"The Governor View" – What can universities do to demonstrate the value of higher education?

The comprehensive spending review this autumn is likely to be crunch time for higher education funding, and universities are being urged by Universities UK to make a strong case for protecting the sector from cuts now, before it is too late.

UUK’s report 'Universities and the UK's economic recovery: an analysis of future impact', published in late May, alongside a #GettingResults campaign, aims to put universities at the heart of the economic and social recovery, predicting that thousands of jobs, new businesses, and prosperity will be created across the UK through university collaborations with employers, local government, and other partners. The report and campaign may be seen in part as an attempt to head off a reduction in the tuition fee cap from £9,250 to £7,500 – originally a proposal to emerge from the Augar review of post-18 education, which has reportedly found favour among Treasury officials keen to cut the cost of the student finance system. A government consultation paper on university fees and funding is expected to be published soon.

The focus on university funding has been accompanied by a heightened debate over the value of higher education, which has gained new impetus as students begin to make their feelings known about the impact of the pandemic on their education and university experience (see the latest Advance HE/HEPI Student Academic Experience Survey), and graduates face a harder challenge to find well-paid jobs.

Governors speaking to Advance HE are worried about the widespread speculation that the Government is likely to lower the fee cap, and top it up only for courses it sees as helpful to the economy and those that provide good graduate employment outcomes. The way in which data on graduate employment and earnings is collected and how the government calculates a subject’s economic worth could lead to course closures in the arts and humanities and jeopardise the continued existence of Britain’s world-leading small, specialist institutions, they warn.

“Eight out of 10 of the country’s fastest-growing industries employ more graduates from the arts, humanities and social sciences than any other disciplines, according to a report by the British Academy,” says the governor of a specialist institution. “Small specialist institutions already have to raise the extra it costs to teach the students and many of them are in London and the south-east, and so will be losing London weighting because of cuts made in the last comprehensive spending review. That’s between five and ten per cent of our income. A cut in tuition fees will put the world-famous music, performing arts and dance specialist institutions in jeopardy and if we lose them, we lose the diversity and choice the UK is famous for and the creativity and innovation that drive our economy,” she adds.

A governor at a medium-sized university welcomed new questions in the Graduate Outcomes survey conducted by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) published last month (June) which ask not just about earnings but also job satisfaction, the value of the work and progress towards career goals. “The problem with relying on salaries is that all the evidence shows that the biggest determinant factor is the social-economic background you come from. Your university and your subject does not actually change your career outcomes that much - so different universities have different outcomes for graduate destinations depending on the type of student they recruit. The wider measures HESA is proposing by these questions are very important because the idea of using salary is hugely problematic because the data the Government uses does not control for part-time working or regional variation in employment rates. Not measuring outcomes purely on economic value is fairer because it looks at wider things, such as whether graduates feel their job is worthwhile and how well university prepared them for it,” she said.

Some universities have already confronted the issues and launched their own publicity drives. One governor said her institution has launched a ‘Future Skills’ campaign highlighting the importance of a creative education and entrepreneurial innovation to provide employers with a skilled workforce for the future. It commissioned and published a YouGov survey of 2,000 employers showing that the top 10 attributes they seek in employees include problem-solving, communication, critical thinking and digital prowess, all of which are developed in creative courses.

This is a message that UUK also wants universities to get out, alongside the contribution universities make to science, research, and industry, locally, regionally and nationally. The campaign “toolkit” showcases how universities have been helping to fight the pandemic, and positions them as essential to help the country recover and re-build. It calls for stories of successful spin-offs, start-ups and partnerships with local and regional industry to flood social media, newspapers and television.

As a governor and lobbyist points out, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has stressed the need to improve further education, historically the poor relation to higher education in the UK. “In January this year he spoke of a ‘great rebalancing’ between higher and technical education as he launched the Skills for Jobs white paper alongside the government’s interim response to the Augar review,” she says. When pressing their case, it is very important for universities to avoid language which reinforces this either-or attitude to post-18 education, she adds. “It’s not a trade-off between HE and FE and we must not fall into the trap of saying it is because people in universities, particularly in the post-92s, don’t see it as a conflict. They work a lot with further education and employers to create a local skills eco system.” Further education has been neglected and needs big investment but not at the cost of higher education. “The OECD and world economic forum have done research showing that what we are going to need is people with higher levels of qualifications. So why stop people getting them?” she asks.

A positive presence in the media could really help change the direction of government thinking towards universities and perhaps head off the threat of a fee reduction says the governor of a medium-sized university. “I think we have to think about the focus of the UUK campaign. I don’t think the public has a problem with universities – application figures are up again this year. It’s the government that has the problem. So we need to be lobbying local MPs and councillors to bring pressure to bear on ministers,” she adds.

The University Alliance is running its own campaign – Powering the UK’s future – made up of six mini-campaigns using human interest case studies drawn from its partners in business and industry to demonstrate the way its courses and graduates are driving innovation. With the need, post-pandemic and post-Brexit, to upskill and retrain the workforce, the campaign will also focus on the huge amount of continual professional development that universities provide.

But it's not solely the job of universities to show how successful their graduates are and the contribution they make to the country, says the governor of a specialist institution. “We need companies to speak out and tell politicians that they need and value our graduates,” she said.

Universities have good relationships with public sector organisations that take their graduates, such as the NHS and bodies such as the National Trust and Cancer Research UK, says another governor: “If we can get the big public sector institutions and charities to speak out about the importance to them of well-funded universities then maybe the government will listen.”