One of the mysteries of the new fees regime, which won't be clarified until after the first students graduate from it in 2015, is what will happen to postgraduate education. Will students who know that they have a significant financial contribution to make to their undergraduate education throughout their forthcoming working lives be prepared to take on extra debt (assuming they can get a loan from somewhere) to undertake postgraduate study? We just don't know the answer to this. The possible availability of loans is questionable. At present career development loans are available from a number of banks, but I have heard that they are reviewing the scheme and may withdraw from it. That would leave two immediate possibilities - to work and save money before undertaking a postgraduate qualification; or to borrow money from family members. The latter would, of course, act against widening participation since many graduates from poorer backgrounds would not be able to draw on the 'Bank of Mum and Dad'. The former would lead to a change in the nature of the postgraduate population - with an increase in older students returning to study, and with a possible increase in demands for part-time modes of delivery so that study can be matched with work.
The government is starting to wake up to possible difficulties over postgraduate education in the future. The funding council has reversed, temporarily for the moment, some of its cuts to the provision of fee support for postgraduates. There is a new rhetoric developing around 'we need to think about postgraduates.' The issue is in two parts - the first concerns fees and the second concerns maintenance. Within the university world we tend to think more about fees. But in reality it is the cost of maintaining oneself as a postgraduate student that is much more important to the individual since that represents a higher proportion of the total expenses for the year. That could change. If all universities pushed their postgraduate fees up to match those charged for undergraduates then the fee would rise to around half of the total cost of the year.
But where might maintenance support come from in the future? The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) seems keenly interested in a scheme being put forward by Tim Leunig at the policy think-tank Centre Forum (and also a lecturer at the LSE) whereby a flat-rate maintenance loan would be made available with repayments starting on completion of the course and on a scale that is different from the generous terms of the undergraduate maintenance arrangements. Whether the finance is forwarded by the Treasury or by banks, there is a need for a guarantee of repayment. (It is worth remembering that the calculations on undergraduate support suggest that between 30 and 40% of fee and maintenance loan sums will not be repaid.) The latest suggestion seems to be that universities might act as the guarantors for their own students. If a student cannot repay the loan (for instance because of unemployment) then the university would be asked to do so.
This would be a recipe for an extremely cautious approach to the support of postgraduate education. Universities might only wish to support students taking a small range of courses where the immediate graduate premium (the increase in salary) is significant and where entering employment is the norm. In addition they might only be willing to support the most 'conventional' of students and thus leave on one side applications from those whose entry into the postgraduate labour market may be more complex - for example for reasons of disability or of family responsibilities.
So there are many questions about the future of postgraduate education. Today I have been in discussions about setting up a significant project to consider a number of key angles of the issue.
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