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Commentators discuss Lord Browne's review of university funding which recommends removing the cap on tuition fees.

that university standards will go up:

"At those prices, something has got to give. Second-rate universities will go to the wall, as students realise they're not worth it. And the better universities will have to offer more in return for all that money. £12,000 is about what it costs to go to an average public school; and it isn't unreasonable to expect the same amount of tuition at university as you get at school - longer terms, with five or six hours a day of compulsory lessons."

[subscription required] that comparing her own experience of university in the US and the UK, she thinks if our funding becomes more like American colleges students will expect more:

"In theory, the tuition fees road leads to a huge prize. The US has the freest higher education market in the world and the best universities, which attract the best minds to teach. It also performs well on access for the poor. Europe shows the dangers of leaving universities in the embrace of the State. You don't find people flocking to Heidelberg, or Bologna. Staff: student ratios are far higher in the US. British universities are half-free and half-not. If we get our experiment right, it could be very good for them."

removing the current cap on university fees will help communicate the scarcity of university places to prospective students:

"Courses with high demand cost the same as courses with low demand, removing this information mechanism and forcing students to rely on hearsay about the quality of courses. In a freely priced system, these high-demand courses would be more expensive and their popularity and quality would be communicated through prices. This would allow students to make an informed choice about which course is best for them and prevent the overdemand and undersupply of places that currently takes place."

interest rates on loans and found that scrapping interest free loans and introducing a market rate could mean a teacher would pay back more than a banker:

"A teacher starting on £20,000 with a salary rise of £1,000 every year will pay back £39,150 over 30 years;
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"A banker starting on £60,000 with a salary rise of £3,000 every year will pay back just £33,000 over seven years."

that the recommendations represents a shift in the very notion of public services:

"Until now we have assumed that once you walk through the door into a universal, publicly funded service, cash should not enter your mind. When you visit a doctor, you aren't asked which pills you'd prefer: expensive ones or the cheaper alternative. The idea would appal us. We expect a public service to be undifferentiated by cost.
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"Thanks to Browne and variability of student fees from college to college, higher education will no longer be like that. In the process a precedent has been set, one that could well be followed across the public sphere. From now on, it will be acceptable to identify the benefit recipients get from this or that service and ask them to pay more for it. We could well be looking at the dawn of what my colleague Aditya Chakrabortty calls the pay-as-you-go state."

that the plans are part of a wider attack on the welfare state:

"The attack on university funding is part of a fiscally sadistic cuts agenda that seeks to roll back the state in order to turn universities, hospitals and even jobcentres into little more than third-sector service providers jostling for the business of the desperate consumers who we used to think of as "citizens". This kamikaze capitalism has now cynically incorporated the language of "fairness". The coalition mouths platitudes to "fairness" precisely because fairness before the market is the one thing that savage neoliberalism can promise without blinking."

the possibility of sponsoring courses:

"One advantage of the increased fees, said Lord Browne when he made these recommendations, is this will allow for "new providers". He probably means the universities will be free to seek funding by getting lectures sponsored, so philosophy students will be told: 'Plato argued that no earthly body could be more than an imperfect copy of a perfect heavenly model. But that's because he'd never had a new orange-flavoured Crunchie. It's as crisp and fizzy as ever on the inside, but with a new orange meltiness on the outside. Hmm, it's not just confection, it's metaphysical perfection.'
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"And astro-physics classes will be asked: 'Do you know of a star that's suffered a catastrophic collapse in the past 12 months? Then call 0800 632 8989 NOW to see if your star is entitled to compensation.'"

Alternatively, new funders as essential if the proposals go through:

"If businesses want good young people they will have to pay universities specifically to train them. This means bursaries, endowments, sponsorships or very low-cost loans. This benefits everyone concerned. The business gets its talent; the student gets the education he or she deserves; and the university does not have to lower its standards by admitting on the criterion of wealth instead of the criterion of ability. The alternative, for business, is to be forced to lower its standards in recruiting, or have to pay more to buy talent from overseas. It would be cheaper to grow it at home."

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