24 January 2003
Lecturers' union Natfhe, which represents many staff in the new (post-'92) universities and further education colleges, said Clarke's white paper had failed students from poorer backgrounds and would impoverish some institutions.
General secretary Paul Mackney said he was 'astonished' by the proposals, announced on January 22, claiming that Clarke was undermining Labour's pledge to get 50% of all school leavers into university.
Although poorer students could receive up to £1,000 a year under a plan to reintroduce maintenance grants, Natfhe claimed any benefit would be lost under the 'entirely contradictory' intention to introduce top-up fees of up to £3,000 a year from 2006.
'Frankly I'm stunned, if this is what the government expects will achieve a greater uptake of working-class students. The plan, it appears, is to make more cash from poorer students through a regressive tax,' Mackney said.
Natfhe estimates that many students would leave university with debts of around £15,000.
National Union of Students president Mandy Telford said the government 'refuses to recognise the deterrent that debt is for students from the poorest backgrounds'.
Speaking in the Commons, Clarke announced a mix of measures he claimed would extend the availability of degree courses and ease financial pressures on universities.
The first £1,100 of top-up fees will be means-tested, with a sliding scale of fee exemptions available to students from poorer backgrounds up to a family income of £30,000. All fees will be paid back through income tax after graduation, with students paying 9% of any income they earn above a £15,000 threshold.
Full maintenance grants, he said, would only be available to students from families with income of less than £10,000 annually.
Clarke also announced the creation of an 'access regulator', who must be satisfied that universities are doing more to recruit students from a wider mix of social backgrounds. The ability of institutions to charge higher rates for top-up fees would be linked to their recruitment record. All this, he said, would be underpinned by a 6% real-terms rise in the government's higher education spending for the next three years – around £3.3bn.
The Association of University Teachers was enthusiastic over the funding boost, while the Left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research claimed the reforms were 'challenging, but necessary and ultimately fairer'.
PFjan2003
