Tag: system

  • WEEKEND READING: Why Scotland’s student funding system is “unfair, unsustainable, unaffordable” and needs to be replaced with a graduate contribution model

    WEEKEND READING: Why Scotland’s student funding system is “unfair, unsustainable, unaffordable” and needs to be replaced with a graduate contribution model

    • These are the remarks by Alison Payne, Research Director at Reform Scotland, at the HEPI / CDBU event on funding higher education, held at Birkbeck, University of London, on Thursday of this week.
    • We are also making available Johnny Rich’s slides on ‘Making graduate employer contributions work’ from the same event, which are available to download here.

    Thanks to the CDBU and to HEPI for the invitation to attend and take part in today’s discussion. 

    My speech today has been titled ‘A graduate contribution model’. Of course, for UK graduates not from Scotland, I’m sure they would make the point that they very much do contribute through their fees, but the situation is very different in Scotland and I’m really grateful that I have the opportunity to feed the Scottish situation into today’s discussion.

    I thought it may be helpful if I gave a quick overview of the Scottish situation, as it differs somewhat to the overview Nick gave this morning covering the rest of the UK. 

    Although tuition fees were introduced throughout the UK in 1998, the advent of devolution in 1999 and the passing of responsibility for higher education to Holyrood began the period of diverging funding policies.

    The then Labour / Lib Dem Scottish Executive, as it was then known, scrapped tuition fees and replaced them with a graduate endowment from 2001-02, with the first students becoming liable to pay the fee from April 2005. The scheme called for students to pay back £2,000 once they started earning over £10,000. 

    The graduate endowment was then scrapped by the SNP in February 2008. A quirk of EU law meant that students from EU countries could not be charged tuition fees if Scottish students were not paying them but students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland could be charged. This meant that from 2008 to 2021/22 EU students did not need to pay fees to attend Scottish universities, though students from the rest of the UK did. 

    We’re used to politics in Scotland being highly polarised and often toxic with few areas of commonality, but for the most part the policy of ‘free’ higher education has been supported by all of the political parties. Indeed at the last Scottish election in 2021 all parties committed to maintaining the policy in their manifestos. It is only recently that the Scottish Tories have suggested a move away from this following the election of their new leader, Russell Finlay.

    But behind this unusual political consensus, the ‘free’ policy is becoming increasingly unsustainable and unaffordable. Politicians will privately admit this, but politics, and a rock with an ill-advised slogan, have made it harder to have the much needed debate.

    The Cap

    While we don’t have tuition fees, we do have a cap on student numbers. And while more Scots are going to university, places are unable to keep up with demand. Since 2006 there has been a 56% increase in applicants, but an 84% increase in the number refused entry. 

    It is increasingly the case that students from the rest of the UK or overseas are accepted on to courses in Scotland while their Scottish counterparts are denied. For example, when clearing options are posted, often those places at Scotland’s top universities are only available to students from the rest of the UK and not to Scottish students, even if the latter have better grades. As a result, Scots can feel that they are denied access to education on their doorstep that those from elsewhere can obtain. Indeed, there are growing anecdotes about those who can afford it buying or renting property elsewhere in the UK so that they can attend a Scottish university, pay the higher fee and get around the cap.

    Basically, more people want to go to university, but the fiscal arrangements are holding ambition them back. This problem was highlighted by the Scottish Affairs Select Committee’s report on Universities from 2021.

    Some commentators in Scotland have blamed the lack of places on widening access programmes, but I would challenge this. It is undoubtedly a good thing that more people from non-traditional backgrounds are getting into university, it is the cap that is limiting Scottish places, not access programmes. This is a point that has been backed by individuals such as the Principal of St Andrews, Professor Dame Sally Mapstone [who also serves as HEPI’s Chair].

    Financial Woes

    The higher education sector in Scotland, as with elsewhere in the UK, is not in great financial health. Audit Scotland warned back in 2019 that half of our institutions were facing growing deficits. Pressures including pensions contributions, Brexit and estate maintenance have all played a role and in the face of this decline, but nothing has changed and we’re now seeing crisis like those at Dundee emerge. Against this backdrop, income from those students who pay higher fees is an important revenue stream.

    There is obviously a huge variation in what the fees are to attend a Scottish university, considerably more so than in the rest of the UK.

    For example, to study Accounting and Business as an undergraduate at Edinburgh University, the cost for a full-time new student for 2024/25 is £1,820 per year for a Scottish-domiciled student (met by the Scottish Government), £9,250 per year for someone from the rest of the UK and £26,500 for an international student. 

    It is clear why international students and UK students from outside Scotland are therefore so much more attractive than Scottish students.

    However, there is by no means an equal distribution of higher fee paying students among our institutions.

    For example, at St Andrews about one-third of undergraduate full-time students were Scots, with one-third from the rest of the UK and one-third international. The numbers for Edinburgh are similar.  

    At the other end of the scale, at the University of the Highlands and Islands and Glasgow Caledonian, around 90% of students are Scottish, with only around only 1% being international.  

    So it is clear that institutions’ ability to raise money from fee-paying students varies very dramatically, increasing the financial pressures on those with low fee income.

    However, when looking at the issue, it is important to recognise that it is not just our universities who are struggling, Scotland’s colleges are facing huge financial pressures as well. 

    The current proposed Scottish budget would leave colleges struggling with a persistent, real-terms funding cut of 17 per cent since 2021/22. Our college sector is hugely important in terms of the delivery of skills, working with local economies and as a route to university for so many, but for too long colleges have been treated like the Cinderella service in Scotland. The prioritising of ‘free’ university tuition over the college sector is adding to this problem.

    Regardless of who wins the Holyrood election next year, money is, and will remain, tight for some time. It would be lovely to be able to have lots of taxpayer funded ‘free’ services, but that is simply unsustainable and difficult choices need to be made. 

    This is why we believe that the current situation is unfair, unsustainable, unaffordable and needs to change.

    Reform Scotland would offer another alternative solution. We believe that there needs to be a better balance between the individual graduate and Scottish taxpayers in the contribution towards higher education. 

    One way this could be achieved is through a fee after graduation, to be repaid once they earn more than the Scottish average salary. This would not be a fee incurred on starting university and deferred until after graduation, rather the fee would be incurred on graduation.

    In terms of what that fee could be, the Cubie report over 25 years ago suggested a graduate fee of £3,000, which would be about £5,500 today.  This could perhaps be the starting point for consideration.  

    Any figure should take account of different variations in terms of the true cost of the course and potential skill shortages. 

    However, introducing a graduate fee would not necessarily mean an end to ‘free’ tuition. 

    Rather it provides an opportunity to look at the skills gaps that exist in Scotland and the possibility of developing schemes which cut off or scrap repayments for graduates who work in specific geographic areas or sectors of Scotland for set periods of time. 

    Such schemes could also look to incorporate students from elsewhere for Scotland is facing a demographic crisis. Our population is set to become older and smaller, and we are the only part of the UK projected to have a smaller population by 2045. 

    We desperately need to retain and attract more working-age people. Perhaps such graduate repayment waiver schemes could also be offered to students from the rest of the UK who choose to study in Scotland – stay here and work after graduation and we will pay a proportion of your fee. A wide range of different schemes could be considered and linked into the wider policy issues facing Scotland. 

    According to the Higher Education Statistics Authority (HESA) there were 3,370 graduates from the rest of the UK who attended a Scottish institution in 2020/21. Of those, only 990 chose to remain in Scotland for work after graduation. Could we encourage more people to stay after studying?

    Conclusion

    A graduate fee is only one possible solution, but I would argue that it is also one with a short shelf life. As graduates would not incur the fee until they graduated, there would be a four-year delay between the change in policy and revenue beginning to be received. Our institutions are facing very real fiscal problems and there is a danger of a university going to the wall. 

    If we get to the 2026 election and political parties refuse to shift the dial and at least recognise that the current system is unsustainable, then there is a danger that nothing will change for another Parliamentary term. I don’t think we can afford to wait until 2031.

    There is another interesting dynamic now as well. Labour in Scotland currently, publicly at least, oppose tuition fees. However, there are now 37 Scottish Labour MPs at Westminster who are backing the increase of fees on students from outside Scotland, or Scottish students studying down south. Given the unpopularity of the Labour government as well as the tight contest between the SNP and Labour for Holyrood, it seems unlikely that position can be maintained.

    All across the UK there are increasing signs of the stark financial situation we are facing. Against that backdrop, along with the restrictions placed on the number being able to attend, free university tuition is unsustainable and unaffordable. People outside Scottish politics seem to be able to see this reality, privately so do many of our politicians. We need to shift this debate in to the public domain in Scotland and develop a workable solution.

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  • The research system won’t become more agile without a deeper conversation on funding

    The research system won’t become more agile without a deeper conversation on funding

    There is a feeling among some policymakers that the UK research system lacks agility. But the key question is agility for who: for researchers, for research institutions, or for the government which funds the research?

    By definition, research explores the unknown. These unknowns range from the unknown solutions to today’s challenges such as affordable healthcare and reversing climate change, to initiating the yet unknown technologies of tomorrow that will feed future economic growth.

    Whose agility?

    The UK government’s Plan for change: milestones for mission-led government repeatedly mentions the UK’s outstanding research base. It is also clear that government has high expectations of how our research system can demonstrate agility to pivot towards addressing major societal needs. But addressing any of these missions requires time, and hence a disciplined balance of agility and commitment to a long-term research agenda.

    At a more operational level, for our national funders such as UKRI, legitimate concerns over the precarity of research careers, and the recognition that hard problems take time to solve, means that a large fraction of their annual budget is committed for three or more years into the future.

    The extent of these multi-year commitments seemingly restricts the agility of the research system. However, looking more closely, embedded within these commitments are the commitments made to individual researchers to support them and their teams to pursue thematic programmes while empowering their own agility to rapidly pivot their research in response to new ideas of their own or the discoveries of others. It is precisely these longer-term funding commitments typified by support for research fellowships or the quality-related funding driven by REF that allows the UK’s researchers themselves to be agile.

    It is widely accepted the UK’s research system is highly productive in basic curiosity-driven research. This productivity, we would argue, is a direct result of the researcher-led agility that our current funding system allows. However, we also recognise that government can and should identify areas of research in support of our industrial or other national needs – some on shorter time horizons.

    The key is the balance between this academically-led and government directed agility – we can and do need to do both. Reaching this balance requires greater transparency from the funding agencies and an intellectually safe discussion between government and the research sector. We urge UKRI and DSIT to articulate this balance, around which we can all then work.

    Speed and success

    Related to these questions of agility are current problems in the funding system which if left unchecked will undermine our research productivity. The costs of research have far outstripped inflation and available research funding has not kept pace – for example, the fall in the number of doctoral training centres funded by EPSRC from 2014 to 2019 and to 2024.

    These financial pressures have driven hyper competition in the sector. Success rates have plummeted, with many researchers’ experience being of ten per cent success rates or less – particularly in the schemes supporting academically-led, curiosity-driven research.

    Perhaps even worse are the lengthening times taken to receive a funding decision; a decision on a three-year long application often takes more than one year to receive – hardly a route to agility of any kind.

    Irrespective of these budget-constrained success rates, we urge our national funders to reduce significantly the time it takes to reach their decisions on whether to fund or not. Suggestions have been made to move to lottery funding, thereby reducing decision times and eliminating potential biases within an ultra-low success rate environment. But a lottery would not solve the issue of low success rates, and hence fails to provide the continuity of funding for people and the security of careers upon which their agility depends.

    Beyond long decision times, low success rates drive many other unwanted behaviours: for example, conservatism in selection, or a tendency for the applicant to oversell.

    The danger of system failure

    The reality is that the public purse alone is insufficient to fund the research volume the UK requires. Hence a question for the research sector, funders and government alike is how we can maximise the gearing of taxpayers’ investments by securing industrial and philanthropic co-investment to drive economic growth and public benefit.

    It should also be recognised that universities in the UK increasingly cross-subsidise the whole research system via non-publicly funded teaching, and that this aspect of the system is already highly geared. Leaving aside several successful schemes which already do this, such as EPSRC prosperity partnerships, we believe that a co-investment culture would also require system agility and prompt decisions.

    We all feel that the research system lacks agility, but we each see this problem from our own perspectives. The government bemoans the forward commitment of our funders – but also needs to restrict the number of new initiatives to those that it has the resources to fund, perhaps refocussing an agreed fraction of the challenges each year. Funders think that they are empowering the agility of their researchers – but also need to realise that their lengthy decision times are harming productivity. Individual researchers should welcome the agility with which they are empowered – but must accept also the responsibility to never stop thinking as to how their expertise can be applied to benefit the economy and society.

    These are the interconnected problems of agility, of balance between government priorities and curiosity-driven research, of success rates, of decision times. The system we have is in danger of failing us all – we need to talk.

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  • Audit sheds light on state-issued credit card misuse in the Connecticut college system

    Audit sheds light on state-issued credit card misuse in the Connecticut college system

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    Dive Brief:

    • A state audit of employee spending practices at the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system found several financial transactions that broke university policies or lacked adequate documentation. 
    • Comptroller Sean Scanlon detailed over $19,000 in spending on food by system Chancellor Terrence Cheng in fiscal years 2022 through 2024, by far the majority of spending on his institutional credit card. Violations included missing receipts, missing guest lists and purchases of restricted items like alcohol.
    • Scanlon’s probe came at Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont’s request after CT Insider reported Cheng spent lavishly on meals with a state-funded credit card over the past few years.

    Dive Insight:

    The report from CT Insider alleged that Cheng had spent as much as $1,114 at restaurants in a week, and paid for private chauffeurs despite having access to a state-provided car at the time. Once, he spent nearly $500 for the service, the outlet reported.

    Scanlon’s office concluded that “while not technically violating state or university policy, we found that, in the absence of sound, comprehensive policies, the Chancellor utilized poor [judgment] when making P-Card purchases that were especially troubling given the financial stress on the CSCU system.”

    The audit zeroed in on spending on food and transportation by the chancellor. Meals designated as business meetings accounted for 70% of the spending on the official’s card, and some transactions exceeded the $50 meal limit for system employees, the audit found. It also found 18 food purchases with tips deemed excessive — above 22% — which the report noted “is not a policy violation but a questionable use of university funds.” 

    Of the chancellor’s food-related transactions reviewed by the comptroller’s office, 43% had either no itemized receipts or were missing receipts entirely. 

    Among other violations were 30 instances where Cheng paid sales tax. That’s a violation of policy because institutional credit cards — also known as P-cards — are exempt from sales tax but must go through a process with vendors to credit those taxes.

    However, the comptroller found that Cheng did not technically violate policy because as chancellor he can “override the policy at his own discretion.”

    As for chauffeur use, the report noted three times when Cheng — who lives in New York state — paid for a private car service with his P-card, including two trips even more expensive than the one reported by CT Insider. Scanlon determined that these services did not represent violations but said that they “are of note as the Chancellor was provided with a state vehicle for their use.”

    In an emailed statement Thursday, Cheng said that he appreciated the audit’s thoroughness and that the system is “committed to implementing stronger controls, policies, and comprehensive training.”

    The system review also found issues with P-card use by other leaders, including the interim president of Southern Connecticut State University, Dwayne Smith. The audit found that Smith’s P-card “shows a wide variety of infractions spanning almost every category of restricted purchasing and failure to follow many of the policy requirements for documentation and reporting of transactions.”

    Specifically, the comptroller’s office faulted Smith for failing to keep receipts, as well as purchasing tickets to an outside football game without stating its business purpose, among other issues. 

    In an emailed statement, Smith thanked the comptroller for his analysis and recommendations, adding that many of his office’s P-card transactions relate to his community engagement activities. 

    “These meetings have yielded significant support for our scholarship programs, internships, mentoring, and ultimately, enhanced job opportunities for our graduates,” Smith said.

    Scanlon’s audit found many other issues across the Connecticut college system’s staff. His office’s report lists 10 recommended changes the system should make, including reinstating internal audits, establishing a central policy for P-card use, creating accountability measures for card misuse and establishing a policy for vehicle use. 

    Unfortunately, this audit revealed troubling gaps in oversight and questionable spending practices,” Scanlon said in a Wednesday statement. “Our recommendations provide a clear path forward with more comprehensive policies, consistent enforcement, and greater overall accountability.”

    In his statement, Cheng said the recommendations would “support the goal of accountability and transparency across the system.”

    He added, “The system has begun to take steps in this direction and over the next 100 days, I’ve instructed my team to implement recommendations to improve compliance and reporting.”

    The system’s governing board this fall moved to increase oversight of spending in its central office. As part of that process, the system recently hired a new chief compliance officer and legal counsel.

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  • Higher Ed Without Borders speak with President Jim Henderson of the University of Louisiana System – Edu Alliance Journal

    Higher Ed Without Borders speak with President Jim Henderson of the University of Louisiana System – Edu Alliance Journal

    On this podcast episode of Higher Ed Without Borders co-hosted by Edu Alliance Founders Dr. Senthil Nathan and Dean Hoke speak with Dr. Jim Henderson, President of the University of Louisiana System.

    Dr. James Henderson, President of the University of Louisiana System, a multi-university campus system with an enrollment of approximately 90,000 students. Prior to being appointed as President of the System, Dr. Henderson served as President of Northwestern State University.  He is a native of Shreveport Louisiana. He received his Master’s in Administration from the University of West Florida, and his Doctor of Management degree from the University of Maryland – University College.

    In an October 2021 newspaper article in the Acadiana Advocate, Dr. Henderson’s wife Tonia discussed her husband and love of learning. “Jim has “gone through a lot of schooling” during their marriage and he is a constant reader. He earned his master’s and doctorate while they were married. He also has routinely taken coursework where available — he oftentimes takes Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs — most recently one in Irish literature. “He’s always trying to learn new things,” she said.

    His penchant for lifelong learning made an impact on their three children; only the youngest lives at home now. She says she gets inspired by watching him use his time so well. He allots time for work, family, and his own study.”

    Senthil and Dean discussed with Dr. Henderson about the university system and his views on education and leadership.

    Comments and Suggestions:

    Higher Ed Without Borders would love to hear your ideas for future topics and guests. Connect with Dr. Senthil Nathan or Dean Hoke on LinkedIn. You can also visit the Edu Alliance website. To hear the entire series please subscribe to Higher Ed Without Borders on your preferred podcast platforms such as Apple, Spotify, or Google. The podcast is sponsored by Edu Alliance, an education consulting firm located in Bloomington Indiana, and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

    We assist higher education institutions worldwide on a variety of mission-critical projects. Production support was provided by White Rabbit Printing and Design.

    If your organization wants to know more about how Edu Alliance can best serve you, please contact either Dean Hoke or Dr. Senthil Nathan.

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  • Academic Freedom, Tenure & the U.S. Higher Education System – GlobalHigherEd

    Academic Freedom, Tenure & the U.S. Higher Education System – GlobalHigherEd

    This entry is available via Inside Higher Ed as well.

    ~~~~~~~~~

    2015 is surely one of the most momentous years in a long time regarding debates about tenure, academic freedom, the Wisconsin Idea, budget cuts, etc. Yesterday’s balanced article (‘Tenure or Bust‘) by Colleen Flaherty, in Inside Higher Ed, is but the latest of a series of nuanced pieces Ms. Flaherty has produced this year about the unfolding of higher education debates in this Midwest U.S. state of 5.75 million people.

    While I’m immersed in the tumult as a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I can’t help standing back and trying to look at the big picture. Studying, living, working, and visiting a range of other countries, including universities in Canada, England, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and France, as well as being based in the U.S. since 2001, often engenders a drive to compare. And when comparing and reflecting upon what this wonderful university and the state/national higher education system (systems, in reality) has to offer, I increasingly think too much is taken for granted, or assumed. This is a relatively risk-oriented society, and I’m struck by how many people (including many of of the people leaving comments below ‘Tenure or Bust‘) assume the system is ‘broken,’ resiliency can be counted upon, and mechanisms to turn the system on a dime exist, if searched for long enough. They also ignore path dependency, and prior developmental trajectories and agendas, the ones that have led us to where we are now, a nation that has some of the strongest and most dynamic universities in the world. Problems and weaknesses exist, of course, but people in Wisconsin and the U.S. more broadly don’t seem to know just how many other countries are desperate to create just the types of universities that exist here.

    And what are some of the deep (core) principles and conditions that have led to the creation of so many world-class universities and higher education systems (at the state-scale) in Wisconsin and the U.S. more broadly? This question brings me to the words of Hanna Holborn Gray, the esteemed president of the University of Chicago from 1978 to 1993. In conference panel comments reprinted in the Summer 2009 issue of Social Research, Hanna Holborn Gray deemed universities to be a very important and special institution:

    …the only institution in our world, that is, as it were, commissioned to always take a longer-term look. The only institution in our world that is commissioned, so to speak, to concentrate on the mission of discovery and learning, and the transmission of learning, on the elaboration and interpretation and debate over important ideas, over what is most important in the cultural world.

    Emeritus President Holborn Gray then begged the question: “What is it that makes that profession or vocation possible? And what is it that makes the institution in which it is carried on a genuine institution?”

    Her question was actually answered 115 years earlier to this day (18 December 1900), by the founding president of the University of Chicago, William Rainey Harper, in his ‘36th Quarterly Statement of the President of the University’:

    When for any reason, in a university on private foundation or in a university supported by public money, the administration of the institution or the instruction in any one of its departments is changed from an influence from without; when an effort is made to dislodge an officer or a professor because the political sentiment or the religious sentiment of the majority has undergone a change, at that moment the institution has ceased to be a university, and it cannot again take its place in the rank of universities so long as their continues to exist any appreciable extent of coercion. Neither an individual, nor the state, nor the church has the right to interfere with the search for truth, or with its promulgation when found. Individuals, or the state, or the church may found schools for propagating certain kinds of special instruction, but such schools are not universities, and may not be so denominated.

    Genuine ‘universities’ like the University of Chicago and those that make up the University of Wisconsin System are associated with conditions of autonomy, and are spaces that respect and uphold academic freedom. And from the faculty perspective, academic freedom is significantly realized via the mechanism of tenure, which enables faculty to focus upon things like “establishing revolutionary theories about economics” (one of Milton Friedman’s many contributions in Chicago), the sustained basic research that underlies the creation of the iPhone (that the University of Wisconsin-Madison contributed to), challenging research questions related to democratization, authoritarianism, sexuality or violence, complex global challenges such as climate change, and so on. And in so doing, these faculty members (in association with staff & students) play a major role in creating the conditions that have helped us facilitate the formation of one of the world’s first university-linked technology transfer units (WARF) in 1925, through to generating research activity and spin-off firms that has made the Madison city-region one of the US’s most advanced industrial bases (according to the Brookings Institution in 2015) — a now common process of geographical concentration that the World Bank and others (e.g., David Warsh) note is inevitable, but defacto functions as ‘engines’ for regional and national economies.

    I have no doubt the vast majority of the University of Chicago’s current faculty would make the same argument I am above: after all, that great university’s leadership has been doing so since it was founded 125 years ago in 1890. Visionary leaders like William Rainey Harper and Hanna Holborn Gray were aware that the long and challenging road to build one of the most dynamic and powerful higher education systems in the world depended upon more than platitudes about ‘academic freedom’ – academic freedom actually had (and has) to be realized each and every day.

    Kris Olds

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