UK universities should be paid a “Covid generation student premium” to help fund catch-up activities for undergraduates whose school education was blighted by the pandemic, a vice-chancellor has argued.
The proposal by Sasha Roseneil, vice-chancellor of the University of Sussex, is one of several ideas put forward in a new collection of essays by university leaders published by the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) on 2 October.
Addressing the “serious financial difficulty” faced by many institutions from the failure of tuition fees to keep pace with inflation, Professor Roseneil suggests seven ways in which “university funding could be increased without increasing student fees” – a policy, she argues, that would command public support if targeted correctly.
Her proposed “Covid generation student premium” would be paid for every UK undergraduate to provide “additional funding to make good the lost learning opportunities of lockdown”, focused on extra resources for training in academic skills and professional development. The per-student grant would also help to “embed the best changes in pedagogy and educational technologies that have emerged from the pandemic”, she says of the “equivalent of the pupil premium for undergraduates”, which would be higher for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
