Douglas Carswell's Blog

Good for students, good for universities

Today’s announcement that universities will be free to charge up to £9,000 tuition fees is good news.

It is good for students because it means that young people in Britain will have the same opportunities to access top quality higher education that other young people have around the world.  Unable to charge UK students much, universities today are currently having to offer more places to students from overseas who are free to pay. 

In a free society, people are able to spend their own money on a house, or a car, or holidays. There are no price caps and you can spend as much or as little as someone else is willing to sell to you. It is right that people should be free to invest in themselves and pay for a first rate university education, too. 

It is also good news for our universities. They are able to get the funding they need to remain world class institutions. Some will choose to charge a lot less than others. With students paying fees, others might innovate with two year degrees .  The key is that it will be up to universities to decide such things – not officials or politicians.

The alternative to higher fees is either to starve universities of cash – or tax the rest of the population more to fund the education of a few. 

But what about the regulatory regime imposed on universities? It is in universities own self-interest to attract the best students from the widest range of backgrounds. They’d almost certainly look widen the range of entrants anyway.

And what of the cap? Seems a small price to pay for getting the Lib Dems to ditch their daft commitment to scrapping fees altogether. Give a Lib Dem MP a ministerial red box and their principles turn out to be pretty flexible.  Besides caps can be raised.

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