Universities will feel the wrath of two-tiered system
Still broad daylight, the pavement outside the Rose and Crown bar was thronged with young, happy customers. The freshers had arrived and the fiesta to celebrate their liberation from small towns and parental control was underway. GAA jerseys, tracksuits tops, and hoodies were everywhere.
Despite my aversion to this type of garb, it’s always pleasing to know that the sons and daughters of the ordinary people who make up the GAA, can still send their children to university. This wasn’t always the case, and judging by the way things are going, it’s not always going to be the case either.
An official review of higher education in England and Wales has called for the cap on tuition fees (currently set at just over £3,000 (€3,400) to be removed.
Queen’s University will certainly welcome this announcement. When responding to an independent review that was carried out earlier this year by employment and learning minister Sir Reg Empey, Queen’s said: “One approach to provide additional funding would be to remove or raise the fee cap.”
While Queen’s didn’t suggest a fee, it said a study by Universities UK, which recommended £5,000 (€5,670) per annum, “should help to inform the debate on fee levels.”
Justifying their willingness to charge students £15,000 (€17,000) for a three-year degree, Queen’s said: “We are committed to maintaining a world class standard of higher education in Northern Ireland and ensuring that overall funding levels available for Northern Ireland institutions are comparable with the rest of the UK.”
The Education Act of 1947 probably affected the greatest social change ever experienced in the North. Suddenly, any child who passed the 11-plus could go to secondary school.
From there, with the availability of grants (remember them?) and free university education, the children of working class parents could look forward to the day when their framed graduation photograph hung proudly in the front room.
Free education meant children were no longer destined to remain in the same socio-economic bracket as their parents. The sons of bricklayers could, and did, become surgeons.
Antrim’s first ever All-Star, Ciarán Barr is a typical example. When I interviewed Barr last year, we met at the plush headquarters of GE Money in Dublin. Barr is the company’s chief executive in Ireland. Barr grew up in a council house in west Belfast. During the interview he revealed that his father, Mark, suffered long periods of unemployment.
When Barr passed his 11-plus he went to St Mary’s CBS Grammar School. From the Glen Road he progressed to Queen’s on the Malone Road.
As Barr noted during the interview, the Christian Brothers never entertained the idea of sending their pupils to any other university. The parents of their pupils couldn’t afford to supplement the cost of renting a room in Dublin or elsewhere. Queen’s was on the doorstep and there was no need to look beyond it.
It’s hard to imagine what would become of Barr if he was growing up today. Given the gargantuan mess that has been made of replacing the 11-plus, he might have to sit three or four entrance exams.
Having passed his increasingly meaningless A-levels he would have to contemplate the costs of three years at Queen’s. The tuition fees of £3,125 (€3,544) and three student loans would launch him into the working world with a debt of around £15,000 (€17,000).
If Queen’s get their way, the raised tuition fees of £5,000 (€5,670) would increase that borrowing to nearly £21,000 (€23,815).
And let’s remember that £5,000 (€5,670) is the starting sum. Like all taxes, that figure would only get higher.
Queen’s, it seems, wants to adopt a course which will make it the university of the privileged. Its degrees will be only for those who can afford them. The decision-makers at Queen’s need to be reminded of a few home truths. They would do well to examine the backgrounds of many of its most distinguished graduates. Few would have darkened its doors had tuition fees existed.
Fortunately, the University of Ulster has signalled its opposition to raising tuition fees. This is a commendable attitude. Unfortunately, if Queen’s get the green light to introducing raised fees then Belfast is set to have a two-tiered higher education system. Queen’s will become the university of the well-off. The University of Ulster will be for the not-so-rich. Neither of them will be for individuals from very low incomes.
It’s changed times from the golden age when only exam results and personal preference dictated whether teenaged gaels would spend their evenings ankle-high in the mud of the Dub or the back fields of ‘the Poly’.
If Queen’s are allowed to pursue their objective, then the early days of autumn are set to change. There will be fewer GAA jerseys around the Rose and Crown, and fewer again at the Dub.
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