Universities heed Labour’s call to put the country first

British universities seem to have understood the memo from the new Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer about putting the country before self-interest and are rolling up their sleeves to work collaboratively with government on a “mission of national renewal”, according to experts.

With the left-of-centre Labour Party storming to a landslide victory in the 4 July general election, as voters deserted a Conservative Party which had overstayed its welcome after racing through five prime ministers in 14 years, the United Kingdom suddenly feels like it has a government with a plan to get things fixed quickly.

However, whether higher education gets much of a look-in with so many tougher challenges, like mending a struggling National Health Service and kick-starting a faltering economy, remains to be seen.

It will certainly require some deft footwork on behalf of the sector, which has spent much of the last few years deflecting blows from the previous Tory administration, which accused universities of “dumbing down” and offering “rip-off” degrees.

Not to mention having to fight off attempts to put lucrative income from overseas tuition fees at risk by mixing concerns over soaring migration with the rapid rise of international students during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mission of national renewal

A key part of what UK universities now need to do is to “put aside their specific asks from government and start with what we’ve got to offer to them and the country”, according to Ruth Arnold, executive director of external affairs at Study Group, a leading pathway provider, who championed the #WeAreInternational campaign to make the UK more welcoming to overseas students.

She told University World News: “If Labour is on a ‘mission of national renewal’ with economic growth and opportunity at its heart, then we are part of that team.

“International education is a successful growth sector and a power for driving a rich knowledge economy and healthy, globally successful society; our sector is worth £42 billion (US$54 billion) to the UK annually compared to £22 billion for automotive manufacturing and just £1.04 billion for fishing.”

Only once the new Starmer government fully accepts that universities can help it achieve its key missions – which include securing the highest sustained growth in the G7 group of industrial nations; breaking down barriers to opportunity by reforming the childcare and educational systems; making Britain a clean energy superpower; and fixing the National Health Service – should higher education stakeholders get out their shopping list.

“Then we can ask for the government to support and work with us – with welcoming policies and attention paid to complex challenges like student accommodation. But it’s a new era and we should reset and get to work collaboratively,” said Arnold.

Arnold developed this theme in a blog for the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), published on 9 July 2024, headlined “Communicating the value of higher education to government in a new political era”.

In it, she urged vice-chancellors and others leading the sector “to really engage a new administration with a long-term ambition for the country” and a plan for how to achieve it.

“We need to start talking to and about the country, less about ourselves,” she said.

New ministers for education and science

It may help that Starmer has appointed an experienced government operator in Jacqui Smith as the new Minister for Skills, Further and Higher Education. She served as a minister in the previous Labour governments led by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, working in the departments for education, health, the treasury, trade and industry, and as the first female Home Secretary.

More recently, the one-time teacher has chaired several of England’s largest NHS hospital trusts. Smith has been made a life peer as she is no longer an MP and will be a government minister in the House of Lords.

Her boss Bridget Phillipson has, in addition to her role as Secretary of State for Education, been made Minister for Women and Equalities. Both Phillipson and Smith studied at Oxford University.

The new Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology is Peter Kyle, with much interest being raised in the appointment of Patrick Vallance as the more junior science minister.

Vallance will join Smith in the House of Lords as he is a scientist and not an MP. He was a former head of research and development at drug firm GlaxoSmithKline and served as the government’s chief scientific adviser under the Conservatives from 2018 to 2023. He regularly appeared on TV updates to the nation, alongside then premier Boris Johnson, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Better relations with the EU

Sector leaders have welcomed the new Labour government’s pledge to improve the relationship between the UK and EU, highlighting research and development and security as some of the areas where closer ties are expected to be developed.

Dr Tim Bradshaw, chief executive of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities, said it hoped to see “stable UK association to EU research programmes, including the successor to Horizon, FP10”.

There is less certainty about the new UK government being willing to pay the price to re-join the EU’s Erasmus+ scheme and other youth mobility schemes for young people run by the European Commission, which could be seen as opening the door to the free movement of (younger) EU citizens to the UK. Immigration controls were a big issue behind the resurgence of the right-wing populist Reform Party, which gained five MPs in the 2024 general election.

After the turbulent last few years of the previous Conservative administration, particularly over international student recruitment and threats to the post-study work Graduate Route, which were only resolved as the General Election was being called, universities are looking forward to calmer days.

Bradshaw said: “We hope to see a more stable, joined-up policy approach, which will enable us to reach high-quality prospective students and offer them the opportunity to access UK higher education.”

Higher agenda for skills

Skills are likely to get a higher profile in the new Starmer mission-driven government.

Dr Brooke Storer-Church, chief executive of GuildHE, a representative body for 60 higher education providers of all sizes specialising in vocational and technical education, told University World News the body was looking forward to supporting the new government’s missions around delivering economic growth and improved public services.

“Our providers are experts in professional vocational and technical higher education, delivering higher-level skills for teachers, nurses, allied health professionals, surveyors, food security experts and so many more.

“We want to engage government now with key examples of how our members and the sector at large can support its ambitions through partnership within their local cities and regions and our top asks include some cost-neutral ones that could be quickly implemented,” said Storer-Church.

These include making a commitment to no further visa changes for international students and ensuring greater financial stability by tweaking the schedule for Student Loans Company payments “to ease cash flow for providers” and “removing the 80% fee cap on accelerated degrees”.

Home tuition fees

On the thorny question of how to help UK universities, which claim to be running out of cash to pay their bills as a result of home tuition fees being frozen at £9,250 (US$11,903) since 2017 and fewer international students now coming from India and Nigeria, the jury is out.

Mark Leach, founder and editor-in-chief of higher education think tank Wonkhe, speculated in a pre-election blog that the widely predicted incoming Labour government might be persuaded to back an inflation catch-up “get to safety” package to stem financial losses.

Leach, who worked as a Labour adviser on higher education in 2015, said keeping fees under “the presentationally difficult £10,000 threshold” might be acceptable if it included “a fairer package” for students and graduates.

However, Diana Beech, executive of London Higher grouping of universities in the capital, told University World News she doubted whether even a modest rise in home tuition would be acceptable right now.

“While raising domestic student fees by, say, £250 a year is trivial in the grand scheme of things, making little difference to the overall balance that graduates will have to repay, the optics of a fee increase will not play well with the party’s core constituencies,” she said.

Beech was a political adviser to three former ministers covering higher education in the early years of the last Conservative government and thought it unlikely that the Labour government would want to be seen as “delivering for university management over students”.

She told University World News: “A fee hike is therefore more likely to happen later into this parliamentary term and as part of a wider student finance reform package, which includes raising the total amount that students can borrow, similar to what has happened in Wales.

“That way, the impact of any fee rises will be minimised and the government can show it has made provision for students.”

Student housing

Final word to Dan Smith, director of Student Housing Consultancy, who hopes the new Labour government will live up to its pledge to tackle the UK’s “archaic planning regime” and build 1.5 million new homes over the next five years.

“They are making the right noises and we hope the new Labour government will listen to the concerns of students, the higher education and private sectors more closely to deliver a credible student housing strategy that can be rolled out to all local authorities.

“We have priced some students out of certain markets by universities and private operators driving rents up by up to 20% year on year in some cases. Some of these rent rises are just recovering increased operating costs, but the largest (Glasgow, Bristol, Durham, York, London) are due to a chronic shortage of accommodation.

“The more we can build, the cheaper accommodation should become as markets become more competitive. This can only benefit the students and universities,” he told University World News.

Nic Mitchell is a UK-based freelance journalist and PR consultant specialising in European and international higher education. He blogs at www.delacourcommunications.com