claims his blueprint for the changes is the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance, chaired by Lord Browne, the former chief executive of BP. The recommendations, published just a week before the government’s spending plans, contained some progressive proposals, notably giving part-time students access to the same financial-support system as those taking full-time courses. Lord Browne’s central proposal is to allow English universities to set their own tuition fees, which would be balanced by a more generous student-support system ensuring higher education was free at the time of use.

Unfortunately, these progressive elements in Lord Browne’s review have been torpedoed by the government’s decision to make very deep and damaging cuts in public spending for teaching in universities. Over all, government support for higher education is set to drop 40 percent by 2014-15, an unprecedented reduction. No increases in undergraduate enrollments are planned, despite last year’s record total of over 200,000 applicants who failed to secure a university place, up by a third, on the previous year’s record-breaking total. Furthermore, it is already clear that there is no majority in Parliament to allow universities to raise tuition fees as they see necessary. This combination of big cuts, limited opportunity, and incomplete reform will prove unfair for students, England’s universities, and society as a whole.

The new regime will be unfair to students because the new fees, likely to be £7,000 annually (about $11,000), will mean they graduate with total debts well in excess of their entire first year’s salary, before tax. It is estimated that many will not be able to repay after 30 years of employment! Just as unfair will be the position of the many well-qualified, would-be students who will be shut out of universities by the freeze in enrollments. Pay more or aim lower. What a way to treat our children.

The new regime will be unfair to universities, which face easily the biggest cuts being applied to any productive or educational organizations. Those institutions specializing in the liberal and creative arts will lose the bulk of their government-teaching funds.

The new regime will be unfair to cities and communities, which will see their local university diminish or even disappear. It will be unfair to society, as a whole, where the people rightly expect to benefit from a more educated, highly productive graduate population.

The people working in English universities have great strengths of creativity and character as well as expertise and excellence. Most universities will find a way forward and continue to offer the outstanding opportunities and first-class education for which England is renowned—but the environment will be much more difficult.

Because of these brutal cuts, the government’s national deficit-reduction program has turned into a debt-creation program for tomorrow’s graduates and a treacherous obstacle course for England’s universities. For Britain, a country that depends on the brains and skills of its people to earn its place in the world, this is as unwise as it is unfair.

David M.A. Green is vice chancellor of the University of Worcester.