So, today's source of liberal fury is the Guardian's revelation that the government plans to allow universities to offer "off-quota" places to British students able to pay top-dollar.
The latest mental university funding idea...
The basic idea behind this is that top universities will offer all their government sponsored places to poor kids and ask all the rich kids to cough up, regardless of how good they are. The result? More poor kids go to Oxbridge and - hey presto - social mobility!
Only... THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN!
Once again, those creating public policy seem to be doing it on the back of a fag packet with a big helping of wishful thinking. In all the ideas around funding universities, relatively little attention is paid to how universities and students are actually likely to behave. In this instance, the government is expecting universities to massively disincentivise good rich students from coming. Why would they ever want to do that? Isn't it more logical that they would offer the cheap places to their top choices, regardless of background, then offer expensive places to the rich kids who didn't make the first cut but could probably end up with a 2:1 with a bit of work.
So what is the end result? More rich kids go to Oxbridge, poor kids get the same bum deal and social immobility is entrenched. Terrific.
Equally, Oxbridge et al could just keep the number of places they offer the same, charging rich kids more for the privilege. This may be good for Oxbridge, but it is not good for anyone else. It will make it easier for Oxbridge to avoid offering bursaries etc to poorer students, since their fee structure will already look highly progressive. As a result, the policy serves only to inflate the cost of an education at our top universities.
Policies like these really get my Tory goat. For starters, they massively increase the impression that Tories are there to serve the rich - I've a sneaking suspicion that this policy comes from a rich minister afraid his kid can't compete for a place as things stand. Furthermore, this is a pretty stupid idea from an economic perspective. Real equality of opportunity guarantees that the country gets the most out of its best people. Turning Oxford and Cambridge into bastions of privilege deters others from even applying. More bright kids from poor backgrounds will give up on Oxbridge and uni altogether. They won't get the best from their potential and neither will the country.
So all in all, thumbs down from a Liberal Tory perspective...
The latest mental university funding idea...
The basic idea behind this is that top universities will offer all their government sponsored places to poor kids and ask all the rich kids to cough up, regardless of how good they are. The result? More poor kids go to Oxbridge and - hey presto - social mobility!
Only... THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN!
Once again, those creating public policy seem to be doing it on the back of a fag packet with a big helping of wishful thinking. In all the ideas around funding universities, relatively little attention is paid to how universities and students are actually likely to behave. In this instance, the government is expecting universities to massively disincentivise good rich students from coming. Why would they ever want to do that? Isn't it more logical that they would offer the cheap places to their top choices, regardless of background, then offer expensive places to the rich kids who didn't make the first cut but could probably end up with a 2:1 with a bit of work.
So what is the end result? More rich kids go to Oxbridge, poor kids get the same bum deal and social immobility is entrenched. Terrific.
Equally, Oxbridge et al could just keep the number of places they offer the same, charging rich kids more for the privilege. This may be good for Oxbridge, but it is not good for anyone else. It will make it easier for Oxbridge to avoid offering bursaries etc to poorer students, since their fee structure will already look highly progressive. As a result, the policy serves only to inflate the cost of an education at our top universities.
Policies like these really get my Tory goat. For starters, they massively increase the impression that Tories are there to serve the rich - I've a sneaking suspicion that this policy comes from a rich minister afraid his kid can't compete for a place as things stand. Furthermore, this is a pretty stupid idea from an economic perspective. Real equality of opportunity guarantees that the country gets the most out of its best people. Turning Oxford and Cambridge into bastions of privilege deters others from even applying. More bright kids from poor backgrounds will give up on Oxbridge and uni altogether. They won't get the best from their potential and neither will the country.
So all in all, thumbs down from a Liberal Tory perspective...
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