Today the Government published its response to the Downing Street e-petition that was set up to oppose moves by vice chancellors who are calling for the current cap on tuition fees to rise. With a grand total 33,612 signatures, the petition is one of the most popular on the site, but the technocratic response of some faceless official somewhere in the deepest darkest depths of Whitehall betrays an alarming sense of complacency and misdirection about what the forthcoming fees debate needs to be about.

Before, during and after the conclusion of the review, expect to see government ministers and university chiefs pointing to the number of people applying to the university and asserting, just as the Downing Street response does, that “the evidence shows that [tuition fee] policies are working and that people are not being put off university as the result of the introduction of variable fees.”

It’s certainly true that applications to universities continue to rise, but it’s a serious cause for concern that the Government seems to be assuming that because applications are up, no one is being deterred by the debt. Progress to encourage applications from students from the poorest backgrounds continues to be painfully slow.

The Government says it is “committed to widening participation in HE” but the recent reports from Alan Milburn’s Commission on Social Mobility and the Sutton Trust on fair access to some of Britain’s elite universities should be a timely reminder to all of us committed to widening participation that the challenge is not just about whether students from poorer backgrounds go to university, but also whether they have fair access to all of Britain’s universities.

The complacent hand wringing of the Russell Group may point to schools and the poverty of aspiration amongst hard to reach young people as the source of the problem, but self-congratulatory statements about the state of fair access in Britain today points to a poverty of aspiration at the heart of policy and decision making by those who have the power to do something about it. 

The forthcoming fees review can’t simply be a case of ‘the cap: how high?’ Lord Mandelson’s recent focus on reforming admissions came like a ray of light to those of us who have been campaigning on it for years, but tinkering with admissions at socially selective universities will be pretty pointless if the same universities are able to charge runaway fees at levels much higher than those who are already successful at widening participation.

Last summer, NUS published a critique of the current variable fees policy and examined the consequences of lifting the cap and introducing a real market in higher education. I fail to understand how any minister committed to social justice could entertain a future for our universities where the rich get the best and the poor get the rest. The reality of UK higher education today is one where institutions with the largest income are teaching students who, by and large, come from wealthier backgrounds, while those universities most successful at widening participation also happen to be those with the weakest financial model. No one serious is arguing for a Stalinist, centrally planned higher education system, but continuing down the path of variable fees without pausing to reflect on the consequences of marketisation and commodification is short-sighted and dangerous.

That’s why NUS will be taking the debate to the people, starting this autumn. With a General Election in the offing there has never been a better time to ensure that aspiring MPs are held to task on higher education funding and challenged on the doorstep. Starting off with ten key university towns with General Election swing seats, we will ensure that the debate about how our universities isn’t just the preserve of some cosy stitch up between the government, Tories and vice chancellors, but one in which the voice of students – and the general public – is heard loud and clear.

We have published our critique, demonstrated that fairer alternatives are possible and now we will make our case to the country. If politicians from any political party were hoping they’d get away with not making their case on the doorstep, they’ll need to think again. They can start by thinking again on variable fees.

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