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The social cost of variable tuition fees | Martin Hall Variable tuition fees could penalise universities that offer the best chances to students from lower socioeconomic backgroundsThe Browne report is expected to offer, for the first time in Britain, the possibility of variable fees across all qualifications and universities. Within a few years, it may be possible to choose between similar qualifications priced at anything up to £10,000. This is unknown territory.When universities strategise about how to price their qualifications in a post-Browne world, the elephant in the room will be the annual league tables. What do the major league tables really measure? At first glance, quite a lot: entry standards, completion rates, student satisfaction, spending per student, research reputation. But the primary determinant of a university's position in a league table is the class profile of its students.This is demonstrated by adding one factor that none of the major league tables use, but which is readily available from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa): the proportion of students from each of the socioeconomic categories used by the Office of National Statistics to classify all working households in Britain.Hesa's records show that the average proportion of students from the lower four socioeconomic categories is 32.3% for all British universities, with a range from 57.2% (London Metropolitan University) to 11.5% (Oxford University).What happens if the proportion of students in each university from households in lower socioeconomic categories is correlated with the rank order of universities? We did this at Salford for this year's Times Good University Guide, and found a good level of statistical significance. In essence, the unacknowledged correlation that lies behind the Times Good University Guide is between the socioeconomic status of students' households and the A-level grades that a university is able to require of applicants in order to fill its available places.Simply, if depressingly, universities function at the far end of a process of selection that begins in primary school. The socioeconomic status of a household heavily influences whether its children will go to university at all, since only about 20% of young adults from the lower four socioeconomic categories go to university, in comparison to more than 50% from the upper three categories.League tables label a university "good" or "better" if it has a high score on a measure heavily influenced by the socioeconomic profile of a university's students. Because prior educational attainment is so strongly linked to socioeconomic category, a university in the top 10 of the Times Good University Guide will be dominated by students from professional and managerial households (82% on average) with top A-level results. In contrast, a university in the bottom 10 of the Times ranking will have about 46% of its students from working-class households, who will have achieved significantly lower A-level results.While working to improve student satisfaction and directing more resources towards teaching are important, the key move for any university in the middle or lower part of the rankings is to improve student retention and achievement by pushing up A-level scores required for admission. Due to the way the rankings are calculated, this will invariably mean enrolling a higher proportion of students from professional and managerial households in higher socioeconomic categories.Given the influence of the major league tables it is probable that variable fees will harden these sorting effects. At present, studying at any of the 122 institutions ranked in the Times Good University Guide costs, at least notionally, the same. But in the system proposed in the Browne report, a significant number of universities will not be able to fill their places if they charge the maximum permitted tuition fee. Because most people associate quality with price, it is likely that the higher the ranking, the higher the fees.Fair pricing of university places will depend on students and their families being able to evaluate the premium that is charged over and above the cheapest available option. For universities such as Oxford and Cambridge, this will be straightforward; if the cheapest available degree in law costs, say, £3,000 per year, then Oxford and Cambridge will add a premium of £7,000, and will be able to sustain this because of reputational value. But other universities will have a more complicated task in setting their prices.The worst outcome will be to be forced to follow current league tables, creating the equivalent of a charge for being taught with students of similar social and educational backgrounds. The best outcome will be premiums based on objective and credible measures of educational gain. And the most important indicator will be a university's record in beating the odds by providing their students with pathways to opportunities that are greater than they or their families could have expected.Tuition feesUniversity fundingUniversity administrationHigher educationMartin Hallguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Greedy until the end Some baby boomers now want to choose when to die bbc.co.uk |
Spending Review 2010: women 'will be hit twice as hard' Cuts announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review will hit women twice as hard as men, research by the House of Commons library has shown. telegraph.co.uk |
Dyke: BBC at fault for decline in reputation Former director general says he is partly to blame following rows over top salaries and David Kelly affairGreg Dyke, the former director general of the BBC, believes the public service broadcaster has damaged its standing at home and abroad with a series of self-inflicted wounds.As the corporation faces grave financial challenges following the comprehensive spending review, Dyke – who stepped down in 2004, amid the furore caused by the Hutton inquiry into the death of government weapons inspector David Kelly – accepted some of the blame in an interview with the Observer. He said the BBC's fraught relations with government and the huge sums it has paid to top management and stars such as Jonathan Ross and Graham Norton had dented confidence in a media network that should be the envy of the world."The great strength of the BBC was how highly it was valued by the public; and government should recognise what a huge asset it is. But the problem with salaries started around 2005 and 2006 and was allowed to go on too long."Dyke, who is chairman of the British Film Institute and chaired a recent Conservative-commissioned report into the British media, argues that those on the highest salaries ought to have accepted reduced terms. "The management should have started calling people up a lot earlier and telling them: 'If you don't like it, I am afraid you will have to go.' But they let it go on for a long time."In the week the BBC learned that it will have to finance the World Service from its licence fee income, Dyke argues that BBC executives have not only failed to address the issue of inflated fees, but have also mishandled the departure of Mark Byford, who is stepping down as deputy director general."Mark has been made to carry the can," he said. "He is a good bloke and they could really have played it better by letting him go with more dignity. They have dropped him in it. And he was someone who did care about the BBC and who was respected."Byford was appointed as Dyke's deputy in 2004 and became a key figure after the death of Kelly, who was exposed as the source of a controversial Radio 4 news story alleging that the case for the war on Iraq had been "sexed up". Following Dyke's resignation, Byford made a public apology on behalf of the BBC."This was a mistake and it was also probably the most embarrassing moment in the history of the BBC. Standing there next to the acting BBC chairman, Richard Ryder, and apologising for almost everything. It looked terrible," said Dyke.But now, following the release of medical documents relating to Kelly's death, Dyke admits he could have done more to handle the conflict between the BBC and Blair's government. "We should have set up an inquiry ourselves," he said. "Alastair Campbell just went in hard, because he is a thug and those were his tactics. But we could have kicked it into the long grass for a while. It might have worked."Since it became clear that Iraq held no secret weapons, Dyke has said the contentious BBC story was valid: "We know now that whatever you think about it journalistically, that government WMD report was not an intelligence report at all. It was put together as an argument as to why we should go to war."Dyke said that he recalls every moment of the weekend of Kelly's death, and his decision, at the bereaved family's request, to hold back confirmation that Kelly had spoken to BBC journalists. "My wife was convinced that the security services had killed Dr Kelly. But I think the minute Lord Hutton ruled that the medical reports should be kept for 70 years, it was obvious there would be conspiracy theories."Why did he do that? Maybe this will be the end of the Kelly affair, but it is interesting that it has come back again," said Dyke. "I am not a conspiracy theorist; I think Dr Kelly killed himself, but I met some Australian spies once who were pretty convinced that MI6 had killed him."Greg Dyke will be speaking about his career at the Penfolds' Vintage Years event on 2 November at The Hospital Club, London, at 7pm. The event is sponsored by the makers of the vintage Australian wine, Penfolds Grange.Greg DykeBBCDavid KellyVanessa Thorpeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |