Nic Hamer responds to Victoria Tagg’s article for Bristol Post which accuses Bristol students of being ‘cocktail-swigging Sloanes’ and emphasises a demise in traditional student culture. Read the original article here.
Victoria Tagg is not wrong in suggesting that the University of Bristol’s student body is dominated by the wealthy. Only 60.1% of students here were educated in state schools, compared to 93% of the population. What is lacking in her article is an explanation of why this is a growing problem. To gain a greater understanding of this, we must examine how universities across England have been reimagined as businesses over the last two decades, at the expense of student and staff welfare.
In 1998, tuition fees were introduced by Tony Blair’s Labour government at £1000 per year, though this was means tested so many students paid less than the full amount. In subsequent years, maintenance grants were phased out and replaced by loans. Tuition fees were capped at £3000 in 2003 and then £9000 in 2012 by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition. They were no longer means tested. With the introduction of the TEF, tuition fees can be increased to £9250, meaning that English students pay more for their education than anywhere else in the world.
The fact that tuition fees can currently be covered by a cheap loan does not excuse their existence. They transform universities from a place of learning into a place of commerce. Degrees are judged only by their capacity to provide a return on a financial investment and the idea that knowledge is intrinsically valuable is forgotten. And most significantly, by turning education into a transactional process, the introduction of tuition fees has created a market, setting the wheels of the marketization of higher education spinning.
Now that this market exists, universities must develop a business strategy that will allow them to be financially viable. To save money, Manchester University has announced plans to replace 140 established academics with 100 new members of staff with less experience. Meanwhile Bristol has decided to expand. By taking on more students, the university gets more money from tuition fees, which can then be invested in further expansion, allowing them to take on more students, and get even more tuition fees.
The idea of creating a big university is not inherently bad, but it has some difficult repercussions because the necessary infrastructure is not in place. It puts a massive strain on the university’s ability to provide accommodation, for example. As a result, they have undertaken expensive contracts with third parties, such as Unite, to build and run private halls. These are not affordable, because businesses must prioritise profit over anything else. Combined with the fact that the university no longer subsidises rent in halls, this need to fund contracts with third parties means that rent for first years is increasing every year between 3 and 5%. Almost all second and third year students live in private accommodation, and are therefore vulnerable to the infinite abuses of the rental market.
Bristol may be an expensive city but coming to university here should not plunge students without wealthy families into debt. Making education truly accessible is evidently not currently a priority for the government or for senior management at Bristol, but we can change that. Vote for politicians and parties that support free education, write to legislators or the university, go to the NCAFC demo in London on the 14th of November, support or join Bristol Cut the Rent. The government and the university will listen. After all, apparently we are their customers now, and the customer is always right.