It’s no harm for third-level graduates to get a lesson in debt

THE waiting is nearly over. Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe will bring his proposals on third-level tuition fees to Cabinet in about a week’s time.

He has already said the new charges would only apply to new entrants next year. Critically, though, he still hasn’t announced what the threshold would be above which a contribution will be expected. A number of options, such as fees, loans and graduate taxes, are all apparently under consideration.

While it is good that students and families will soon know what burden they will be expected to shoulder, it is a pity that the subsequent debate will be framed almost entirely by the need to plug the hole in the public finances.

The minister has been understandably reluctant to advance the progressive case for fees. Few other issues have quite the same potential to unite the hard left and the comfortably off.

And, in fairness, not many sane politicians would care to be seen making the case for putting students in serious debt for the first few years of their post-university working world. The life of the modern student is set to become even tougher.

Some have very genuine concerns that many from less well-off families will be put off from going to university altogether by increased debt. Too often, however, the principled argument against fees is only a thin veneer disguising middle class self interest. The real issue is how Ireland maintains a world-class higher education sector. Perhaps that should read “creates” a world-class higher education sector. There are any number of ways of rating universities — and every institution clings to the one that casts it in the best possible light — but both the two main global league tables provide Irish universities with food for thought.

Actually, this is one case where the Brits are kind. The Times Higher Education Supplement puts Trinity College in the top 100. Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University – which has no atavistic reason to discriminate against Ireland — does not. Indeed, Jiao Tong has it lagging behind Queen’s, Belfast and about 25 British institutions, with UCD and UCC quite some way further behind. America does well but so do smaller countries like Switzerland and The Netherlands.

Maybe that explains, in part, why so many more Irish accents are to be heard in Oxford and Cambridge these days than a decade or two ago. Third-level education really is a case, it seems, unlike in health, where spending more seems to produce better outcomes. The US system, in particular, provides both quantity and quality. More than 60% of American high school graduates go into tertiary education. And they don’t go on to McDegrees: of the top 50 universities in the world, all but 15 were American, the Chinese researchers found.

In Britain, the National Union of Students railed against fees when they were introduced in 1998, much like their counterparts in USI are currently. No longer. Despite the apocalyptic predictions, the social spread of participation — already wider than that in Ireland — has not narrowed. Applications have increased from the children of parents of all backgrounds.

Still, the introduction of market mechanisms into the university sector offends many. But the idea that young people who aspire to higher education will be put off by the possibility of having to pay off debts presents a pretty patronising view of young people. Our whole lives are a process of incurring — and, hopefully, paying off — debts.

Whether it’s the argument that more graduates will produce a more prosperous country, or student leaders worrying that less well-off young people will be reluctant to take on more debt given the uncertain economic climate, the value of a degree is determined in economic terms: it will make an individual that little bit pricier on the labour market. Perhaps there was a day when the teaching of quantifiable skills that will be relevant to the needs of the economy was not universities’ first concern, when ivory towers were engaged in the unbridled pursuit of universal knowledge and the search for truth.

But that was when John Henry Newman walked the earth during the 1850s. And where that is still a core function — mainly at the postgraduate level — it needs a solid through-put of undergraduates and research grants from the corporate world to subsidise it. The blunt fact is that most young people go into third-level education either because they wish to pursue a particular profession or, more often, because they have a basic desire for what they perceive as a decent, well-paid job. And let’s be honest, most of those who wax lyrical about the “dignity” of back-breaking manual labour try to avoid doing it for a day, let alone for 40 years.

Why shouldn’t those who draw the most direct benefit pay part of the cost? When fees are paid for entirely out of general taxation, the poorest in society in practice subsidise the education of those who would go on to be the richest. Public funding is addictive, and the withdrawal symptoms are painful. But everyone would gain from a system that puts students first so that university becomes an education again, not merely something to fill three years of your life. The model to strive for is varied institutions charging varied fees. Not all courses need last three years, for instance. Some universities might become teaching-only institutions, others may want to concentrate on research. All must have the right to select their intake.

Other countries are learning the lessons. So, Irish universities do need more money. The question is only about where to find it and either the taxpayer or the customer has to pay. If it is to be the taxpayer, where are the commensurate savings to be found? USI will argue that is not its problem. But it is the Government’s.

Some will say there are too many students too often taking pointless degrees and going on to non-graduate jobs. Give them vocational training instead, they say, and the problems would disappear. That ignores the amount of vocational teaching that even the very best universities already provide.

Worse, if business and industry cannot find the skilled graduates they need here, they will simply go to where they can find them.

Either places are expanded or the doors are shut against a very large number of suitably qualified students. That won’t save the taxpayer in the long run.

Batt O’Keeffe must ensure the poorest are not hit the hardest. No student should have to depend on their parents’ goodwill or income for their tuition fees. It is not the student or the parent who should pay, but the graduate who should repay — and then only according to their income.

Only those who benefit should bear the costs, and then only part of them.

There is a risk that some students from deprived backgrounds will be deterred from applying. But these can be offset by firm guarantees that those who enter low-paying jobs will have their debts cancelled or reduced.

Besides, what would really help poor pupils get into top universities is devoting more of the taxpayers’ precious money to the primary and secondary systems.

But there are worse things to take into adulthood than a student debt. An increasingly devalued degree is first among them.