I have posted on this issue before, but I continue to find the coverage of the effects of fees on student applications somewhat misleading. Applications have gone down, yes, but it is important to remember that last year saw a huge surge in applications because it was the last chance to beat the new fee regime. Many students who might have chosen a gap year, or mature candidates who had been wondering for years whether to embark on a degree, would have applied in 2011 rather than hang on and pay much more in 2012. Because Scotland and Wales have adopted different fee policies, their applications did not surge last year and so have not declined this year.
If fees were the real cause of a decline in applications, then one would expect students from poorer families to be most deterred. But in fact, whereas applications are down by 8.8% overall, applications from the most disadvantaged fifth of the population are down by only 0.2%. (I wonder whether this relates to the fact that such students are generally less likely to take a gap year – I’m guessing that it was middle class students, foregoing a gap year, who contributed most to last year’s surge.)
It was frustrating to hear Will Hutton, on the Today programme, assert that they had chosen 2010 as a comparator rather than 2011 to allow for the surge effect last year. This seems illogical – the surge was caused by students applying a year earlier than they might otherwise have done , so of course 2012 figures will be down even compared to a ‘normal’ year (2010).
Pointing this out doesn’t make me a convert to the Coalition’s policies on fees (though I see this as an issue about which reasonable people might hold different views). I think the fee hike would have had a real impact on applications if the job climate wasn’t so depressed. When there are no alternatives on offer, there is nothing to tempt school leavers away from university. If the economy was more buoyant I suspect that fees might have nudged some students away from further study and into the world of work – and I think students from less traditional backgrounds, students for whom university is not a default rite of passage, would have been more likely to make that choice.
Although it seems, for the moment, that poorer students are not being put off university, there are other slightly more subtle factors in play which may work against them. This article in the Guardian summarises some of these issues well, analysing how the Government’s policies seem aimed to create a more stratified system, a ‘race to bottom’, as universities are encouraged to compete, not simply for thrifty students, but for the additional places on offer to institutions which set their fees low. But cheap doesn’t necessarily mean better value of course. Another worrying factor may have an impact on applications from less privileged students in a few years’ time. This is the huge fee rise for students taking FE courses – a route into HE for many – which I blogged about here.
