UK higher education is a “failed market”, says new report

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) published The higher education market on 15 June, which reported that the Department of Education “treats the higher education sector as a market, but it is not a market that is working in the interests of students or taxpayers”.

In a statement accompanying the report, the committee stated that the “original aim of introducing a market into higher education” – to “improve quality and value for money” – was not met.

The PAC stated in the report that “greater competition for students between higher education providers” does not guarantee that “the quality of the education they provide” will improve.

They also accuse higher education providers for increasing “their marketing budgets in order to attract students rather than compete by charging different tuition fees”. Furthermore, they noted that young people receive “insufficient and inconsistent careers advice”.

They observed “substantial drops in part-time and lifelong learning, which are critical to social mobility”, and reported that “the incentives in the higher education market do not support widening participation.”

MPs on the PAC concluded that the government’s approach is “not in the interests of students or taxpayers”. Meg Hillier, the Labour MP who chairs the PAC, said it was “deeply concerning that the evidence indicates government’s approach to the higher education sector is letting…students down”.

The solution is not a better-regulated market, but a rethink of the fundamentals of the market agenda altogether

– Amatey Doku, NUS Vice President for Higher Education

The report also criticised the Office for Students (OfS), the recently established higher education regulator, for failing to clarify “how it will support the varied and complex interests of students”, and not including NUS representatives on the OfS board.

Regarding the OfS, the PAC said: “Until the OfS has sufficient clarity over what it is trying to achieve in the interests of students, it will not be able to effectively monitor and evaluate the success of its regulatory approach.”

As a result, the PAC advised the OfS to report back to the committee in six months, regarding its performance in regulating for students and their priorities in protecting student interests. Similarly, the Department of Education will write back to the committee by October 2018 “to explain what it expects a successful higher education market to look like”.

Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of the OfS, said that the office shared “the committee’s assessment of the complexity and diversity of the student body”, and that they are “engaging with students to understand and respond to the things they say matter to them.”

Responding to the OfS’s connection to the NUS, she said: “I simply do not recognise the committee’s statement that we are not working with the NUS. The Office for Students’ student panel includes the current NUS president, is chaired by a former NUS president and includes a number of other officials who are or who have been elected student union officers.”

Regarding the report, Amatey Doku, NUS Vice President for Higher Education, said: “While we welcome the report’s conclusions that higher education is unable to function as a market, and that information, advice and guidance is insufficient for the needs of applicants, it is clear that the solution is not a better-regulated market, but a rethink of the fundamentals of the market agenda altogether. This would truly be regulating in the interests of students.”