Mandelson’s flawed tuition fee proposals

Lord Mandelson’s suggestion that tuition fees will be raised only if universities extend opportunity was uncompromising:

“I’m not prepared and the government is not prepared to see an increase in fees and funding for the universities without the link being made to wider participation and access.”

The government intends to widen access by make well-off students pay increased fees, said to be around £7,000, and offer no-fee degrees to students who live at home. Broadening access is essential and Mandelson is correct to aspire to a ‘higher education system that widens access and increases social mobility even as it fosters excellence’. However, the proposed initiatives are monumentally flawed. NUS President Wes Streeting says that no-fee degrees do not offer “the traditional (university) experience – the moving away, the gaining of friends and independence”, which makes it harder for underprivileged students to escape their background: “Poorer students…could be stuck in the communities they grew up in.”