Speaking of Universities

by Stefan Collini

The fatal conceptual error involved in the new university funding system introduced in Britain in 2012 is that it treats the fee as a payment by an individual customer to a single institutional provider for a specific service in the present. By contrast, the proper basis for funding education is a form of social contract whereby each generation contributes to the education of future generations. It cannot be for a specific service because the ‘customer’, in the form of the student, is not in a position to know in advance exactly what benefit they may obtain from a university education. And it cannot really be to a single institutional provider because each university is only part of the world of learning: none of what they provide for their students would exist except for the work of many people over many generations in many other institutions. What we call a ‘fee’ is not really the price of a product: it is an undertaking to contribute to the costs of the system. In this respect it is more like a tax: just as a tax is the tithe which the citizen, as a member of society, pays towards the upkeep of that society, so a university fee is more like the National Insurance contribution in Britain, a recognition of human solidarity in facing the common perils and opportunities of life.