The Headlines
British higher ed post election
The UK’s July 4 election produced what was seen as an expected result. With a change of government, what can British universities expect?
By John O’Leary
Polling showed that universities were low on voters’ list of priorities, and respondents were more likely to want a cut in the tuition fees than an increase.
Higher education was conspicuous by its absence as a headline issue in the UK election, which produced a crushing victory for the Labour Party on July 4. Virtually the only mention of universities in the Conservative manifesto was a promise to close courses with poor employment records in order to fund 100,000 more apprenticeships. Labour, meanwhile, was more positive about higher education, but less clear about its intentions.
The election has come at a time of great uncertainty for UK universities. Those in England have not been allowed to raise their fees for home undergraduates since 2017 and have been caught up in the often toxic debate about immigration as they relied on the higher fees paid by international students to plug the funding gap. The Conservative government’s decision to bar the dependents of many international students from accompanying their partners has led to a slump in demand for places which could propel some towards closure.
With both of the main parties restricting their spending commitments in the face of a looming “black hole” in the funding of existing plans, there was little chance of a new settlement for higher education. Polling showed that universities were low on voters’ list of priorities, and respondents were more likely to want a cut in the tuition fees than an increase, while anything that could be interpreted as weakness on immigration was to be avoided.
The Liberal Democrats and the Green Party were both more generous towards higher education and its students, but neither was going to be in a position to form a government. The right-wing Reform Party was predictably hostile to universities but, despite further disrupting an already disastrous Conservative campaign, it admitted that it was looking to the next election to influence policy.
“It’s a good thing that there isn’t a lot of detail on higher education in the manifesto because it might not have been very helpful.”
By the time Universities UK (UUK), the sector’s representative body, held its annual Political Affairs conference mid-way through the campaign, the opinion polls were pointing to a Labour landslide and delegates were focused almost exclusively on whether the party would be more positive in government than it had been in its manifesto. The Conservatives’ threat to change the law to allow the Office for Students (OfS) to ban recruitment to courses with the highest drop-out and unemployment rates, potentially transferring over £900m to apprenticeships, hardly featured. Nor did the modest increase in research funding promised in the party’s manifesto.
Labour’s manifesto acknowledged that UK universities are “globally respected” and added: “Labour will continue to support the aspiration of every person who meets the requirements and wants to go to university. We recognise that UK higher education creates opportunity, is a world-leading sector in our economy, and supports local communities.
“To better integrate further and higher education, and ensure high-quality teaching, Labour’s post-16 skills strategy will set out the role for different providers, and how students can move between institutions, as well as strengthening regulation. We will act to improve access to universities and raise teaching standards.”
Most significantly, the manifesto also said: “The current higher education funding settlement does not work for the taxpayer, universities, staff, or students. Labour will act to create a secure future for higher education and the opportunities it creates across the UK. We will work with universities to deliver for students and our economy.”
Unlike the Liberal Democrats, Labour did not promise a review to come up with an alternative to the £9,250 paid by home undergraduates through loans from the state. But newly elected Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, once an advocate of abolishing fees altogether, is still critical of the system and claimed during the campaign that he would not have afforded to go to university under current conditions.
Although vague on implementation, the manifesto had promised to “create a secure future for higher education and the opportunities it creates across the UK” and said it would “work with universities to deliver for students and our economy”. It also made a commitment to “scrap short funding cycles for key R&D institutions in favour of 10-year budgets that allow meaningful partnerships with industry to keep the UK at the forefront of global innovation”, as well as a promise to “work with universities to support spin-outs”.
Many students and academics were disappointed that after finding themselves on the receiving end of the so-called Culture Wars and suffering an unsustainable funding system under the Conservatives, there was not a clearer path to normality promised by Labour. But the party’s strategy in the run-up to the election was to promise as little as possible as the Conservatives imploded, and to leave maximum flexibility in government.
Vivienne Stern, UUK’s chief executive, was delighted not to be tied down by manifesto commitments. She told the Political Affairs conference: “It’s a good thing that there isn’t a lot of detail on higher education in the manifesto because it might not have been very helpful.”
Instead, she believes universities will have scope for negotiation from Labour’s acknowledgement of their importance and the “clear reflection that we have a problem with the financial sustainability of the system”. Indeed, she hopes for extra leverage from the tacit recognition that higher education faces a funding crisis – “the most hair-raising and, for some institutions, existential battle that we’ve ever been involved in".
Sue Gray, Sir Starmer’s chief of staff, included the closure of one or more universities on a “shit list” of six potential crises in the first 100 days of a Labour government. Stern has not outlined a detailed route to avoid such an eventuality, but she will press for index-linking of fees, a “stable basis” for international student recruitment and a longer-term settlement for research funding. UUK is planning its own White Paper on the role of university research in the economy and knowledge creation.
Ms Stern recognises that Labour’s entire programme depends on increased growth and is determined that universities should be at its heart. “A strong UK needs a strong university system, and we are essential to government as the engine of growth,” she says.
With courses already closing in many universities, however, there will be no time to lose for the new government. No fewer than 40 percent of universities expect to be in deficit at the end of 2023-4. A fall of 5 percent in international students would push this figure over 50 percent and a 20 percent drop would leave four-fifths of universities in deficit.
Mark Leach, a former Labour special advisor on higher education and now Editor in Chief of online British higher education magazine, Wonkhe, thinks that Labour’s enormous majority provides scope for a modest increase in the undergraduate fee that could save vulnerable institutions. Bridget Phillipson, now the Shadow Education Secretary, when challenged to rule out a fee increase in a TV interview during the campaign, said only that she “didn’t want to have to do it”, while in a subsequent interview she said that she did not expect immediate university bail-outs to be necessary, but “there are measures that can be taken to stabilise the sector that will be a day one priority.”
In an op-ed published on Wonkhe, Leach wrote: “My advice for an incoming Labour government this time is to use the timing of the election to their advantage. In the Autumn budget or ideally before, they should announce an urgent “get to safety” package that stems the tide of university financial losses with a modest fee rise to say £9,850, a fairer package for students and graduates, and a push that aligns higher education policy with national priorities, perhaps with some additional central funding via OfS – all to be delivered in the first months of a new government and heavily signalled in advance to help reassure prospective and current students, banks, employers and everyone else rightly concerned about the state of university finances.”
He added: “I don’t think anyone can realistically make a case that raising fees by say £600 per year, and keeping it underneath the presentationally difficult £10,000 threshold will cause any long-term problems for a Labour party sitting on a big majority. The opposition may oppose it because that’s what they tend to do, and those on the left who want fees abolished altogether won’t be happy either. But all of them will have lost an election, so that’s life.”
Such a course of action – which many vice-chancellors still see as improbable – would be likely to come at the cost of greater regulation or other measures designed to steer extra funding towards healthcare and other priority areas, as well as new moves to extend access to underrepresented groups. It would also be just the first stage in a broader reform of the higher education funding system, without which universities and students face continuing uncertainty.