Beware the Browne Report

Canada needn't take inspiration from the report's proposed changes to the U.K. university fee system, which would succeed only at reducing the government's financial liability.

This week, the controversial results of the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance were unveiled in the United Kingdom. The review, chaired by Lord Browne, was launched in 2009 to make recommendations to the government on fees policy and financial support for university students. The resulting document, known as the Browne Report, proposes, among other things, the complete removal of tuition-fee regulation, which would allow universities to charge whatever they want. This would be a radical departure for the U.K., where tuition is now strictly controlled.

Response to the report has been mixed, if not polarized. Tuition fees are a political hot potato in the U.K., and not just for the typical reasons. Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats, part of the governing coalition with David Cameron’s Tories, notably campaigned on reducing fees. As an issue with the potential to detonate the still-fragile coalition government, the adoption of the Browne proposals is far from certain.

If the recommendations do go through – and perhaps even if they don’t – expect the Browne Report to catch the attention of Canadian policymakers, particularly those in Ontario. With the province’s current tuition-fee policy set to expire next year, Browne’s emphasis on ensuring financial sustainability through unfettered tuition fees could answer a few burning policy questions – namely, how the government can provide greater financial resources for a chronically underfunded university system without investing additional public funding.

Let’s be clear on what the Browne Report means. While its recommendations are couched in a stated concern for the quality of the university system and its accessibility to students from all backgrounds, this policy is about one thing and one thing only – reducing the government’s financial obligations to the university system. It doesn’t even increase the overall financial resources available to U.K. universities – it just shifts the burden of paying for the current system onto students and their families.

Like the U.K., many Canadian provinces are now running budget deficits and may be looking for ways to reduce spending. In this sense, the lure of the Browne Report is huge. For the rest of us, though, shifting the cost of higher education onto students is far less attractive. It may ease the deficit or improve the bottom line, but it does nothing to ensure that every qualified student is able to access a high-quality university education.

To make sure vast swathes of the middle class are not barred from higher education by this free market of fees, the Browne Report proposes an enhanced student financial aid system. The U.K. government will pay all educational costs (up to £6,000, or about CDN $9,600) upfront, and the student will repay this loan after graduation through a nine-per-cent payment on all income over £21,000. In essence, this is an expansion of the U.K.’s income-contingent loan repayment plan (ICLRP).

Theoretically, such systems make loan payments more affordable, as they are calculated as a proportion of total income rather than as a flat, mortgage-style amount. But ICLRPs also have deeply regressive elements. Due to interest charges, graduates who choose (or have no other option than) a lower-earning career will end up paying much more for their education, as it will take much longer to repay their loans. Again, ICLRPs are a policy usually designed to do one thing: make higher levels of student debt more affordable. In Canada, where total student loan debt is creeping up to $15 billion, the idea of increasing graduate debt seems like a terrible idea, no matter how you ask students to pay it off.

If the recommendations made in the Browne Report are carried out, the upshot is grim: less public funding, dramatically higher tuition, and greater student debt. This is fine if you’re focused on the government’s deficit. If, however, you take a broader view of public policy, concerned with issues of equity and quality, then the Browne Report should put you on guard. If Canadian policymakers start looking across the Atlantic for solutions to the difficult problem of student finance, it won’t be because they’re interested in an accessible and high-performing higher-education system.