Clause 23 - Condition that may be requried to be imposed by English funding bodies

Part of Higher Education Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 9:45 am on 24 February 2004.

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Photo of Mrs Anne Campbell Mrs Anne Campbell Labour, Cambridge 9:45, 24 February 2004

The issue that bothers me is the market system being introduced into higher education in a way that will be damaging for students who are considering what three-year course to take. That is why I object to the Government's variable fees proposals.

I come now to differential income to universities, a point that was raised earlier. Some of the modern universities may have to charge lower fees to attract students to their courses, and statistics show that those higher education institutions are much better at attracting students from lower income backgrounds. They will therefore have a greater expenditure on bursaries, leaving them with few additional funds for teaching. It worries me that that will widen the gap between the elite and the modern universities.

The Association of University Teachers has compiled figures showing projections over a three-year period for the Russell group of universities and a group of modern universities. They assume that there are about 20,000 students in both groups, and that the percentage of courses charging the maximum top-up fee in the Russell group will be about 100 per cent. and in the modern group about 50 per cent. Over a three-year period that would lead to an advantage in income for the Russell group of £60 million more than that for the modern universities, taking into account the differential fee, the bursaries and all the other financial implications. That is a big difference and those of us who recognise that some universities are better than others want the standards to be raised throughout, rather than widening divisions between the top universities and the newer universities that have more difficulty in attracting students.