After a record-breaking three months in terms of engagement with HEPI’s output, we’re pausing the HEPI daily blog for the Easter weekend. But before we temporarily drop off your radar, I want to return briefly to that old chestnut of student number controls.
The issue was under constant debate in 2022. It hasn’t gone away in 2023 but is perhaps not being considered as much as it should be.
- For example, the pros and cons of Scotland’s student funding model, with no fees for local students staying in Scotland but tight number caps, barely featured in the recent election to become the new First Minister.
- Meanwhile, south of the border Labour are suspiciously quiet about what they plan to do if their long-held and large poll lead translates into a majority in the House of Commons at the next general election. They’ve hinted they are more supportive of the absence of number controls in England than they were at the time the Conservatives were lifting them – it’s like Keith Joseph’s ratchet effect in action. But if Labour are going to tackle the high fees they say they so dislike (and boost student maintenance too?), they need to save money somewhere and until they come up with a costed student funding policy, the return of number caps must remain a real possibility.
- At the same time, the Westminster Government has itself formally consulted upon the return of student number caps and has kept us all on tenterhooks for a year on whether it will proceed with the policy or not. (The original consultation came on the back of the Augar report which was published in 2019. I know higher education policy can be slow but the school pupils applying to higher education when the Augar report came out graduated last summer. That’s how snail-like higher education policy has been in recent years, thanks to all the political turmoil.)
