Russell Group on HE fees and funding

The Russell Group has today released its first submission to the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding.  Student leaders are outraged that the report suggests an increase in debt repayment rates, lower repayment thresholds for graduates, and a real interest rate on loans.

photo by a.drian

photo by a.drian

The report says:

“Increasing the rate of repayment will have an impact on the size of the contributions made by the lowest, as well as the highest earners.  However, it might be argued that the current repayment rate is generous, and that it might reasonably be increased without putting undue pressure on low earners.”

Professor Michael Arthur, Chair of the Russell Group, said on Radio 4 that they have taken the “big picture issue” and looked at many different ways of funding HE.

Sadly, many funding methods and savings mechanisms are largely dismissed in favour of increasing the burden on students/graduates.

I say ‘students/graduates’, because Michael Arthur also said that “It’s not the students who pay back…It’s the graduates when they’re earning over £15,000.”

Okay, so graduates pay back.  But they were students.  And it was necessary for them to be students and to receive loans in order to  become graduates.  I don’t personally feel it’s important to take the term ‘student’ subjectively here by suggesting the student doesn’t pay back.  The discussion is about individual people.  The individual pays back.

I’m sure the individual is more concerned with the amount they’re expected to repay, as opposed to the importance over being called a ‘student’ or a ‘graduate’.

Going back to the report, the Russell Group looks at the following funding improvements and opportunities:

  • income from efficiency savings;
  • income from private sources;
  • endowments and charitable donations;
  • business income;
  • international activity.

They conclude that these elements provide only limited help and are not significant enough on their own.  It appears that the only  feasible solution is from an increase in money from students/graduates.  By paying back earlier and/or at a higher rate of interest, HE funding would be greatly helped, they argue.

The report doesn’t go the whole hog by suggesting a higher fees cap, but as Times Higher Education explains:

“The paper suggests that there are only three ways to offset the projected deficit among Russell Group members: cutting staff numbers, raising fees for home undergraduates and increasing fees for students from outside the European Union.

“The document then goes on to explain how cutbacks and fee hikes for non-EU students would fail to remedy the situation.”

No alternative funding systems are discussed, such as the graduate tax proposed by NUS, or a Business Education Tax as proposed  by UCU.  What impact does the Russell Group feel these alternatives would have?  Do they believe the current system is the only feasible one?  If so, why has there been such chronic underfunding, as they report?

One important aspect of the Russell Group’s report is where it argues that academic attainment before the age of 18 is “the most important factor in whether a  student will go on to higher education”.  It has been suggested that “educational inequality begins at a very young age” and I do believe this is a major issue.

While the Russell Group highlights that many countries are investing more in HE, they also cite a recent CBI report that suggests funding will come under ‘severe pressure’ in coming years at the very time when universities will need to keep up their competitiveness.

Unfortunately, the CBI report recommends “increasing support for universities through making savings in the student support system and increasing private investment, both from businesses and students”.

At some point, something will give.  While governments in many other countries are investing in the future of their HE establishments, we  face tougher times through less funding.  Not only should we fight this, but also fight for a fairer funding system altogether.  As UCU reports, “we need more imaginative ways to raise the necessary funds” to support HE.

The Russell Group’s second submission to the funding review is released on Monday, so we’ll see where that takes us…

Graduation Rap

The whirl of life, inspiration, doing what you want, breaking rules…I found this “Class of 2010 Graduation Song” and wanted to share it here.

Full of hope, full of push, full of win:

“Know who you are, own it, cuz u worthy.”

“Dreams are better as goals, written down.”

“The best job I got right now…I created it.”

“Even if your pants sagging you can make it happen.”

“Be who you are…yourself…no one else.”

Quality.

The whirl of life and doing what you want

My life has whirled in so many directions over the past fortnight.  Up, down, left, right, high, low, upside down, inside out.

(That’s before you even include the election madness that’s been going on.)

I’ve been all over the place…mainly in a good way.

And that’s how it should be.

How can you be inspired by the world around you if you don’t experience it?  How would you aspire to greater things if you didn’t seek out new opportunity and step outside your comfort zone?

A number of issues stop you from doing exactly what you want:

  • External rules;
  • Supposed rules;
  • Self-imposed rules;
  • Fear;
  • Peer/Family expectations;
  • Time factors;
  • Your current situation and limitations.

photo by Ed.ward

photo by Ed.ward

Rules

The only rules that should set you back in any major way are legal ones.  Most laws are perfectly reasonable, so I’ll skip over the not so reasonable laws and case studies.

Other rules may change the level of success you achieve, but you can’t tell the future.  There’s no way to tell whether rules are helpful or there to be broken.

Great artists, musicians, composers, scientists, explorers, thinkers, and writers have deliberately broken established rules again and again in order to create and discover new things. Discovery often comes from disproving what was believed in the past.  Discovery also comes from seeking new ways of doing something.  If everything followed one course, there would be no need to break rules and we would never encounter anything new.

Fear

What about fear?  Fear is a relation of perfection.  Stepping into the unknown is one of the biggest steps to take.  Subsequent moves are not covered with so much darkness.

As with perfection, you don’t want to get things wrong.  Fear stops you from doing something wrong in the darkness.

A side effect of fear is that you do nothing right in the darkness either.  You do nothing at all.

Some fear isn’t worth fearing and it’s easy to get the odds wrong.  Is it time you took that risk?

Expectations

There there are expectations.  All of us have an opinion.  Would I do things differently to you?  Probably.  Not necessarily because I think you’re wrong, but because we all do things differently.  You would likely do things differently to me too.

It’s one thing to seek advice, but it’s another thing to feel a block after hearing advice that goes against what you had planned to do.  Eye-opening advice is fair game, but feeling pressure to do what someone else says is pointless.  There’s no use feeling guilty that you aren’t following a suggestion unless you were totally persuaded by it.

Time

As for time factors, I’ve covered time in depth in the past with my Make Time for Time series.  I also recommend Cal Newport’s articles on the Radical Simplicity Manifesto and becoming a Zen Valedictorian.  Time isn’t always on your side, but you have more power to control it and more time at your disposal than you realise.

Your current situation

The last block is that of your current situation.  It’s one of the few factors that can scupper those otherwise wonderful plans.  But you have two tools at your command:

  1. Compromise;
  2. Change.

In a relationship, both sides need to show an element of compromise.  Same with most things that don’t solely affect you.  If the other side is unwilling to budge, you must decide whether to accept it, seek an alternative way around the problem, or use the second tool of change.

What if you are unwilling to budge? Accept that not everything is possible.  You have to forego something until you’re happy to make that change.

Change is more easily said than done.  That all-important second tool is freely at your disposal, yet is such a deceptive beast.

Tools don’t usually do the job for you.  Same with using change.  The most proficient and skilled of users show off their achievements while you watch in awe.  Until you begin mastering change, you won’t be able to use it to full advantage.

Annoyingly, change doesn’t come with instructions and everyone tends to use it somewhat differently.  However, effective change begins when you ask how important your plans are compared to your current circumstances.  When those new plans feel more important and give you more drive, change becomes a lot easier to control.

Rules to break

I’ll conclude with some rules:

  • Most rules can (and often should) be broken;
  • Not all rules are strictly rules, except in your head;
  • Fear is sometimes necessary, but must be conquered, ready for you to encounter the next fear;
  • Place greatest importance on your own expectations;
  • Don’t knock yourself down if expectations don’t work out as you wished;
  • Develop your relationship with time. Only stop developing that relationship when time stops…Time hasn’t stopped yet;
  • Be prepared to change your situation.

The last two weeks may have been different for me, but I don’t view it as a bad thing.  You know what’s funny?  Through all my new encounters, I found even more inspiration toward the things I’m already engaged with and passionate about.  You can be inspired by the strangest (and most simple) of things.

Be on the lookout for inspiration everywhere you go and in everything you do.  May the whirl of activity never end.

Making your own decision should be a DIY job.

Just because ‘everyone else does it’ doesn’t mean you should join in.  It may be ‘everyone’ around you drinking heavily and partying regularly, it may be ‘everyone’ procrastinating on purpose, it may be ‘everyone’ moaning about the state of the course without actively trying to change things.

Whatever you see ‘everyone’ doing, don’t be afraid to make your own decision.  If you want to do something else, do something else.  When it doesn’t affect anyone but yourself, make the choice your own.

photo by andrewatla

photo by andrewatla

Shunning the popular choice may be difficult and uncomfortable.  Doubly so if your decision means giving up something you enjoy or challenging yourself to work harder.  Remember, the popular choice doesn’t automatically make it the best choice.

It’s fine to forego the odd social outing or event.  Even entirely respectable activities can be dropped in favour of enhanced focus, or a calmer lifestyle.  Do you really need to be an active member of 7 societies, volunteering for 2 causes, and keeping down a part-time job, all while trying to stay on top of study?

Grasping what is truly important is harder than it seems.  No wonder we look to ‘everyone’ for some sort of approval.

The decisions we make are never simple, because we — consciously or unconsciously — weigh up a number of issues that shouldn’t matter to us, yet do.  It’s common to live in fear of disappointing another person, causing unintentional embarrassment or offence, and even destroying solid relationships that you’ve built up.

In other words, you don’t want to get things wrong.

But everyone gets stuff wrong all the time.  The greatest people to have lived have done some incredibly dumb stuff too.  And I’m sure they’d be first to admit it, even if they weren’t first to explain the acts in detail!

Don’t be scared of doing dumb things.  You’ll only end up doing nothing at all.  As crazy as the world seems, there are two major reasons why people cross the line:

  1. They cross the line intentionally. They weren’t scared of doing a dumb thing;
  2. Your version of ‘crossing the line’ is their ‘normal’. They didn’t even consider it a dumb thing.

The line is not fixed.  The line is an illusion.

No matter what you do, someone will think you’re going too far and someone else will think you’re not going far enough.  You need to be happy that you’re making the right decisions for you, not for other people.  You still need to think your actions through; it’s how other people may feel that should be given less weighting.  If your decision doesn’t directly affect other people, make it a do-it-yourself job all the way.

How have you moved away from an otherwise popular situation?  Have you taken a different attitude and found it worked to your advantage?