Case for fees ‘uptick’ but not without reform, says Mandelson

There may be a case for an “immediate uptick in fees” to ease financial pressure on English universities, but some institutions could still be doing more on their own to rectify issues in their balance sheets, according to Lord Mandelson.

The influential Labour politician, who had responsibility for universities while business secretary in Gordon Brown’s government, said the new administration also wanted to look at reforming the student loan system.

“They [ministers] have to look at, first of all, the immediate funding pressure on universities and what might need to be done to ease the pressure on certain universities that are teetering,” Lord Mandelson told a reception in Westminster hosted by languages app Duolingo.

“I think there may be a case for an immediate uptick in fees for the sector as a whole to ease the financial pressure, then I think the government will want to look at how the loan system operates as a whole and whether it can be made more equitable and sustainable. I think that [education secretary] Bridget Phillipson has it in mind to do that.”

Lord Mandelson, who later said that when he was in office “vice-chancellors did not welcome always, in all respects, the dialogue I wanted to have with them”, argued that universities also had a responsibility to “look at how they operate and to set income and revenue against costs and then take a beady eye at what they borrow, and balance all three in a way that some universities frankly have not done”.

Speaking to Times Higher Education after the event, Lord Mandelson said the new government represented a reset in the relationship between government and universities.

“I think universities have taken on incoming attacks on almost every aspect of their lives from the previous government, who, at best, showed indifference and neglect and, at worst, downright destructive behaviour towards universities,” he said.

“I think we are definitely starting a new chapter with the change of government for universities. It doesn’t mean to say everything universities do is perfect – that there should be no greater accountability, of course not.

“I’m a reformer, always have been. But you reform on the basis of a commitment to universities and what they do in and for our country, not on the basis that you want to destroy them.”

Appearing on the same panel, Lord Blunkett, the former education secretary, said universities and their mission groups had been “pretty poor” at making their case to people they needed to reach, for example those who voted for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party in the recent general election.

“They are not putting the message in a way that relates to their lives,” said Lord Blunkett, adding that universities should highlight the “most enormous investment” that communities have received because of higher education and call attention to how many retailers and leisure facilities “would be bust without students”.

Universities also had to be better at responding to change, Lord Blunkett said. “The speed with which universities respond is incredibly variable,” he told the event.

“Some are quick-footed, mobile, and some go through processes that were invented in the ark. To take three years to change the curriculum of a department is ridiculous. It shows people are out of touch with reality; they would go bust in any other setting.”

Both former ministers agreed that international students should be taken out of immigration statistics, with Lord Mandelson saying that the moves against foreign students in Australia and Canada, and a possible change of presidency in the US, might make people more likely to want to come to the UK.

On the future of the Office for Students, the English regulator, after the resignation of its chair, Tory peer Lord Wharton, Lord Mandelson said a “large amount of time” needed to be taken “exerting pressure on the regulator to perform better” and the new ministers would “refresh” the “perimeters and objectives” for the body.

Lord Blunkett, who ruled himself out of taking over as chair, said the OfS had been “bogged down” by too many priorities under the last government and there needed to be “both a lightening-up in terms of the heavy hand of minutiae and, at the same time, being able to focus and work out where things are going very badly wrong and having a proper conversation about it”.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com