University students should pay lower tuition fees but potentially repay up to 120 per cent of their graduate debt under a “social insurance” model for financing higher education, the architect of the 2006 top-up fees policy has argued.
Calling for a radical restructuring of the graduate loans system, Nicholas Barr, professor of public economics at the London School of Economics, told the Centre for Global Higher Education’s annual conference that a compromise between a graduate tax and the current loans system was needed to address inequities and funding shortfalls.
Speaking at the event in central London on 22 May, Professor Barr said it would be unfair to abolish tuition fees – at a likely cost of £10 billion, according to some estimates – because it would direct taxpayer money towards those from affluent backgrounds who are more likely to attend university.
Universities also could not expect to secure additional resources given the growing demands of the NHS and the higher costs of caring for an ageing population, added Professor Barr, an expert on higher education funding models whose research was influential in the Labour government’s decision to raise tuition fees to £3,000 a year in 2006.
