There’s one certainty about higher education funding in Wales: whatever you say about it, someone will shoot you down in flames. (And there will be more heat than light.)
Five years ago, we published a paper, Is ‘progressive universalism’ the answer? The new student funding arrangements in Wales, which pointed out that – despite enjoying broad support – the new student funding package in Wales was flawed. Specifically, we showed how the poorest students were left worse off in terms of cash-in-hand than their older siblings had been under the previous system.
We also showed the new system was regressive and wasteful, with many resources going to the richest students. This was because there was no longer any expectation that even the very richest parents would contribute towards their student offspring’s living costs. Students from the richest households could even get a grant as well as the maximum maintenance loan.
Our work received lots of media coverage and appeared as front-page news in in the Western Mail under the headline ‘New debt warning for Wales’ students’. This level of impact is the holy grail for think tanks.
