The higher education sector is in Liverpool around the fringes of Labour Party Conference – but its arguments are getting a little lost.
That’s not a reflection on some of the high quality discussions that have taken place or the room bookings made, but about the increasingly tired and fuzzy asks being advanced.
It’s easy to hear calls for more investment – but harder to work out exactly who or what would benefit from it, and how much it might actually cost.
As such the “please sir, can I have some more” message is fading into the background of a cacophony of calls from every bit of austerity-hit Britain. The return of maintenance grants, improving per-student funding, easing the burdens on graduates – they all seem to be falling on distinctly deaf ears, and none of them seem to have any hard numbers attached.
