Higher education: who’s going to pay?

Hundreds of thousands of students will have breathed a sigh of relief this morning as record A-level results were released across the country, reports Olivia Gavoyannis.

The proportion getting top A* and A grades has risen by almost 75 per cent since the last time conventional exams were taken in 2019, while the pass rate for Scottish school qualifications is well above pre-pandemic levels. The record haul is being put down to the teacher-assessed grading system. Many Btec students received their teacher-assessed results today, with the rest finding out on Thursday.

It has also been a bumper year for university admissions. According to the latest UCAS figures, a total of 388,230 UK applications have been accepted – an eight per cent rise compared with results day last year.

There will be nerves, relief and excitement at the prospect of starting somewhere new. Few of these students will consider the gloomy prospect that they might never be able to pay off their student debt if they take up their place – and the impact this will have on the national finances.

Sir Peter Lampl, founder and chairman of the Sutton Trust, has warned that student debt is no longer an issue that can be swept under the carpet. 

The philanthropist told The Daily Telegraph that there were too many school-leavers seeking university places and that student loans, which can cost more than £30,000, could become a “massive” problem for the country’s coffers.

He said too many graduates come out with skills that the marketplace doesn’t want, an “astronomical” amount of debt they won’t be able to pay back and asked: “Who is going to pay?”

With UCAS estimating that the number of university applicants will rise from around 700,000 a year to more than a million in the next four years – this is a question of increasing urgency for the Treasury.

This week, the government has tried to get ahead of the ticking time bomb by encouraging middle-class students to consider taking apprenticeships, which have fallen in popularity among all age groups since 2015/16 – from 509,000 to 323,000 in 2019/20.

Gavin Williamson, England’s Education Secretary, said that university was “just one of the many options for young people to consider” and that “many world-class careers have been built on a solid apprenticeship with, in some cases, salaries overtaking graduate earnings.”

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has also joined in the push for apprenticeships, offering to pay businesses £3,000 for each apprentice hired, as well as throwing his weight behind a £7 million fund to support more flexible apprenticeships opportunities in the creative, agriculture and construction sectors.

With all this new investment, it looks like the tide might be about to turn. Williamson said that four in five of the students who are getting results but not planning to start a conditional degree have considered an apprenticeship, while a fifth say it is their main plan.

But even if these figures don’t show the “changing middle-class attitudes toward apprenticeships” that Williams has suggested they do, the pressure cooker situation created by this year’s exam results might push some to reconsider.

The number of students with a live UCAS application who do not currently hold a place is understood to be 20 per cent higher than on results day last year, meaning many will be scrambling to secure a spot through the clearing process in the coming days.

After the pandemic has upturned everything we thought we knew about education and jobs, it will be interesting to see how many of the class of 2021 consider a different route into the workplace after the dust from today’s results has settled.

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Olivia Gavoyannis,
Reaction Reporter