UK universities in trouble - why not add VAT to tuition?

[80smonster]

UK universities are in trouble, apparently many could close, why not charge VAT on tuition fees (for those that are financially viable)? Bridget Phillipson says they are autonomous institutions and won’t be given a public bail out - they should rely on their own resources:
https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/aug/09/english-universities-face-autumn-tipping-point-as-financial-crisis-looms

YABU - don’t add the VAT
YANBU - add the VAT

Thats not automatically true of Uni's though is it? though i'm sure some are badly run, thats inevitable in any sector or industry.

Uni's are at the mercy of Governments - funding decisions & migration policies, which can change with very little notice.

How are we going to staff the NHS if Uni's close and there aren't the places for Healthcare courses for Nurses, OTs, Physios and Radiographers?

Let alone the huge numbers of skilled degree educated workers we need in other sectors.

Its not possible to return AHPs to "on the job" college courses, the NHS hasn't the staff to free up in order to train them.

Nothing on retention, a 5% pay rise wont cut it.

That doesn't necessarily apply if the institution doesn't have the freedom to run the business how they want to. They are not completely private and some things are imposed on them such as how much they can charge in fees.

That's a bit simplistic.
The major change was Blair's government deciding to introduce fees and turning Universities into businesses, which competed to attract foreign students and money from any other source. Blair's aim was to massively increase student numbers in the vain hope that having more graduates in the UK would magic up more well paid jobs. This changed the model entirely and was a nonsensical way of thinking. What has happened is that young people get into massive levels of debt and often end up with poorly paid jobs. Apart from the degree being devalued and very expensive for all to acquire (except those with wealthy parents), it has also meant that practical skills have become demeaned too, when these are absolutely essential. It's mainly the fault of successive governments, yes but there have certainly been poor and unethical decisions made in the Universities too. I'm surprised they didn't see this day coming.

What has happened is that young people get into massive levels of debt and often end up with poorly paid jobs.

Where are you getting your data to support this?

Agreed. A uni in Scotland gets £1800 for every Scottish student, £6000 (tuition fees after admin) for each English student, and £15k+ for a foreign student. You have to offer a set number of places to Scots (no more, no less) and you have to balance the budget with the rest of the possible fee income. Rest of UK student income is more reliable but you are only breaking even on certain courses. Overseas students are great for income but say the UK falls out with China or Nigel Farage comes into power and stops all overseas immigration you can lose this income overnight. It’s a tough juggle.

The bottom line is that with the tuition fees frozen for many years it is no surprise Universities are on their knees. The government needs to start funding universities properly again or put tuition fees up (and introduce tuition fees in Scotland).

The highest % of students going to Uni was 38% in 2021, its fallen since then.
Tuition fees on £3k p.a did not lead to Universities becoming businesses, the Labour Govt still heavily subsidised the sector, the business model changed when fees trebled under the coalition, handy for the Tories to blame the LD's for that.

The UK isn't particularly out of step with most of the EU when it comes to % attending Uni, the difference is that the UK charges a huge amount to study.

I think this leads to students having zero loyalty to either the country or the sector they are in, health in particular.

I don't think it's helpful to turn this into a political debate. All major parties have been at fault.
I think both introducing student fees and increasing numbers, with the naive expectation of better jobs were mistakes.
There are lots of reasons why young people have less loyalty to the UK than in many other countries and this is likely to be one of them.

It was a job. I went into it open minded. What I experienced made me realise that private education is a scourge on the nation. And often a total con.

Many teachers move between the two sectors. We all have to work for a living, and at times that means working for someone you don't want to. But personally, I would be very reluctant to support a private school again There would have to be no alternative.

@mytuppennyworth thank you for answering my question.
We’ll have to disagree. My children went to private school and loved it and got a lot out of it.

I think there may be a touch of rose tinted spectacles here.

My academically gifted father was offered a place at university with a scholarship. He couldn’t take it because his father (a widower) couldn’t afford to support him through it. Even in my time when fees were paid from the public purse and means tested grants were available, parental support was necessary unless you were one of the lucky few who got a full grant. Two students on my course had to drop out because of lack of money to live.

Yes, of course, but I was responding to a comment about how vice chancellors deserved their inflated salaries.

@wombat15 I have never said ex polys should be closed - not sure where you got that from. I’ve never advocated going back to the 50s either. As you know we had huge uni and college expansion at that time. What I do think should happen is a much more critical evaluation of degrees and their value to society. That means a close evaluation of some institutions and what their role actually is. This could mean mergers. As in real business that has to make money!

Im also heartily fed up with superior posters saying others are not working in the sector and have no right to comment. We do. We can make suggestions. Obviously you all want to keep your jobs but I bet you all talk about the jobs and sectors of others. It’s legitimate on this forum to question how the government we elect spends its money. There are many forums for experts that HE staff can inhabit. Just because a sector works in a certain way now, that doesn’t mean it should not change and move towards a different model. Shouting down others and misinterpreting what they say is an oft used tactic (you are not one of us, so shut up) to close down a conversation. It’s not what HE should be about. It must allow debate.

@rainingsnoring Blair did not increase uni places that much. The 1992 act did that. Conservative. All Blair did was want more to take advantage of the new opportunities . The removal of the cap on student numbers was a Conservative policy in 2013/14. So again, not Blair.

VCs are paid extremely well.

A Finance Director in a University is highly unlikely to be the top finance role BTW. It is senior management and a finance director will be involved in lots of the strategic decision making but there will be a chief financial officer above the finance director and they report in to other layers of management above. I think perhaps people assume that due to the title "director" it means it's at the top of the structure.

That’s because the word Director, is top in a business.

The government has effectively privatised universities. They are not a public service anymore, so they need to be able to balance the books. No reason why they could follow a private school model of bursaries and scholarships to widen access.

Yes, perhaps there is a touch of that.
My own academically gifted father from a poor background was offered a full scholarship to Oxbridge with everything paid for, as was a much older friend of a similar age in a different field. In my times, a generation later, most students had jobs, certainly in the holidays, the government support was much greater and the need for parental support much less. Accommodation was considerably cheaper relative to incomes though so it was much easier compared to nowadays. Not trying to say that everyone had access or opportunities at all, merely that they were more open to those with genuine gifts from non advantaged backgrounds. Nowadays, even the grammar school makes a mockery of the social mobility it was designed to assist.

I understand, thanks. I was responding to the other poster suggesting that the problems are all due to the government refusing to raise fees.

That’s because the word Director, is top in a business.

But not in HE. I'm a director but I'm not even the most senior person in my faculty, never mind the university as a whole. It simply means I'm the strategic lead for a particular thematic strand.

It was definitely Blair's brain child to increase places and he also introduced fees. The Tories were certainly no better and increased the fees a great deal more.

@ElaineMBenes As people refer to unis as businesses, they transfer terminology. Thats all. Nothing to get worked up about.

I understand, thanks. I was responding to the other poster suggesting that the problems are all due to the government refusing to raise fees

And I never said it was the only reason. For my university it is the primary factor but not the only one.

Who is getting worked up? I was offering an insight and explanation.

If you are going to be insistent on commenting on how universities are run it is helpful if you understand how the terminology is used.

I'm not sure that's correct. What do you think would happen if the government doubled fees, for example?
Even with fees having stayed the same for many years, applications from UK and foreign students have fallen in the last two years.

@rainingsnoring interesting how you can be so sure of that given you have no idea which university I work for or the faculty I work in.

My university isn't a research intensive university. We do of course carry out research and we are specialists in some very niche subject areas but unfortunately they aren't areas which attract huge research grants. So while they are very important to society, they are not a huge income stream for us.
My faculty, and department is very dependent on fee income and as we have seen home fees frozen and numbers of home students drop we have had to really focus our efforts internationally, which as you point out has it's challenges.

If home fees were to rise and cover the true cost of our degree programmes then that would make a huge different to my faculty and university as a whole. As it stands we are closing courses and making staff redundant. These are courses that have very high levels of student satisfaction and excellent graduate outcomes ( 100% in some cases). They are also training students to do jobs which benefit society and where there are huge skills shortages.

Increasing fees isn't a magic bullet, we know that. But it would make a difference to a university like mine.