Clause 23 - Condition that may be requried to be imposed by English funding bodies
Higher Education Bill
9:45 am
Mr Phil Willis (Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Education & Skills; Harrogate and Knaresborough, Liberal Democrat)
Is it not true that one of the great premises of the proposals is future earning potential? That is a huge break with our view of what higher education has traditionally been about. Does the hon. Lady not agree that if we consider the university degrees taken by the hon. Members in this Room, we will find that it would have been impossible for any of them to predict that they would be earning £56,000—or £200,000 in the case of the Minister? It is nonsense to say that it is possible to predict at 18 what someone's future earnings will be 10 to 15 years later. We do not know where our degrees will take us or where our careers will end up.