We asked experts in the sector whether they think the university funding system works well and what could be improved.
There is a threat to the quality of education students receive as a result of the real-terms decline of resource per student which has resulted in tuition fees being frozen for a long period of time. There is also the real and perceived unfairness of who pays for higher education, with a shifting of the burden onto students away from the Treasury, and a more regressive system because of the 2022 changes to repayment terms. Additionally, there is the difficulty of demonstrating value for money in terms of positive educational outcomes for publicly funded students.
The best way forward would be an explicit graduate tax, designed carefully to be progressive, combined with a larger proportion of university funding to come in the form of grants from the Treasury.
To restore confidence in the system and ensure that universities are making the most out of the resources they do have, funding should be linked more explicitly to independent quality assurance mechanisms such as some measure of learning gain. However, I am open minded and believe that there are a range of pragmatic improvements on the status quo.
