“University Alliance made its submission to the Treasury on Tuesday 10 September for the Budget which will take place on 30th October. The submission reflected what we and our members, as large professional and technical universities located in major conurbations across the UK, believe would make the biggest material impact for our students, our universities and the needs of the nation whilst cognisant of the major significant financial challenges facing the country and government at this time.
It has felt an agonising wait and speculation of “will they, won’t they” as we count down the days and hours to when the first ever female Chancellor takes to the dispatch box and delivers the first Budget of this latest Labour government.
To cut to the chase, University Alliance’s submission focused on three asks:
- For students: uprate maintenance entitlements and reinstate means-tested maintenance grants.
- For society: urgently identify a package of student recruitment and early career retention incentives to address public sector recruitment and retention challenges;
- For universities: give them greater flexibility to set their pension arrangements
What sits behind these three asks is principally informed by what is happening on the ground in the places where our members operate; what the data tells us and what we believe is needed to boost local and regional economic growth.
This year’s UCAS data showed that whilst the number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds applying to university has grown, regional disparities remain and are widening. The riots that shook the country over the summer saw violent attacks spill on to our campuses – could be seen as evidence of an uncomfortable truth: that there are still areas of the UK where life disaffection is growing, and financial hardship is manifesting into social unrest.
Tackling regional inequalities is important to this Labour government, and devolution is baked into their approach. In our budget submission, University Alliance has sought to focus on recommendations that will boost not just our universities but also our local communities and the regional economies.
- Student maintenance support
The case for enhanced student maintenance support generally – and for disadvantaged students – has been widely made, and I won’t rehearse it here.
From a regional perspective though, in addition to widening regional disparities in participation, the latest UCAS figures also showed a continuation of the longstanding decline in mature applicants. This is a red flag: a key cohort of students who study at Alliance universities traditionally come from the local community (in some cases as much as 70%) and at least a third of these students are classed as mature.
The mature student cohort is often less mobile due to various life circumstances, hence why being able to study at a local university is so critical for them, their families and their communities. But the financials are not stacking up and that’s why we suspect we are seeing the decline in applications. This means a route into opportunity, a career and career path, lost. Increasing student maintenance support, and reintroducing maintenance grants for the most disadvantaged students would be the single most powerful action government could take to increase opportunity for all, and specifically to address those regional disparities in participation.
The solution is not just necessary and morally right, but it would also be cost neutral to the Exchequer, according to London Economics and the Sutton Trust
2. Investing in the public sector workforce
Two government missions are explicit about wanting to boost numbers of teaching, policing and healthcare professionals. The solution is not just about growing supply, but also about staving off the alarming rate of early exits, that in some cases occur only a year or two after qualification.
Alliance universities traditionally train large swathes of the public sector workforce including teachers, social workers and medical and healthcare professionals – in the case of nursing in England we train 1 in 3. A significant proportion of these students are local and mature students. It’s no surprise then that alongside a decline in the number of mature students and widening regional disparities, those UCAS figures also show a decline in students studying teaching, nursing and midwifery. If we continue to see a decline in both local and mature applications to those courses, it’s a double whammy for public sector recruitment and regional opportunity.
Our second ask to the government therefore is to urgently consider a public sector incentive and reward package, to address both under-recruitment in public sector professions, but also retention. We acknowledge it is not a one size fits all, but a commitment to work with the sector to surface evidence of what works is essential to meet the workforce needs of our public sectors.
3. Equitable university finances
Finally, the financial challenges of the sector are well documented, typically focused on the domestic tuition fee level. Yet this is only half of the problem, given rising staff costs in the form of pension provision. Take any one of the pensions offered in the sector and they all come with their unique cost challenges. These are most acute for universities who were formally constituted in 1992, who have regulatory obligations to offer (very) expensive pensions for academic and teaching staff, as well as non-academic staff in the form of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS) and the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).
Our third ask is to give the university sector the flexibility to set their own pension arrangements -flexibility already available to other sectors. The universities most likely to be affected by rising TPS costs, like those in University Alliance, are also the most likely to be educating disadvantaged and mature students from their local communities. Higher pension costs for those universities will disproportionately affect the students and regions against whom the odds are already stacked.
As a sector, it is important that we advocate for ourselves. It is even more important, though, that we advocate for the people and communities we serve. Otherwise, what are we for?”
