Higher Education

My Lords, I declare a serial interest as chancellor of two universities; namely, Newcastle and Oxford. I welcome my fellow colonial oppressor in initiating this debate. The number of noble Lords who wish to take part suggests that we should talk about higher education more frequently. The quality of the knowledge and experience of those taking part suggests that the Government should listen hard to this debate. I follow directly two points made by the noble Lord, Lord Luce, at the outset of this debate. I want to speak about funding and access. We have, by common consent, some of the best universities in the world. The general argument is that we have the second-best higher education system in the world. I worry that those achievements are threatened by what the noble Lord referred to: the proportion of GDP that we spend on higher education in this country, which is below the OECD average. Astonishingly, the American public sector spends a higher proportion of GDP on higher education than we do. We know that higher education is the main source of research in this country. Given that, we recognise that there are only three ways of funding higher education. The taxpayer can do it through public spending; it can be done through benefactions and philanthropy; or it can be done by the student paying more money towards his or her education in tuition fees. Sad as it may be, I do not believe that higher education will achieve a higher priority in public spending arguments over the next few years. The Government cannot duck the consequences of this fact. I do not see that happening with this Government, and I would be surprised if it happens after the election when, I hope, there will be a Government of a different political party. In those circumstances, we have to look hard at the question of tuition fees. It is not, as the noble Lord said, a question of universities opting for independence; they are already independent. It is a question of facing a financial reality. When we do so, it is important that universities do all they can to increase their endowments, so that they can have more generous bursaries in order to ensure that when there are higher tuition fees—as I think there will be—there is needs-blind admission to our universities. Secondly, the noble Lord said that when he went to university, 4 per cent of his age group went into higher education. When I went a few years later, the figure was 6 per cent. Since then, as the noble Lord indicated, it has increased just over sevenfold. While that has happened, there is no indication that there has been much of an impact on the universities’ role in social inclusion. Even today, young people from the most advantaged 20 per cent of country are five or six times more likely to go to university than young people from the 20 per cent of most disadvantaged areas. That should matter to all of us. It matters because of the impact of a university education on a lifetime’s earnings, remuneration, and so on. It also matters because of the widening and deepening of opportunity that a university education should—and, I hope, usually does—ensure. Universities are well aware of this issue of widening participation. They do not need to be harried by anybody, not least Governments, into facing up to some of these questions. The universities that I know best are very active in this field. Newcastle has a Partners Programme, although, perversely, the fact that it allows slightly lower admission grades for young people who have been through summer schools as part of the Partners Programme, counts against it in league tables for the medical school and elsewhere, which is crazy. Oxford University spends £1.8 million, and rising, on trying to improve access and encouraging people from more disadvantaged backgrounds to opt for it. The one thing which it seems to me we must not do is dilute the standards that our higher education institutions set. The best answer to broadening access is to do more about the disparity of education or achievement in our secondary schools. Universities can make a contribution to this, but I do not believe that they would do anyone a favour if they decided that they should lower their own standards to help make up for some of the problems in secondary education. I hope that the Government recognise that, while of course insisting that it is important for all of us to try to encourage as broad an access as possible to higher education.