Universities produce the doctors, nurses, engineers, scientists, sociologists, teachers, economists, writers and thinkers that our society couldn’t function without. They produce research, manufacture vaccines, respond to economic and political crises and so much more.

The business model of education has completely failed. Universities are underfunded, jobs are insecure, working-class people and people of colour are shut out, the mental and physical health of both staff and students has been degraded, politicians have straw-manned universities as battlegrounds in their deranged culture wars - all while the market model fails on its own terms. Individual spending power is hampered by debt few will realistically pay back, restricting economic growth and placing a ticking time bomb under our economy.

There is a much simpler, tried and tested, way. We need to publicly fund higher education, provide it as a public good and a human right – just like we do with the NHS and with primary and secondary education – just like many countries across Europe and around the world do. We need a model that is sustainable, that is fair and that restores the integrity and true value of education in our society.

We note:
• The UK needs a competitive advantage in a rapidly changing global economy. This requires training more graduates to meet demand by employers and society.
• The UK’s reputation for higher education is being eroded by underinvestment. HE is publicly funded in many countries across the world, the UK is an outlier in Europe.
• The market model has totally failed. The UK has one of the highest student debt rates - 75% of graduates will never repay all their debts according to the IFS. This is economically illiterate - student debt is likely to be the next 2008 housing bubble if we continue with this system.
• The current system is also antithetical to social mobility and social justice as accruing future debt has been shown to be a major deterrent for many students, particularly working-class students and students of colour.

We're calling for:
• Abolishing tuition fees - fully funding HE from taxation including corporation tax
• Restoring maintenance grants to cover hidden costs e.g. accommodation, books, materials, transport and graduation.
• Phasing out current student debt.
• Rejecting the idea differential costs / funding between courses – all courses have social value.
• Increasing equitable public funding in research across all disciplines.
• Secure contracts and increased pay for all staff, including teaching assistants.
• Expanding the use of contextual admissions.
• A funding model that embraces diversity and internationalism but prevents exploitation of or discrimination against either international or domestic students.
• A community wealth building programme, including universities as anchor bodies.

Rationale:
• HE is publicly funded by many countries across the world, including Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Greece, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Malta, India, Russia, Mexico, New Zealand, Brazil and many more. The UK is an outlier in Europe.
• Denmark also offers a monthly stipend, similar to a maintenance grant. This recognises the value of education and of students / graduates in society as well as allowing students to reduce their part-time work to what is manageable, focusing on their studies, and addresses financial and welfare struggles that students face.
• While no universities in Norway charge tuition fees, The University of Oslo charges a small fee of 600kr (£50) per semester which goes to the Foundation for Student Life (an Oslo-based student welfare organisation). This subsidises kindergartens, health services, housing, cultural initiatives, the weekly student newspaper and student radio station. Students are also charged a copy and paper fee of 200kr (~£16). Students may also donate a voluntary sum of 40kr (~£3) to a charity that supports access to education globally.
• Education is a basic right to which we’re all entitled. We provide public funding for primary and secondary education so why not tertiary?
• Current, rapid economic and technological trends make the expansion of accessible, affordable and flexible tertiary education more important than ever.
• In a competitive global economy, in which the UK has outsourced most of its traditional manufacturing sector, it must invest in producing a workforce to sustain its newer competitive advantages in science and technology, financial and legal services and social policy research.
• The UK enjoys a reputation as the home of some of the world’s finest universities. This is being eroded by underfunding teaching and research, inaccessibility, diminishing post-graduation opportunity, increasing post-graduation debt, staff insecurity and loss of talent and the declining wellbeing of staff and students.
• The UK has some of the highest rates of student debt. The average student graduates with ~£40,000 debt plus £2,500 annual interest. This threatens the entire economy as it reduces individual spending power. Ending debt repayments for a whole generation would be an enormous boom for economic growth. The student debt bubble will eventually burst like the sub-prime mortgage bubble that caused the 2008 recession.
• Many students do not attend university because they cannot afford it. Though overall numbers of students have generally risen over recent decades, the fear of future debt has been stated as a deterrent for those from working class backgrounds, people of colour and would-be mature students. This also contributes to poor mental health as students place ever-greater pressure on themselves in the present and look ahead to diminished income and opportunity in the future.
• The Institute for Fiscal Studies claims that 75% of graduates will never repay all their debts (an average write-off of £30,000).
• The government can change, and has changed, the terms of loans retrospectively, such as lowering the repayment threshold for current debt-holding graduates.
• Given how fees were initially set at £1000 – £3000 and have since risen astronomically, merely reducing them rather than replacing fees entirely with an alternative funding model is short-sighted and likely to be short-lived. A mere reduction would also fail to address the deterrent effect of future debt which narrows participation and continue to regard education as a private commodity rather than a public good.

Myth Busting:
• “It’s too expensive”.
Replacing fees with public funding would cost ~£8bn per year. For context, the government has been accused of writing off over £4bn lost through fraud while tens of billions have been lost through error, evasion and avoidance. That’s before we even start looking at how different political decisions could be made regarding the government’s budget. There’s a lot more than enough money to go around. Budgets are about priorities – we shouldn’t allow public services to be pitted against each other while billions are wasted elsewhere.

Another option is to raise corporation tax on the wealthiest enterprises that benefit most from a steady supply of graduates.

We should rule out a graduate tax. This would lead to many of the same downsides of the current system while also likely being unworkable. How do we recover money from students who move abroad after graduation or from international students who return home? How sure can we be that a graduate is going to walk into a high-paying job so soon after graduation in the current economy? If the economy takes a prolonged dip then those tax revenues are going to decline.

How do other countries afford it? What if we dismissed all public services as unaffordable – what if we scrapped public funding of primary and secondary education or the NHS or roads and bridges or the emergency services?

• “Other countries have fewer students / larger GDPs than we do”.
This is true of some countries that publicly fund education, and not true of others. Even if it was entirely true, it doesn’t change the reasons above to value and invest in education. Again, budgets are about priorities – other countries have prioritised education spending while the UK budgets tens of billions for tax evasion and avoidance. Let’s get a grip of what our society actually needs to function properly and fairly.

• “Scrapping tuition fees would be regressive. Publicly funding universities is a tax cut for the rich and a tax rise for the poor.”
This argument is that it’s unfair for people to contribute to something that they don’t directly benefit from, the burden should be shouldered by graduates who earn more. This is based on a number of misconceptions. Education is a public good that indirectly benefits all of us. For example, I am happy to contribute to the NHS in the knowledge that I or a loved one are likely to need it one day – I’m therefore also happy to contribute to the training of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and researchers. I want my kids to get a good education and so I’m happy to contribute to the training of teachers. And so on.

There is room to discuss how exactly education is publicly funded - public funding doesn’t have to mean a tax rise for everyone; it could come from corporation tax, for example.

I have additional reasons to act in self-interest: it benefits me if graduates are able to spend and grow the economy rather than drowning in debt; my kids might be students one day and I want them to enjoy education without being saddled with debt for decades to come; it benefits me for the government to act pre-emptively on a large debt bubble before it bursts since it’s not realistic that a graduate will actually be able to pay these fees back; it benefits me to have the option of studying and retraining in the back pocket when the economy shifts and my sector blows up. Greater equality has been shown to improve health, reduce crime and a host of other benefits that improve life for all of us.

• “Students should just get a job”.
This argument can only apply to maintenance costs as it’s simply impossible for all but the very wealthy to pay tuition fees up front. But nobody is making an argument that students shouldn’t get a job alongside their studies. We need to dispel this fantasy of the lazy, workshy student who drinks all night and sleeps all day. Students work incredibly hard to get qualifications that will open opportunities for themselves and to give back to society. A part-time job to get by is fine but students shouldn’t have to take on excessive hours alongside studying (which is effectively a full-time job itself), sacrificing their grades and affecting their mental health. Students are no different from any other group in society that’s struggling in the current economic model – we shouldn’t be pitting one group against the other, we need to build an economy that works for all of us.

• “What about further education, apprenticeships and other vocational routes?”
They shouldn’t be in competition. We need adequate funding, greater interconnection and parity of status for both further and higher education so everyone can choose the path that’s best for them.