Student poverty has ballooned and the vice- chancellors reported a 10 per cent increase in students dropping out of

Student poverty has ballooned and the vice- chancellors reported a 10 per cent increase in students dropping out of courses prematurely in one year alone.However, the reality is that higher education still occupies a privileged position in the education world. In 1992 – the latest year for which figures are available – Britain spent more per student, per year on higher education than any other OECD country. But over the same period student numbers have almost doubled. That is why vice-chancellors shout “foul”, complain about budget cuts and worry about the effect on academic standards and pay: the per capita funding has dropped by 25 per cent since 1989.Some vice-chancellors want the freedom to charge their own top-up fees to augment their individual coffers. Then students lived on a grant; now they survive on a mixture of grant, loans and parental contributions.The Conservative government adopted a scatter-gun approach to higher education.

It made welcome changes, such as the growth in student numbers, but it ducked the hardest questions – how to pay for the expansion and how to ensure equity between students.We now spend pounds 6.35bn on higher education. That represents a 40 per cent increase in real terms since 1989-90. Britain needs to adapt to the huge changes which have taken place in higher education. When I went to university in the Sixties, I was one of the lucky 5 per cent Now one in three go.

If we are to square this circle then we must share the cost of higher education with students We have a window of opportunity. We must use it.
Sir Ron Dearing’s review is the most comprehensive look at higher education since the Robbins report in the Sixties. Expansion has halted just when a consensus has developed around the importance of education and training. At the same time, the pressure is on to increase spending on schools and pre-school education. Yesterday, the new Labour government faced perhaps its greatest challenge to date – how to respond to the Dearing report on the funding of higher education Now is the time for brave and bold decisions.

The Government must have the courage to take on the vested interests, so that a fair and sustainable long-term settlement can be enacted

The status quo was never an option. Universities are short of money and academic standards are threatened Students are poverty stricken and more are dropping out. For the first part of the exam, which started at 3.30, you had to make a diagnosis from six slides under the microscope. I was very confident, even writing that I couldn’t see why the sixth slide, of a normal uterus lining with nothing of any pathological significance, was included.