This article argues that the current funding model for UK universities is unsustainable and needs to be reformed. It highlights the increasing reliance on student fees and the decreasing role of government grants, suggesting that this has led to a disconnect between the value of a university education and its cost.
I graduated from university more than a decade ago with thousands of pounds of student loan debt and a degree in politics to show for it. A degree which no employer has ever asked about in any job interview I’ve done since. I’d be willing to bet many other graduates who spent thousands on their courses in subjects like mine had a similar experience. That’s not to say that university didn’t teach me things I find useful in my job as a journalist.
But on reflection, shutting a group of sixth-form students in a room with a stack of university prospectuses probably wasn’t the best way to lock us in to thousands of pounds of debt in the years after. From sixth-form colleges to politicians to universities themselves, we could all be a bit more honest about the cost and the value of the higher education sector in the UK. Sir Keir Starmer has admitted that universities are broken, calling them part of our “crumbling public realm”. The Education Secretary Bridget Philipson hasn’t denied thatYet despite a willingness to accept that the way universities are funded isn’t working, the broader conversation about what they’re for and who gets the most out of them is something politicians don’t seem willing to engage with. We are missing the why.. Research from the House of Commons Library shows that over more than a decade the way universities are paid for has changed, with student fees now making up over 50 per cent of income from 2019, compared to 24 per cent in 2005. Over the same period, central Government grants fell from 39 per cent to around 12 per cent, with institutions much more reliant on income from student
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