Fair Funding? Fair Access?
NUS hosted a seminar at Compass Conference 2008, Born Free and Equal entitled 'Higher Education - Fair Funding? Fair Access?'
Saturday, June 14, 2008.
11:15am - 12:30pm
Compass Conference 2008 - Born Free and Equal
The impact of top-up fees on higher education was discussed by the following speakers:
Bill Rammell MP, Higher Education Minister, robustly defended top-up fees explaining that we now had a mass higher education system and as a result of these increased numbers we needed to fund higher education differently.
Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, spoke out in favour of a system of graduate taxation that was truely progressive enabling those who earned the most to contribute a greater amount. She also spoke about the reduced diversity of the professions which she believed was a result of graduates with high levels of debt chosing to start work immediately instead of entering training.
Claire Callender, Professor of Higher Education, Birkbeck, presented some of her research on how the funding system has created new inequalities. Students with same financial background, history of achievement and studying the same the subject could end up with drastically different levels of student support dependending on their institution.
Wes Streeting, NUS President, talked about how we need to allow common sense and a love of education for its own sake to direct us towards building an HE funding system that is genuinely social democratic in character, and offers resistance to the tiresome presentation of yet another market-driven response.
Read his Compass article.
