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Funding UK Higher Education: From Elitism to Mass Market

What are the benefits to the UK economy of greater HE participation?

Sir Howard Newby, Chief Executive of the HEFCE: 'Higher education is a key driver in providing economic and social benefits. Not only are the knowledge, skills and attitudes of graduates critical to business success, they also contribute strongly to civilising and cultural values in society and delivering other social gains. Increasing the number of graduates brings considerable benefits to communities and society.'

It is also widely acknowledged that higher education carries benefits for the individual graduate as well as the economy in general. A 2003 HEFCE report studied the benefits to individuals and society resulting from HE participation. The report compared outcomes for today's graduates with those for students graduating twenty years ago. It found that in general the advantages of a higher education persist. These were reported as including:

• Greater mobility of labour.
• Fewer health problems (less depression, lower levels of obesity, less likely to smoke and more likely to give up if they were smokers).
• Labour market outcomes (less likelihood of becoming unemployed from ages of 25 to 30). Movement up the socio-economic scale relative to parental level.
• Citizenship and values (greater racial tolerance, less politically cynical, more active in community).
• Better educational attainment for graduates' children (graduates tend to read more to their children, who tend to score better in reading and mathematics).

Given the improvements that seem to result from HE participation for both individuals and society as a whole, it is likely that numbers in HE will increase.

Many say that student days are the best of your life...
Title: St Andrews University graduation ball. Copyright: Scran Online (http://www.scran.ac.uk/)

The government has set a target of 50% participation. This was set out before the last general election. We need to be careful over comparing the current rate (of about one-third) with the target. It has been unclear what this 50% target exactly means. The way that participation rates are calculated will include people aged 18 to 30, studying for awards from nationally recognised bodies, such as the Institute of Management, as well as standard university degrees. If this is the basis for measuring the rate then the current participation rate is really 41%.

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