A critical friend on the critical path

Our analysis suggests that cutting annual tuition fees to £6,000 could be almost bearable for liberal-arts colleges but that it poses a risk to science-based institutions, which would need bigger subsidies.

Today the Institute for Public-Policy Research has published "A Critical Path", which recommends cutting annual tuition fees for home and European Union undergraduates to £6,000. The proposal from an influential left-leaning think-tank that is timed, as it is, to shape the manifesto pledges that will form the basis of voting at the next general election, scheduled for May 2015, will terrify vice-chancellors and directors of finance, who will rightly worry whether the £3,000 gap will be plugged. (Our Policy Watch concisely explains the report.) Yet it might be possible to identify strategies and efficiencies to cope with such a scenario.

Government spending cuts look likely to persist for a long time. The Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Institute for Government, two respected think-tanks, have warned that austerity will last until 2020 on current trends. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills can expect to see its budget cut by 23 per cent between now and 2019-20. Protect science and research in real-terms and the cuts elsewhere rise to 32 per cent over the same period. Government just does not have the wherewithal to offer much help to universities, despite the Institute for Public-Policy Research’s recommendation that teaching grants be reinstated.