In business and finance the phrase “a rising tide floats all boats” is well understood. It is hard to tell who is doing well and who is underperforming when everyone is floating on a rising cash tide that hides any short comings. The financier Warrant Buffet completed the analogy in his homespun way by pointing out that “a falling tide then shows who’s not wearing trunks”.
Universities have enjoyed a remarkable rising tide of growth and finance ever since Tony Blair’s oft derided 1999 ambition to put 50% of under 30 year olds through a university education. An ambition which might have strained the public and university finances had Charles Clarke, as Education Secretary not succeeded by the tiniest of majorities, to introduce £3000 fees with income contingent loans and David Cameron’s government not then raised the cap to £9000. After Mrs Thatcher took away middle class entitlements to mortgage relief here was a second conservative administration taking away free middle class higher education – and Nick Clegg got the blame.
It often surprises me how misunderstood these huge reforms were and the significant change they represent, and also how big the research changes driven by Lord Sainsbury and others in research brought more world class success and funding.
Looking from the inside too many people in higher education can only see how untidy the fees and loans repayment systems is, how big the debt is growing, how administratively complex the REF was and the horrors they see in the TEF. They worry about overseas student numbers as they have since Mrs Thatcher first introduced fees in 1981 amid predictions of calamity. Government (all governments) unspoken policy since however remains that while most British Citizens resent the cost, they will pay it while doubting its value, while most overseas student parents and sponsors will pay what it takes, because they understand the value. Vice Chancellors have quietly worked on this basis.
The overseas students from Europe and beyond kept coming, making up 13% of the student population but by some estimates 30% of the revenue, more in places like the LSE. And despite visa restrictions hitting students from India, students coming from China kept the tide high.
Our Vice Chancellors have played a blinder over the past 18 years and their institutions have come through this age of austerity almost unscathed and in world class shape. Meanwhile Police and Local Government, Prisons and other public services have been cut, real cuts of up to 25% and a major hospital trust – yes part of the NHS – the South London NHS Trust, was even put into administration to encourage the others.
Lets hope that amid the years of plenty funds were put aside, invested or nurtured for the future famine because if the tide does turn, with Brexit; fewer 18 year olds; alternative apprenticeships; shortfalls in one of the biggest university cohorts – nurses – or any falloff in hugely profitable business studies, it may turn fast and then we may then see who is not wearing swimming trunks.
By Neil Stewart
Editorial Director
The Education Studio
