Las propuestas del Gobierno Conservador-Liberal de Inglaterra para las universidades enunciadas por el Ministro Vince Cable (en la foto): ¿son una revolución neo-liberal en ciernes?. A continuación la inform,ación y análisis del diario The Guardian.
Graduate tax and private colleges at heart of higher education blueprint
Private universities will flourish and struggling institutions will be allowed to fail, if the coalition has its way with the future of higher education
Jessica Shepherd and Jeevan Vasagar guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 July 2010
The government signalled the biggest shakeup of Britain’s universities in a generation today, with a blueprint for higher education in which the highest-earning graduates would pay extra taxes to fund degrees, private universities would flourish and struggling institutions would be allowed to fail.
Vince Cable, the cabinet minister responsible for higher education, also raised the prospect of quotas to ensure state school pupils were guaranteed places at Britain’s best universities, breaking the private school stranglehold on Oxbridge.
Comparing the existing system of tuition fees to a “poll tax” that graduates paid regardless of their income, the skills secretary argued it was fairer for people to pay according to their earning power.
He said: “It surely can’t be right that a teacher or care worker or research scientist is expected to pay the same graduate contribution as a top commercial lawyer or surgeon or City analyst whose graduate premium is so much bigger.”
Graduates earned on average £100,000 more than non-graduates in their life-time, Cable said, and there are significant premiums for degrees such as medicine.
Cable said he had asked Lord Browne, the businessman conducting a review of student finance, to look at a variable graduate tax tied to earnings. Low earners may end up paying less than they currently do for their degrees while those with high incomes pay more. A spokesman for the inquiry said Browne was not unhappy about the apparent pre-empting of his report.
The graduate tax would replace the current system, under which the government lends money to students to cover the cost of their degree courses and graduates pay this back once they start earning more than £15,000.
Phasing out tuition fees is a crucial part of Liberal Democrat education policy. Any moves by the coalition to raise fees – or even keep the status quo – could prove divisive. Lib Dem MPs will be allowed to abstain from any vote on fees under the coalition agreement.
Cable warned that the Labour government’s target of extending higher education to 50% of the population was likely to be scrapped, questioning whether it was sensible or affordable. Figures from the university admissions service, Ucas, underlined the pressure on university places: universities have received more than 660,000 applications and a record 170,000 students are thought likely to be denied a place this autumn.
Cable told an audience of vice- chancellors at South Bank University in London: “What we have is an urgent problem. Universities are going to have to ask how they can do more for less. There will probably be less public funding per student … quite possibly fewer students coming straight from school to do three-year degrees.” Universities had to be prepared for a period of contraction. “Britain is a poorer country than two years ago and future spending had to be adjusted accordingly.”
He stunned the vice-chancellors by announcing that struggling universities would be left to go bankrupt. But he said students would still be protected. “It would be similar to banks,” he said. “They can fail, but their depositors are still protected.”
The government wants to increase the number of private companies offering higher education that is not subsidised by the state. This increased competition would mean some publicly funded universities could struggle to recruit enough students and be forced to close. Experts said at least 20 universities could close in the next few years if this were allowed to happen. At least five universities are known to be on an “at risk” list because they are heavily indebted.
Cable’s proposals mark a departure from the current regime and the biggest change to universities since the early 1990s, when at least 40 polytechnics became universities and higher education was expanded.
He suggested that universities reserve places for pupils “from each of a wide range of schools” to ensure the brightest children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds were not denied the chance of going on to higher education. But he did not want to repeat Gordon Brown’s mistake of “trying to dictate Oxbridge admissions”. In 2000 Brown, who was chancellor at the time, labelled Oxford’s decision to reject Laura Spence, a state school pupil, “an absolute scandal”.
The Russell Group of leading research universities said Cable’s graduate tax would not work. Wendy Piatt, its director general, said: “It would lead to many years before revenue from the tax became available so until then there would be a requirement for a very major upfront investment in universities by government – a very costly solution.”
Million+, a lobby group for former polytechnics, questioned whether graduates paying more for their degrees squared with the government’s commitment to social mobility.
However, students welcomed a graduate tax. The National Union of Students argued for a tax in its submission to Browne. Aaron Porter, NUS president, said: “The fair solution is to abolish tuition fees and ensure that graduate contributions are based on actual earnings in the real world.”
The shadow universities minister, David Lammy, said: “This a PR exercise from a man whose party have just completed the biggest U-turn in their history.”
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Graduate tax will force students to pay back more for degrees
Business secretary Vince Cable announces plans to charge university-leavers according to how much they earn
Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 July 2010
Students who end up in highly-paid careers are likely to pay far more for their degrees in future, the business secretary said today, under plans to charge university-leavers according to how much they earn.
In his first major speech on universities, the business secretary Vince Cable said it was not right that teachers and care workers were expected to pay the same graduate contribution as top commercial lawyers or surgeons who earned much more.
And, in a speech entitled “the looming crisis”, Cable warned that universities which were struggling financially would be left to go bankrupt in future.
The government wants to encourage the expansion of private universities and chains of globally-branded universities. This would inevitably lead to more competition and some universities would struggle, Cable said.
But he said that students at these universities would be protected. He used the analogy of a bank. “It would be similar to banks. Banks can fail, but depositors are still protected,” he said. A handful of universities are known to be on an “at-risk” list because they are in danger of falling into very heavy debt.
Universities had to be prepared for a period of contraction, he said. Britain is a poorer country than two years ago with a loss of income of over 6%, and future spending had to be adjusted accordingly. He called for the public to “rethink the case for our universities from the beginning”.
He said: “The university sector has experienced half a century or more of expansion – in numbers of students, staff and institutions. There is enormous forward momentum. I wonder how many people in this room really – deep down – are psychologically prepared for a period of consolidation, perhaps even contraction,” he said.
“We need to rethink how we fund them, and what we expect them deliver for the public support they receive.”
Cable insisted he did not want to see the quality of universities fall. “We don’t want to narrow the opportunities for young people to go to university, so the only possible way forward is a bigger graduate contribution.”
Cable said he had asked Lord Browne, the former BP chief executive charged with reviewing student finance, to consider varying the contribution that graduates pay according to how much they earn, and possibly which university they attended.
This would mean those that go into highly-paid finance jobs and attended Oxford or Cambridge would prop up those that went into nursing at lesser-known universities.
The funds collected would go to the graduates’ universities. “We have impressed on Browne that [charging graduates different rates] is a very important priority,” he said.
Cable said he, the prime minister and the chancellor were all in favour of a graduate tax – or contribution – under which university-leavers would pay a higher rate of tax. It would be unlikely that graduates would have to pay this back for the whole of their lives.
The government would pay fees directly to the universities instead of lending money to students to cover the cost of their studies. Students would pay the state back when they earned £15,000 or more.
Cable said it would be “quite tempting to use a Stalinist approach” and manoeuvre universities with levers such as cutting student numbers. “I don’t want to do that; we are trying to get universities to develop themselves.”
Professor Les Ebdon, chair of million+, a university thinktank that represents former polytechnics, expressed concern that students would pay more. “This has to be squared with the coalition government’s commitment to social mobility,” he said.
Professor Steve Smith, president of Universities UK, which represents university leaders, said he wanted an assurance that if graduate contributions were tied to earnings, the proceeds would go to universities. He said: “The university sector accepts the current restrains on all public spending but would urge against reducing investment in higher education, which would be economically self-defeating.
“We cannot turn back the clock to a society where we flourished with a small number of graduates. All our international competitors realise that they need to invest in undergraduate places, not disinvest.”
But Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group of leading research-intensive universities such as Oxford and Cambridge, said the current system had “all the positive features of a graduate tax without the downsides”. “We, therefore, do not agree that a pure graduate tax would be a better or a fairer system.
“We are particularly concerned that it would be many years before revenue from a graduate tax becomes available, so until then there would be a requirement for a very major upfront investment in universities by government – a very costly solution.”
She said it was hard to define a “graduate” and to recoup tax from EU students. “The fairest and most effective way of securing graduate contributions in order to protect the quality of UK higher education and its contribution to economic growth is through higher fees and income-contingent loans.”

Editorial del diario The Guardian
Higher education: Dr Cable’s taxing lectureElite universities will nag to be able to levy their graduates’ pay at a higher rate – they should not be allowed
The Guardian, Friday 16 July 2010
In a hushed lecture theatre, Dr Vincent Cable let his professorial glasses to slip down his nose and set out to convince the assembled great and good of the university world that he was one of their own. It is just as well that he did that spell as a lecturer in the 1960s, because he went on to say things that only a member of the family could. Making full use of that detached, frank and apolitical manner which has proved a political winner, the industry secretary talked of cuts that would lead not merely to consolidation but outright contraction, while also warning that the average student would have to cough up more. For good measure – just in case anyone was still feeling complacent – he headlined his address “the looming crisis”.
Dr Cable, however, added an extra ingredient to what has become the coalition’s trademark brew of blood, sweat and tears – namely, fairness. While he took care to fox-trot away from the toes of the ongoing Browne review, which until yesterday had looked like a process designed to provide the cover for higher top-up fees, he plonked a new option on the table. A graduate tax (or, in the inevitable euphemism, a “graduate contribution”) marks a progressive departure from the current mish-mash of loans and fees. First, and most importantly, it requires graduates to repay their due in line with what they can afford – with the repayment period being fixed instead of the cash amount. That, as Dr Cable relished explaining, might mean social workers paying back less, and investment bankers paying back more. Second, as a consequence of doing away with flat-rate bills, it also removes the upfront debts which increasingly hang round the neck of university courses, price tags which are a particular psychological deterrent to students from cash-strapped families investing in their future.
So far, so fair, but there is a legion of questions which bear on the principle as well as the practicalities. The industry secretary steamrollered through the obvious technical quibbles about how tax receipts in the distant future could rescue cash-starved colleges in the here and now. He rightly senses that a solution ought to be possible; he must now strain every sinew to find one, or his proposal will disappear into the black hole of public debt. He must also decide whether elite universities should be able to levy their graduates’ pay at a higher rate. Although they will press for the right, they should not get it. Funding an academic premier league by a super-tax would put off the poor, and since the alumni of the ivory towers command such high salaries, charging these at the ordinary rate should bring in considerable cash. Dr Cable must also find a way to soothe the nerves of his party, whose manifesto made the rash promise to ditch tuition fees – not to replace them with a graduate tax, but in order “to save students £10,000 each”. Having snapped up student-rich seats, such as Manchester Withington, with the help of the proposed giveaway, the Lib Dems will not enjoy explaining to young scholars why most will now have to pay not less, but more.
The party, however, would be well-advised to give serious consideration to the deal that Dr Cable is trying to broker. Yes, there are Conservative parts to the package – the encouragement of private university provision – and Lib Dem activists will rightly be anxious not to create an educational architecture that could unravel into an American-style educational market. Until the government gets a grip on rising graduate unemployment, students will also have every right to resist demands to stump up even more for qualifications that provide a passport to nowhere in particular. But billing for learning on the basis of earnings is not something the Tories would have come up with alone. It had been starting to seem as if the coalition was yellow on liberty but blue on anything involving hard cash. It was Dr Cable’s achievement yesterday to defy that caricature.