Browne 'to call for end of upper limit on tuition fees'

Lord Browne's review of university funding in England will conclude that the upper limit on tuition fees should be scrapped, according to the BBC. The former BP chairman delivered his final report to ministers on October 12th and the corporation said it looks likely to put forward a "radical" new model for financing higher education.

While Lord Browne's expected proposal would remove any limits, the funding mechanism would only underwrite fees up to £7,000, the corporation said.
This would act as a "brake" on charges - although it would still be more than double the current levy of £3,290 and would result in a three-year course costing £21,000. Charges for most university places would be expected to stay below £7,000, but fees for spots on the most competitive courses at leading institutions could go higher, the BBC added.

Thinktank Million+ told the news channel that if implemented, this would create a "two-tier university system, with one set of universities for the rich and one set of universities for everybody else".  It had previously backed business secretary Vince Cable's suggestion of a graduate tax, which would see fees scrapped and instead degree holders would contribute to higher education funding based on their earnings.

Mike Boxall PA's Education expert comments: "Lord Browne’s proposals for reforming the funding of universities (report, 12th October) will require fundamental changes in the modes, content and costs of teaching by universities.  But his proposals for the regulation of quality and provision would actively inhibit those changes.

The proposed £6,000 threshold for student fees is likely to become the new standard price for a degree from many institutions. Such a figure will fall at least £1,500 per head short of the level required to make up for the prospective removal of direct government grant funding for arts, humanities and business courses. Very few universities could sustain their current operations at this price.

The challenge is not insurmountable. We are already seeing private sector providers offering high quality teaching for substantially less than this cost, which shows that it can be done. But these exemplars will only be imitated more widely if universities are willing and able to shed their legacies of rigid cost structures, inflexible working practices and reluctance to adopt new technologies.

The review has little to say about how this will be encouraged and indeed seems to propose more rather than less planning and intervention in universities’ operations. By proposing central directions over the allocation of student places and specifying what and how universities should teach, Lord Browne risks creating a new higher education paradox – a state-controlled free market".

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