A Degree in UK Studies
The main debate generated by Joanne Stuart's will be about the recommendation that the cap should rise to as much as £5,750, from its current level of £3290.
However, perhaps because I left Stormont just as Danny Kennedy finished his statement to fly to London, I started pondering the increasingly complex relationship between England and the devolved nations when it comes to higher education.
Whilst the Stuart report opts for a cap of between £5000 and £5,750 it recommends a different course of action for those who for the sake of argument, I shall refer to as "blow ins": suggesting the adoption of the "UK Government fee structure for non NI domiciled students studying at NI HEIs - basic fee level of £6,000 with a maximum fee cap of £9,000." But as the report also notes "due to European Union (EU) legislation, this would apply only to students from England, Wales and Scotland." This is similar to a previous report in Scotland, and suggests (if my reading is correct) that a student from the Irish Republic (as an EU citizen) would therefore be charged less than one from England.
The numbers of "blow in" UK students involved are pretty small - a table in the Stuart report states that in 2008/09 there were 165 first year students from England at NI universities, and just 10 from Wales and 20 from Scotland. But when you look at the number of students from Northern Ireland studying elsewhere in the UK the figures increase dramatically. The same table shows 2965 NI first year students in England, 115 in Wales and 1110 in Scotland.
Elsewhere the report estimates there are 8,500 NI students enrolled at English and Welsh universities. If the Stormont Executive subsidised them so they didn't pay any more for their studies than their counterparts who stayed at home, the reports says it would cost anything between £2M and £34M (a wide range which depends on the cap adopted in Northern Ireland and the actual fees charged in England and Wales.
Not so long ago David Cameron was declaring his "passionate" unionism and the need to end Northern Ireland's "semi-detached" status. But the contrasting policies on fees being considered by the various UK administrations look set to treat UK citizens in radically different ways if they seek to be educated in a different UK region from the one where they were born.
P.S. I was just about to hit publish on this blog when some colleagues here at Westminster drew my attention to some comments today from the Economic Secretary Justine Greening during a debate sponsored by Plaid Cymru and the SNP on fuel costs. Ms Greening suggested that devolved administrations should consider alleviating the high costs of fuel from their own budgets "to fund their own form of grant scheme to support motorists in their areas." She continued by arguing that the devolved governments have "taken decisions around tuition fees that are different to those faced by those of us living in England. And I think what it shows is that, actually there is some additional scope - that perhaps wasn't there in the past - for devolved administrations to look at this as a priority for them in terms of their spending, as well as for national government."
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