Are Fees Deterring Students?

Technorati tags: tuition fees,student debt

Obviously, tuition fees are controversial. And one of the main questions is: "Are students from non-traditional backgrounds deterred from study by the prospect of debt"

Thus we have this piece in the Guardian.

This quotes from a survey of 1000 careers advisers conducted by the marketing agency, Heist, which states that 30% of advisers had received no information from universities about the bursaries they had on offer, and also quotes from their own survey of advisers at 30 FE colleges, for whom 40% felt that the new system would lead to a drop in applications.

Hang on.

So, the Heist survey says nothing about the number of people expected to go to university (more on this later), and less than half of the Guardian's own survey sample said the same thing? Is there any substance to this story?

And here is where the problems are. The Heist survey is currently unpublished, although, conveniently, the Guardian has read it. In October, Heist had issued this proposal for a follow-up survey to the one quoted in this article. In it they say that 'three quarters of respondents predicted a decrease in the numbers entering higher education in 2005'.
This claim is not qualified, as it is in the Guardian article, which admits that, "A drop in numbers is widely expected because of a large increase in applications last year", and by itself is hardly a deeply damaging claim if demographics is a significant factor.

So, let's look at the Guardian's survey. Fewer than half their respondents from 30 colleges felt that the new system was deterring applicants (even I think that seems rather low!). And that's all we know about it.

Thus we get a news story based on two unpublished surveys, one at least 3 months old, asking different people unknown questions and coming up with no firm conclusions - or at least, nothing yet published.

The irony is that there is evidence, from Professor Peter Elias and Professor Kate Purcell's Class of '99 research, that the widening participation agenda is not working as planned, and any good information about the impact of tuition fees will help every
one concerned improve the current provision. I look forward to the full Heist and Guardian research reports to help with that.