Browne Review


The Browne Review or Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance was an independent review to consider the future direction of higher education funding in England.
It was launched on 9 November 2009 and published its findings on 12 October 2010. It was chaired by Lord Browne of Madingley, the former chief executive of BP. It recommended wide-ranging changes to the system of university funding, including removing the cap on the level of fees that universities can charge, and increasing the income level at which graduates must begin to pay back their loans to £21,000.

Scope

According to Peter Mandelson the review would consider "balance of contributions to universities by taxpayers, students, graduates and employers" to university finances. The review would consider how much students should be charged for attending university. The panel was told to take into account the goal of widening participation. The panel would report its findings following the 2010 General Election. The review had been promised in 2004 to try to win over Labour rebels who nearly rejected the Bill which introduced £3,000 a year fees. The review would consider other issues including simplifying the system of student finance and bursary arrangements.
The Browne Review made its first call for evidence in December 2009. Times Higher Education reported that the review's themes were "participation rates, the quality of the higher education system and affordability for students and the state".

Background Research

The Browne Review spent £68,000 on research, from a research budget of £120,000. The majority of the expenditure funded an unpublished opinion survey of students and parents.
The survey focused on how much participants would be willing to pay if fees were restructured. It asked 80 school pupils, 40 parents, 40 early-year University students, and 18 part-time students from various backgrounds for their opinion on university funding. Participants of the survey were posed questions on an upper-limit on fees of £6,000 per annum.

Interim findings

In March 2010, the review published its initial findings stating that it had found "clear agreement" that the current level of fees had not deterred students but that the system of finance for part-time students was inadequate. The panel also found:
  • clear evidence that bursaries are not understood by students early enough to have a substantial impact on their choices
  • consensus that potential students need better information, advice and guidance, including information on the teaching experience they can expect on different courses
  • some concerns that a minority of students are deterred by top-up fees
  • that there has been progress over the past five years in widening participation to higher education, but that this has been less marked at the most selective universities

    Political positions

The Browne Review was set up by Labour in 2009, but did not report until after the 2010 General Election. No party won the election outright, and after negotiations the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties formed a coalition government. The Coalition Agreement gave the Liberal Democrats, who had campaigned against fee increases, the right to abstain from any vote to increase tuition fees. In this case, the effective majority of the Conservatives would fall to 24, meaning that the government could potentially be defeated by a rebellion of 12 of its own MPs.

Labour

, the former Business Secretary who set up the review into higher education funding, hinted in July 2009 at a tuition fee rise, stating that excellence in higher education was "not cheap" and that the country "had to face up to the challenge of paying for excellence".
The Labour Party manifesto for the 2010 general election promised extra university places but made no commitment on how much students would have to pay. During the Labour Party leadership election in 2010 following the resignation of Gordon Brown both Ed Balls and the eventual winner Ed Miliband came out in support of a graduate tax as a method of funding universities in the future. David Miliband was the only candidate in the leadership election not to support a graduate tax.

Conservatives and Liberal Democrats

The Conservatives have said that they will "consider carefully" the outcome of the review. In June 2010, David Willets stated that under the current arrangements students were a "burden on the taxpayer that had to be tackled" although he also stated he did not want to pre-empt the findings of Lord Browne.
The Liberal Democrats have traditionally supported free higher education but downgraded this pledge because it was seen to be an unaffordable spending commitment.
The Liberal Democrats had promised to abolish tuition fees over 6 years. All the elected Liberal Democrat MPs, as well as a number of others, also signed the NUS Vote for Students pledge, promising to vote against any proposed increase in fees.

Coalition Government

The Liberal Democrats agreed to abstain on a vote to increase fees as part of a Liberal-Conservative coalition government which emerged following the 2010 General Election. This would allow the Conservatives to pass an increase in tuition fees or even the removal of the cap on fees without the Liberal Democrats voting them down. The chief executive of Universities UK, Nicola Dandridge, has stated that senior Liberal Democrats have told them that they consider their election manifesto pledge to be "complete nonsense" and that the "visceral" opposition to fees from the party base was not shared by senior figures. Former Liberal Democrat leader Ming Campbell has said that he is "likely" to honour the pledge he made to his constituents and rebel against his party by voting against a rise in fees and newly elected Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Simon Hughes has stated that the issue of fees could split the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government while reiterating the opposition of the Liberal Democrats to tuition fees. The MP for the student-populated Leeds North West, Greg Mulholland, is considered to be the leader of a backbench rebellion against the review that is indicated to have the support of at least thirty Liberal Democrats.
In July 2010 it was reported that a graduate tax was seriously being considered by Vince Cable although a senior Conservative anonymously briefed against Mr Cable stating it was "unlikely" that a graduate tax would be adopted. Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has also backed a graduate tax.

Submissions and lobbying

The Russell Group's submission to the review stated that graduates should pay real rates of interest on their student loans to prevent a university funding crisis. The 1994 Group have stated that there should be an increase in the cap to generate competition between universities. Wendy Piatt, head of the Russell Group, has stated that current levels of funding are not adequate if Universities are to remain globally competitive. The 1994 Group have called for the review to ensure that cost does not prevent people from attending university and for a focus on the student experience.
Million+ have stated that students should not be asked to pay more for cuts in public funding and Unions 94 have called for more progressive alternatives to variable tuition fees.
The University and Colleges Union have stated that lifting the cap on tuition fees would be 'the most regressive piece of education policy since the war' and suggest replacing fees with a Business Education Tax.
In their second submission to the Browne Review the Russell Group stated that lifting the cap on tuition fees was the only "viable and fair" way of financing higher education and that the "liberalisation of the fee regime" was a future aim.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies concludes in its submission that: "Increasing fees without increasing loans and/or grants by the same value or more will result in a negative impact on participation".
The British Medical Association has warned that increasing tuition fees could land medical students with debts in excess of £90,000, as medical degrees are longer and give students less time to partake in part-time work.

Findings

The Browne Review into the future of Higher Education Funding published its report on 12 October 2010 in a document entitled Securing a Sustainable Future for Higher Education. The report based its recommendations on six principles which were:
  • More investment should be available for Higher Education
  • Student choice should be increased
  • Everyone who has the potential should be able to benefit from Higher Education
  • No-one should have to pay until they start work
  • When payments are made they should be affordable
  • Part-time students should be treated the same as full-time students for the costs of learning
The main recommendations of the report were:
  • Removing the current £3,290 per year cap on the tuition fees that universities can charge to students. There would be no cap on the fees that an institution could charge.
  • The government would provide upfront loans to cover tuition fees and living costs of students. Means tested grants would be available for students from lower income families.
  • Students would repay the loans after graduation, and only when they are earning more than £21,000. Repayments would be made at a rate of 9% on any income above £21,000. Any debt not repaid after 30 years would be written off. For comparison, the system at the time demanded repayments of 9% on income above £15,000, and debt was written off after 25 years.
  • Part-time students would no longer have to pay upfront tuition fees, and would instead be eligible for loans.
The review rejects the option of a graduate tax, because there would be a large funding gap in the short term. It estimates that if all new students from 2012 paid 3% graduate tax after graduation, the tax would not provide sufficient revenue to fund higher education until 2041–42. This would weaken the independence of universities, which would become entirely dependent on the government for funding. It argues that its own proposals would force universities to improve standards to compete for students: their relationship with students would become more important to universities than their relationship with government.