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A new university blueprint – but will it just gather dust?


PHILIP Augar’s wide-ranging Review of Post-18 Education and Funding was set up to suggest a new tertiary education system that would work for students and taxpayers.


His report was published on 30 May 2019 and the headline recommendations are:


Cornish delight – a repeat performance


BDP was invited back by Falmouth University to develop proposals for a second phase of the Academy of Innovation and Research (AIR) on their Penryn Campus.


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• the reduction of higher education tuition fees to £7,500 per year • Government to replace lost fee income by increasing teaching grant • extending the student loan repayment period from 30 years to 40 years • reducing the interest charged on student loans while students are studying • capping the overall amount of repayments on student loans to 1.2 times their loan • reducing the income threshold for student loan repayments from £25,000 to £23,000


The report acknowledges that post-18 education in England is a “story of both care and neglect” and it proposes that the HE sector should absorb a further freeze on per student resources to help fund investment in other parts of the post- 18 education system, notably further education colleges.


FE colleges are the Cinderella of the sector in Augar’s eyes (as they were for former Education Secretary, Kenneth Baker). Worryingly, notes Augar, “Despite the very large increase in participation in higher education by young people, the total number of people involved in tertiary education has declined. Almost 40 per cent of 25 year olds do not progress beyond GCSEs as their highest qualification and social mobility shows little sign of improvement.”


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His solution? “England needs a stronger technical and vocational education system at sub-degree levels to meet the structural skills shortages that are in all probability contributing to the UK’s weak productivity performance. Improved funding, a better maintenance offer, and a more coherent suite of higher technical and professional qualifications would help level the playing field with degrees and drive up both the supply of and demand for such courses.”


Universities are understandably nervous about the proposed fee cut to £7,500 per year. If the funding gap is not made up in full by government, quality and the student experience would be undermined, says Universities UK.


There’s clearly much discussion yet to take place, and no obligation on the Government to implement in full, or even in part.


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Something else then for the new Prime Minister to consider. And given how Brexit will continue to preclude almost any other topic being discussed for years to come, Augar’s report may well take its place gathering dust alongside many other unimplemented Education blue papers of the past.


One hopes not, because there is so much to fix with the current system, not least FE colleges, and the former banker has offered some shrewd suggestions for mending it.


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Andrew Pring Editor


andrew@stable-media.co.uk highereducationestates 3


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