The essence of the disagreements ranges from global questions of the expediency and ethics of the project to petty reshuffling of specific sums. As we have already reported, under the new law, from 2006 universities will be able to charge up to 3,000 pounds sterling per year for tuition. Until now, students had to pay an amount three times smaller, but at once. Now students are offered to pay the infamous three thousand after completing their education and finding employment with an income of at least 15,000 pounds per year. While the student is studying, the state pays all the money for him, effectively becoming the student's creditor. Students from poor families will be able to receive subsidies from the government, the level of which is determined by the appropriate family income scale (see the box). In addition, those universities that will charge the full three thousand pounds are obliged to provide the specified funds to poor students from their own budget.
It is calculated that after such payments, universities will receive profits 7-10% higher than today's level (about 1 billion pounds sterling). At the same time, students will still not pay the full real cost of education, since in most British universities the cost of educating one student is two or more times higher than the currently established amount of three thousand pounds.
According to a number of observers, the new law is a half-measure, a typical product of long and painstaking bargaining, and as a result does not achieve its main goals. Let us recall that Tony Blair's declared goals were as follows: to give British universities sufficient funds to successfully compete with the best foreign universities, to open wider access to higher education for people from poor sections of society. At the same time, not to hang the task of improving national education around the necks of the wealthy social strata.
Due to this very half-heartedness of the law, 72 deputies in the House of Commons voted against Blair's law within his own Labour faction. Former minister Jack Cunningham compared this vote to the splits in the party in the early 1980s, when there was a struggle with the 'militant left'. The top-up fees bill, in principle, can no longer be seriously redesigned. However, within a few months it will be edited in committees and debated in two more readings. One of the main opponents of the bill, deputy Ian Gibson, said that he 'will not sleep until he achieves the abolition of these exactions'.
In general, the overwhelming majority of Conservatives and Labour members promised to do everything possible to oppose the advancement of the law in its current form. They were especially outraged by the fact that 46 parliamentarians from Scotland voted for the project, although it would only apply to English universities. Former Tory leader William Hague advised the government to 'drop this bill in the trash can'.
The reactions of rectors and teachers at British universities are very mixed. For example, President of the Association of Universities in the United Kingdom Ivor Crewe said that the adoption of the law served as a 'starting point for the successful future of higher education'. The Rector of Imperial College London also approved the bill and 'was glad that attempts to obstruct this vitally necessary bill were unsuccessful'. In general, the heads of most of the leading English universities that belong to the elite Russell Group welcomed the news of the bill's passage through Parliament with enthusiasm.
However, many rectors are against the law or express some doubt. Sir Colin Lucas, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, supports the law, but believes that it will not bring the funds needed to successfully compete with US universities (and this is the most acute problem of higher education in the UK). Rectors of universities where part-time students (correspondence or evening students) study fear an even greater loss of students, since with any increase in tuition fees, students studying full-time courses are more patient and ready to continue their studies than those who combine study with work or housekeeping. The lecturers' union of Great Britain sees a serious problem for its members, most of whom are recent university graduates. According to the general secretary of this organization, Sally Hunt, 'the new fee means one thing: the average lecturer will have more debt at the start of his career than his entire annual salary'.
Students across the country expressed an extremely negative attitude to what happened. The President of the National Union of Students, Mandy Telford, said immediately after the end of the demonstration at the walls of the British Parliament that 'the struggle is far from over'. Many student organizations sent her telegrams of support and also actively promoted their position in the media. Repeated rallies and meetings were held at many universities. In Oxford, at the time of the bill's vote in the House of Commons, a sit-in strike was taking place in the main building of the lecture hall - Examination Schools. The evening before, 40 students came there and held a protest for a day, and soon after the start of the action, about 150 more people joined them.
Students say that education, despite all kinds of support systems, deferments and subsidies, is becoming increasingly inaccessible to the general public. In addition to loans to pay for education, many students also need to take loans to pay for housing, study materials and other expenses.
Political analysts expect that the issue of the controversial bill could become one of the most dangerous for Tony Blair in the parliamentary elections next year, since many students and their parents are not ready to accept the new system of paying for higher education.
Ilya ZASLAVSKY.
Gazeta.Ru