Islay McLeod’s Scotland Three Ruins 3

Islay McLeod’s Scotland

Three ruins

3. Near Tomintoul

Thinkpiece

It isn’t free

Jill Stephenson

Labour and the Lib Dems, according to the Scotsman, have followed the SNP by declaring that they will not charge Scottish students for a university education. It was reported that ‘university education will remain free in Scotland’. This is not exactly true.
     There is no such thing as free university education, any more than there is such a thing as a free lunch. Someone pays – in this case, the taxpayer. Whether the taxpayer can continue to pay for the various benefits that Scots enjoy – but the English do not – remains to be seen. This is where the issue of full fiscal autonomy for Scotland becomes particularly interesting: will a Scottish government with tax-raising powers raise taxes sufficiently to pay for the goodies? And, if not, where will the money come from?
     What taxes would be raised? Surely not a further rise in VAT. And not petrol duty, either, given recent developments in oil prices. A national insurance rise would be madness with unemployment a concern. Given the Scottish Executive’s track record, a massive hike in alcohol duty would be on the cards, but that would not be nearly enough to pay for all the extra spending. It would have to be a rise in income tax, and, to bring real returns, a rise in the standard rate. Those who pay only at the standard rate are unlikely to be able to find creative ways of avoiding payment, unlike the super rich.
     It seems, however, that a tax rise is not regarded as the only option. Tavish Scott is quoted as saying that universal free benefits such as bus travel for pensioners and prescriptions could be cut to ensure that students do not have to pay fees. Does anyone know how much (or how little) scrapping the bus pass would raise?
     How cost effective would it be to drive fare-paying bus passengers to distraction (and possibly violence) when they had to queue behind a succession of old dears (such as myself) who don’t know what the fare is and have to rummage in pockets and bags and purses to try to find the exact change for their bus fare? The bus pass is a social benefit that benefits more than pensioners. But the sensible tactic of setting the qualifying age at 65 rather than 60 would not raise a massive amount of money when set against the costs of higher education.

     It seems that most politicians in Scotland prefer to fiddle and let the universities burn. Or perhaps they think that it really is possible to run university education on the cheap. Of course there are savings that could be made. Limiting principals’ salaries to the ‘no more than the prime minister’s salary’ rule would be good for morale in the sector, even if it would not bring in a relatively large amount.
     Getting universities to abandon gimmicks that are designed to show that they are participating in worthy causes would save a bit more. Employing someone to run discussion sessions for members of staff to advise them about how to make their homes more energy efficient is not really what public money devoted to higher education is intended for.
My experience of this is being invited to such a discussion session on the very day last year when our school was scheduled to move from its old premises to a newly-refurbished building, a move which was a major undertaking. That is a typical example of how much people in central management know (or care) about what is actually going on at the sharp end, where the real work of a university is done.
     The newly-refurbished building reflects modern managerial priorities. The public spaces are impressive and quite spacious. The academic staff offices are small and often ill-lit. The seminar rooms have state of the art IT facilities, but, so it seems, they have no provision for ventilation. After an hour with a class, I found it necessary to spend the second hour with the door open to ease the heat and the odour, and to revive drooping heads. It reminded me of my late husband’s view that the problem with architects is that they are failed artists, whereas they would be more useful if they were failed engineers.
     The mean staff accommodation has the effect of putting pressure on teaching space. If, during the course of the year, it becomes necessary, or simply desirable, to meet three or more students in an unscheduled discussion session, this cannot be done in a tiny staff office, as was the case in the old building where offices were larger, and it cannot be done in a seminar room in the new building, since all the rooms were booked for classes before the start of the year. Selling off accommodation and refurbishing (while reducing the unit size of) what remains is a money-saving tactic.
     Given successive governments’ downward and increasingly sharp pressure on the ‘unit of resource’ (how much a university is paid per student) over the last three decades or so, it is hardly surprising that some universities have gratefully accepted money from dictators abroad. When strapped for cash, money from anywhere is welcome. Accepting sub-standard postgraduate students who pay full fees helps finances considerably, and some universities have gone down that road.
     Not failing full-fee students, however dubious their abilities, is in the same category. Perhaps English students should look on the bright side and twig that, when they are paying the big bucks and Scottish students are paying nothing, the balance of advantage will lie with them.
     According to Lord Mandelson, in the past, and David Willetts now, fees will put students in a position to demand ‘better teaching’. Nonsense: what they will demand is better marks, which is not the same thing at all.

Jill Stephenson is former professor of modern German history at the University of Edinburgh