Kevin Denny: The Effect of Abolishing University Fees

Read the conclusion, interesting.
What about the mature student route, or was this included into the access programme?

I would submit that fees werent as much abolished as taken from the public purse.

Along with an economic analysis of the fees question, there also needs to be a consideration as to what would ennoble the individual student or student population to the opportunities that third level education can afford them.

Like many other oppurtunities in this country, we are questioning whether we can afford them. Can we afford to send X % of people to university? and using what metrics shall we measure the return.

Padraic Conway has an article here:
http://www.sbpost.ie/commentandanalysis/arts-essential-to-rebuilding-49398.html

I agree with it, but the university model as a perpetuter of the arts is quite an expensive method!

Anyways, rambles is the best I can do tonight!

@above
The reference to pushing talented poorer children by myself was patronising and inaccurate. What needs to be done is to push all poorer children.

My thanks to Liam Delaney for posting this (unprompted by me) & for people’s interest in my work.

Dave, you might enjoy this: http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/why-cry-over-split-milk

Kevin, I’m an editor; I WON’T DIE UNTIL I’VE CRIED OVER EVERYONE’S SPILLED MILK.

Hi Kevin,

Interesting piece. I would put the question of access before fees, but that is a personal choice. Many useful questions are raised – like why a ‘third-level’ education anyway? (or should that be training?). Newman? Dewey, Montessori? or A N Whitehead. Lots to choose from.

The point about early learning is vital. If you miss the various ‘milestomes’ befor eyou are 7 yr you will never really make up the loss – the cut-off point is about 11 -12 yr. Disruption in family circumstances can have a devastating effect on attainment – but can be dealt with if you have a supportive culture in the school.

The Primary curriculum (National) is mediocre – the Leaving is dreadful. But attempting reforms here is a complete waste of time. There are too many ‘interested parties’. Lots of chefs – no cooks!

Someone mentioned IQ: Careful. IQ is multi-dimensional. Female and male intellectual and cognitive developments are not equivalent – similar, but sufficiently different to be considered separately. Maturity is as long as a piece of string. Someone also mentioned Mature Students – now there’s a category you might well investigate.

Our ‘university’ system (all TL colleges) – for want of a better phrase, is 19th century vintage. Education should not be considered as three consecutive experiences (primary, sec. and third), but as a single, continuous entity with the pupose of delivering technically competent (and hopefully wise) citizens. Should ‘we’ pay for this. Well I thought we were – via taxes. As I said at the outset, deal with the very lopsided access problem first – then sort out the payment details.

Brian Woods

Cross posting this comment from University Blog – where there is a debate on this work also playing out.

Nice work by Kevin.

In other blogs someone makes the point about Institutes of Technology. It is unquestionably the case that the socioeconomic mix is greater – but that masks the issue as perhaps the reason for this is that the points required tend to be lower and therefore the secondary school kids from poorer (in income and in quality!) schools can only hope to make it to the IOT’s. This choking off of potential students due to socioeconomic status at secondary school level is shameful and given the evidence of the effectiveness of access programmes for these students it is also bad for the country as it is not clear that the most productive are getting the education they deserve.

Kevin’s paper also makes the point about official statistics, or lack of. I am just back from Oz and the fuss there about myschool.com website was intense. It is soon to be followed by the myuni.com website!! Through this parents get tons of data. Teacher unions hate it – and hate also the high school tests that underpin the data. Each parent gets a very easily understood graphic of their child’s score, the national average, the middle 60 per cent, a minimum standards – all over time to assess cohort change! See http://www.naplan.edu.au/verve/_resources/Understanding_Your_Childs_Report_FINAL_a.pdf

Does the school quality stuff matter. It sure does – many Uni’s are under the cosh from the HEA over diversity of student body but it still remains the case that by and large Uni’s don’t know who is coming until they turn up at the gate in September. And the school quality data publication also appears to matter – look at the recent paper from the Netherlands at http://www.cpb.nl/eng/pub/cpbreeksen/discussie/149/disc149.pdf – schools that had a negative score suddenly improved!

Interesting piece.

Apart from the compelling conclusion of the report on its main area of focus, the lack of impact of free fees, a couple of areas are crucial in the larger discussion it raises.

The first is when discussing the difference in points outcomes for various SES profiles. The report says “Whether this is due to how the respective schools operate or their parents is a moot point.” (page 11) If we’re looking for solutions then this is surely not a moot point!

Second is pretty much all of page 15 and 16, where the report speculates on the potential causes of the difference of educational attainment coming out of high school and admits that we’d need much more data to understand this. Do we really not have such data?

Finally, apart from our apparent ignorance on the causes of low academic performance for some socioeconomic sectors (not so mysterious, surely), the report (correctly) doesn’t ask the question on how we were previously OK with discriminating against financing of adult Irish citizens access to university on the basis of their parent’s income.

This is indeed a very valuable piece.

May I make a couple of comments in the spirit of ‘devil’s advocate’ – not necessarily in disagreement?

First, universal benefits always provide a windfall to the middle and upper classes. However, they are also more robust in terms of their sustainability over time – precisely because the middle classes don’t want to lose them. They also have the advantage of not stigmatizing the recipients, and could therefore be argued to improve social cohesion – that is, they become part of the entitlements we all share as citizens of the state. So might one argue that, while the introduction of ‘free fees’ did not improve access to higher education, it did not disimprove it and may have insulated government assistance to participation against cuts in the present climate (albeit at the expense of lower funding for the higher educations sector as a whole. See also the old age pension.

Second, Kevin makes the excellent point that those in receipt of higher education grants before the introduction of the ‘free fees’ scheme didn’t have to pay fees anyway. But (anecdotally), it seems to me that the grants system suffered from a ‘reputational’ problem – it was perceived to be widely abused. I suppose this is linked to my earlier point; universal schemes have much greater legitimacy, are more highly valued and therefore have greater ‘staying power’ than targeted ones.

@Niall

School-leavers walking straight into jobs that paid €800 a week? I find that hard to believe even in boom boom Ireland.

The real problem with third level education and the poor is that nobody (other than the occassional rare teacher and especially not close family or peer group) is encouraging or motivating disadvantaged children to take the opportunity. Lack of encouragement = lack of confidence to take big steps in your life when you are young. And I am writing from first-hand experience. Fortunately, I was able to recover. Most of my friends never did.

It makes a big difference to your life when the parents are able to put the family allowance into a savings account to ensure your success in and enjoyment of the education system rather than having to spend it on food (or worse still, spending it on booze and cigs).

Interesting response in the Indo today on the issues raised by Kevin. http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/debate-was-abolition-of-college-fees-a-good-idea-2192799.html

Niamh Breathenach not surprisingly supports her decision. It seems to be based on a conversation with a taxi-driver, and to suggest that the data are incomplete such as to cast doubt on the conclusions. Colm Harmon (again, no surprise) suggests that evidence, rather than ideology, might be a useful starting point to consider the efficacy of policy initiatives.

I think it would be interesting to see how the coefficients for LC points are different for each socio-economic group, and if they changed over time. I’d also be very interested especially if there was a quantile regression based on points for who goes to college.

Eg the treatment (free fees) may have little impact on those who get 500+ points, and little impact on those who get <200 points, but it might have a big impact on those around 350-400 points who are at the margins of whether or not to go to university.

Thank you Joanna

And a further tip of the hat for not referencing conversations with taxi drivers, bus drivers or train conductors…

A seperate point to make is that the determination from parents income as to collge fees was badly in need of reform and disgracefully discriminatory against paye workers.
This may have been an option back then where the paye limit could have been lowered.

There is an argument for taking the parents out of the equation altogether and have a tax rate of X% for X years for graduates.
This may individualise the situation and take parental influence out of it.
But would you trust government to keep that tax rate fair?

@Joanna,I don’t have much to add to Colm Harmon’s. Having said that.. my guess is that you are not familiar with the methodology behind my study and indeed all serious work in this area. Thats why you have completely misunderstood it and its relationship to the HEA reports. Did it not occur to you that you need to know what you are talking about if you are going to contradict, in public, professionals who work in this area & on an important national topic? Would you feel equally free, say, about contradicting an oncologist who produced some research on cancer? Or are we to accept lower standards of evidence? I can only infer that political expediency rather than a desire to understand the truth is behind your comment. Maybe you should consult a taxi driver.
Those HEA reports, which are invaluable & which I cite, do not allow one to identify the effect of the reform. Consequently they do not support your case. Nor do they contradict it. So you are simply unambiguously wrong as a matter of fact in inferring that the HEA reports supports your position. The O’Connell et al piece actually specifically talks about the merits of the kind of multivariate analysis that I carried out. They understand, you do not.

@ Con
2) Skilled manual
Perhaps the construction activity allowed skilled manual group to access to 3 Level.
It may be an echo of the construction boom?

Another response in today’s Independent. ESRI’s Selina McCoy and Emer Smyth point out a number of studies they have been doing in the ESRI looking at what generates inequalities at second level. Their contribution is useful in pointing to studies we may have overlooked. But it would be interesting to see what their results imply in terms of the core question at issue here, namely who is impacted by fees.

http://bit.ly/dx8CUz

As Kevin has less than graciously pointed out above, there is a problem here in that he is addressing a specific issue using a suitable econometric methodology whereas most of us want to discuss a whole range of issues related to college access. The issue is whether the 1996 fees change causally impacted on changing the social structure of entry into higher education. By any standard of interpreting the coefficients, it looks like it did not. You would have to say that Kevin’s paper strongly shifts the burden of proof over to the other side of that debate. Simply looking at long run increases in participation (that did not have a turning point around the time of fees) is not a legitimate argument.

Also, Kevin’s paper has technically very little to say about what would happen to middle-income households should fees return. Circumstances are very different and the data Kevin is using really doesn’t allow for simulating changes around anything but very broad socioeconomic margins. So if you are worried about what would happen to a household on 40-70k consequent on fees being reintroduced for 40k plus households then Kevin’s paper cannot speak to this. His paper does say that it would be unlikely to impact on those earning under the threshold in any meaningful sense. It would also be very unlikely to have any effect on students in very disadvantaged areas.

Liam,

The return of fees might have an impact on participation levels in disadvantaged areas in that it has been argued by some who have researched access to third level, that a factor in those below the grant thresholds being encouraged to go to college, is seeing their peers go to college. In disadvantaged areas some of the families are above the income limits for grants, but on low to middle incomes. If those from low to middle income families living and going to second level in disadvantaged areas were deterred from going to college because of the existence of fees that decline in participation by their socio economic group might have a knock on effect on the participation rates of those on even lower incomes in the same disadvantaged area.

Cross posting some of this comment from the Geary Blog –

Kevin,

Thanks for producing this research: it’s a valaubale public service and a welcome addition to the debates on educational inequality and university finance that so often overlap on the issue of the fee-abolition that was initiated in 1996.

From a wider perspective, I would like to emphasise that, irregardless of empirical findings from within Ireland, we can also look across the water. Writing on the LSE blog, Nicholas Barr says that:

“Tax finance does not widen participation. Between 1960 and 1998, when there were no tuition fees, access hardly improved.” Here’s the link:

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/?p=698

Barr also outlines strong theoretical arguments (again, in the post linked above), as follows:

-BEGINS:

# Taxpayer finance can harm access by leading to a shortage of places. Even without the economic crisis, universities will lose out to the NHS, nursery education and school education. And if places are short, it is predictable who gets left out.

# The people who go to university continue to be mainly from better off backgrounds. Why should the taxes of the truck driver pay for the degree of the old Etonian?

– ENDS

The rationale in Barr’s two points above should make it clear why fee-abolition had dubious merit.

I have discussed these ideas (and your research, Kevin) with some friends, and most appreciate the empirical result that educational inequality has not been reduced by fee-abolition. Most also see the logic in arguing that fee-abolition was:

(i) at best (sic) a subsidy to the families of the students who would go on to higher education anyway

(ii) at worst, a political strategy to win votes (which didn’t work anyway)

The question that is put to me though, is “So we re-instate higher education tuition fees, and then what? What about the people at the margin, who have the Leaving Cert. points, but whose parents have modest family-resources?”

I appreciate that the paper was not written to answer this question; but I bring it up as I see it as the next logical development in discussing university finance (after one takes the findings of your research on board).

It is probably quite clear what I am driving at: that a student loan scheme should be introduced. This would completely remove the possibility of making an argument that tuition fees might prevent someone going straight to university after school. As you know, Barr has written papers on this issue; and there is a UK scheme which is quite well designed, in my opinion.

There are some issues around loan schemes that I do think need to be discussed more. Without a securitisation-strategy (to securitise the value of future loan re-payments) being in place, then the taxpayer would still have to provide funds upfront so that universities could finance current expenditure. Furthermore, if the loan scheme is interest-free (as it is in the UK) then there is a subsidy (in relation to the time value of money) which is payed for by taxpayers.

Despite these burdens on the taxpayer (which would not occur if there was a securitisation-strategy and interest charges), there would be solace in knowing that students are more likely to achieve higher standards and receive better teaching (one could reasonably assume that these developments would benefit the wider economy). Students would achieve higher standards and receive better teaching beacuse of their awareness that they are paying for a service.

I have also discussed with friends the argument that fee-abolition eradicated the potential effects of (a social gradient in) debt-aversion. My main thought in this regard is that a well-funded Access program (which began at second-level) could eradicate debt-aversion… and well-funded Access programs are desirable in their own right. As your research shows, even if fee-abolition reduced some psychological barrier (related to a social gradient in debt-aversion), the social gradient in school performance needs to be addressed with Access programs. The most binding constraints to university attendance are matriculation requirements, and the “points” requirement.

Another point that I want to raise is the issue of retention. Hypothetically assuming that fee-abolition reduced the social gradient in university attendance (which we know it did not), what about drop-out? Getting the customer through the door is a waste of time if you cannot complete the sale. I am concerned about the social gradient in retention, but fee-abolition is irrelevant to that concern. Access programs are crucial in tackling drop-out.

Finally, as you note, there is an interesting line of enquiry as to whether fee-abolition increased the demand for fee-paying secondary schools. From today’s Irish Times: there are 26,000 students in fee-paying second-level schools paying at least €6000 per annum. This may buy a better Leaving Cert: the exam that we use to allocate places for higher education.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0421/1224268773855.html

Tomaltach,

Putting forward arguments in favour of free fees is not stifling the debate. If anything the predominant point of view that gets publicity in the media it is the viewpoint in favour of the return of fees.

Interestingly one point of view that did get publicity though, but nothing like that given to the university heads (who on an annual basis call for the return for fees),was the view of the heads of the Institutes of Technology that it would be a mistake to bring back third level fees. The IT heads felt that the reintroduction of fees would impact badly on those students that go to ITs and the said so when they attended a meeting of the Joint Committee on Education and Science in the Oireachtas.

You, Tomaltach go further than Kevin in your point and you suggest free fees worked to consolidate unequal participation at university. However according to the HEA reports published prior to the abolition of fees the children of doctors for example had almost 100 per cent participation rate at college. They couldn’t improve on the participation rates they had prior to the abolition of fees because they were top of the participation tables at the time. Alternatively skilled manual particpation rates almost doubled after the abolition of tuition fees. I accept that the abolition of fees may not be the cause of this doubling of participation although I am persuaded that it was a factor. But even if free fees did not cause the doubling, for example of the participation at third level of the children of skilled manual workers at third level, show me the evidence that free fees have made participation at third level more unequal than it was prior to the abolition of fees.

Just to emphasise this point again – prior to the abolition of fees three social groups were found to be declining in terms of participation (1986 to 1992 – HEA/Clancy Reports) and following the abolition of fees that declining trend was reversed. It may be a coincidence but either way partipation rates at college improved. So where is the argument for bringing back fees except as a revenue raising measure underpinned by the view that third level education unlike second level should not be universally available and is a privilege and not a right.

My purpose in taking part in this discussion is not to stifle debate, nor political expediency. Labour passionately believes in the right to universal education at primary, second and third level and it is something that Labour has stood for right back to when its founder James Connolly called for free education up to the highest university grades back in 1896.

David McWilliam’s take on the paper is below:

http://bit.ly/aQ2vcp

When I researched this topic before I think the HEA themselves told me that the biggest impact on increased in participation at 3rd level had more to do with the massive increase in college places. Here’s a quote from a previous column ( I’ll include the link but its behind the pay-wall) http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0325/1224243368573.html

“In 1995 about 40% of school-leavers enrolled in higher education. In 2005 that figure had risen to 55%. That looks impressive until you realise that the 40% had jumped from a mere 25% in 1985. In other words the biggest increase in attendance in higher education occurred when everyone was broke and fees were still in place.

The increase was also facilitated by the huge expansion in college places. In 1985 there were just 55,000 places in what they call the “student stock”. In 1995 there were 95,000 and by 2005 that had risen to 135,000. More places means more students. Take into account soaring income levels during the last ten years and its hardly any surprise that participation rates increased too. Free fees help, but they are not the whole story.”

The decrease in attendance by children of non-manual labourers seems to be logically attributable to the fact that they could get jobs in the boom without the necessity of a 3rd level qualification. (but that’s speculation).

There is a point to be made in response to the argument that it was extra places that increased participation as opposed to free fees. I can the see the merit of that argument but I think it is no more proved as a causal factor than free fees is, considering Kevin has pointed out I have not proved the causal connection. No one has proved the causal connection between more places and more skilled manual workers choosing to send their children to college either. Mind you the rates of participation, not just the absolute numbers, of children from lower socio economic group increased since fees were abolished and that included groups whose participation had been on the decline from 1986 to 1992 ( I know I am labouring this point on the three socio economic groups but I think it is an important one). On the other hand, if increased participation was anticipated as a consequences of free fees, surely if it was intended that that increased participation would not be at the expense of the participation of the higher income groups, then to facilitate that increased participation, more college places were necessary. I am not suggesting that the number of college places were increased because of the anticipated extra participation anticipated from the introduction of free fees but rather that increased participation and increased places would of necessity go hand in hand. Afterall ut wasn’t Labour policy to reduce the amount of wealthy people going to college, rather it was our policy to increase the amount of people from low to middle income groups going to college. And to do that required more college places in any event.

@Sarah
““In 1995 about 40% of school-leavers enrolled in higher education. In 2005 that figure had risen to 55%. That looks impressive until you realise that the 40% had jumped from a mere 25% in 1985. ”
Um, 25% to 40% is the same absolute increase as 40% to 55%…

Do we know anything about the income of the families of the extra 15% of school-leavers? The number of children in those families? (Were they additional children that formerly would not have been college educated?).

Do we know if the number of school-leavers was up/down/the same at the three reference points?

I’m not convinced by the argument that more chickens means more eggs, without the more eggs meaning more chickens coming first…

@Martin

As Niamh Bhreathnach pointed out yesterday, Labour, when it abolished fees did not see it as the single dose of medicine that was needed to widen access to third level or address inequality of outcomes in our education system. It just saw it as part, but a very important part of the picture.

During her 5 year period as Minister, as she pointed out yesterday, Niamh Bhreathnach also introduced the very type of early intervention Kevin Denny says is needed in his paper that we are discussing, namely her Breaking the Cycle and Early Start Programmes. The problem with Niamh is she doesn’t give herself enough credit. She also introduced the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme which is credited by Patrick Clancy in his ESRI/HEA Report ‘Who when to College in 2004’ as leading to more students staying on at second level to do their leaving certificate. Labour has since then developed other policies on tackling educational disadvantage that promote building on early intervention initiatives that we previously introduced and that included one years free pre school education, something that has in research been linked to better educational outcomes for the less well off in societies such as Finland. Our policy on free pre school education was copied by the other parties and a version of it has recently been introduced by the Government.

The other emphasis in our policy is that life long learning should be central to our education system and that part time students should also ultimately have free fees. The issue of access to education is not just about this year’s school leavers, it is also about those in middle age that left school in far greater numbers without even a Leaving Certificate. A model of education that did not have a one size fits all approach, and that did not all hinge on a once off chance to go to college straight from 6th year in second level might mean less pressure in terms of the points race and that in turn might improve access to third level by the less well off. A model that allowed for the fact that low income college entrants might need to work full time and study at night and not have to pay fees might also help to facilitate more children from low income families to go to college.

There are other ways to widen access and to help the less well off to go to college that can compliment the free fees initiative. That includes early intervention. It includes changing our system so that it does not all hinge on the Leaving Cert and that people have genuine second chances at going to third level. It includes a more flexible educational model that allows people move from apprenticeships to diplomas to degrees. In fact it would involve the kind of approach by universities that in fact the ITs developed over the years. In other words, if the block to universities is the points, and the shortage of places, and the points in turn are a factor of socio-economic background, rather than bringing back fees why don’t universities increase their places, or offer more courses part time, or allow more flexibility or increase places on their access programmes.

Kevin’s paper focuses on universities. Maybe it is the model of education that is a factor – it is the restricting of places for e.g. for Medicine that makes high points an issue for example. Early intervention is quite rightly identified by Kevin as part of the solution. But the other solution might be the way Universities operate themselves and that in the educational model they deliver they are excerbating the inequality that already exists in our education system.

Let me get a long-standing gripe out of the way first. There was one glaring and relatively small omission in Niamh’s fees abolition: evening students. They were quite simply left out of the provisions.

Who is terribly surprised that the abolition of fees did little to increase the participation of the poor in 3rd level education? Given that the poor are well behind at an early stage and then continue to lag for many, many reasons, fees are not a determining issue other than in exceptional cases. This is hardly new information. What IS current is the use of a new study, which provides valuable data, by those who want to re-introduce fees. The argument is old and it has not changed.

What usually happens at this point is that someone argues that the money spent on “free fees” could be diverted to early education. Wait, I’ve another idea and it’s just as bad: let’s abolish the (universal) drug repayment scheme and spend the money on early education. No, wait again, I’ve just thought of something more important than early education …

I’ve argued on my own blog (http://www.colummccaffery.wordpress.com) that the real beneficiaries of the abolition of fees rarely feature in these debates. My argument turns on the notion of “afford”. Before the abolition of fees many families whose children went to university certainly could not afford it. They paid but they could not afford it. There was sacrifice and a degree of poverty for at least a number of years. I sometimes wonder if those who want a return to fees – with or without loans – grasp fully that we are talking about tens of thousands of Euro.

No, I’m not supporting middle class whiners. I’m fond of attacking the term “middle class” as I’m weary of listening to rich people describing themselves as “middle income”. Making the rich pay fees will bring in very little income. (Should anyone want to debate an income level for the onset of richness, I’ll participate.) As with the savings by way of public sector pay cuts, you don’t get significant amounts of money in until you go for the relatively poorly paid because that’s where the numbers are! Sure, the reintroduction of university fees would not affect the very poor but it would very seriously affect many families who are struggling. It probably wouldn’t break them. It probably wouldn’t prevent their kids going to college. It would prevent them doing ordinary things that make life good, like taking a holiday or going out regularly. You see, when these people were relieved of the burden of fees, it was an egalitarian move.

By the way, I’m unhappy about the elitist attack above on Joanna for daring to question an expert. It was of a type with those who looked down on Niamh for using anecdotal evidence in The Irish Times. When I say that I’m unhappy with it, I certainly don’t mean that it shouldn’t be allowed. I mean that I’m worried because it reflects poorly on academic involvement in public debate.

This is my understanding of pre-1996:

Rich people – de facto had free fees due to tax reasons
Poor people – free fees (but there were/are other obstacles to their participation)
Middle people – paid fees

So the prediction should be increased relative participation by ‘middle people’. I don’t see how this can be regressive if we have a progressive tax system. Its transferring from the rich to the middle.

I am surprised that there is almost no price effect found. However, the social categories used are quite broad, so its hard to find out who was at the margin in terms of participation in universities. Perhaps the demand for university places is highly inelastic. I find it difficult to accept this as ITs are close substitutes for universities. Perhaps fees were only a small portion of the cost of university. This is true if you have to move city and pay rent and so on.

I think an explanation for this inelasticity is needed. If demand is very inelastic then this transfer of money to ‘middle’ people might mean that they wont have to sacrifice as much, or maybe students would not need to work part-time jobs to finance themselves. This would allow more time to study (and of course some would waste this opportunity).

Also, were fees for some courses (eg engineering) higher than others (eg Arts). Then free fees might lead to increased demand for expensive courses. This could be reflected in relatively higher points for such courses (though changes in supply will make a mess of the analysis).

Liam, and Rory,

At the same time Labour abolished fees it abolished the system of covenants that allowed the rich to write off the cost of their fees. They did this in order to help fund the abolition of fees. I put a PQ a year ago about the savings to the state that resulted from the abolition of the covenants and this is the reply I got:

Dail Eireann 2 October 2008

Written Questions
Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)

Question 107: To ask the Minister for Finance the position regarding the abolition of certain tax covenanting arrangements that applied before the abolition of third level tuition fees; the amount estimated as saved by his Department each year by the abolition of those tax covenanting arrangements; and the amount spent on this covenanting scheme in the year that preceded the year it was abolished. [33076/08]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Minister, Department of Finance; Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 106 and 107 together.

A deed of covenant is a legally binding written agreement made by an individual to pay an agreed amount to another individual, without receiving any benefit in return. To be legally effective, it must be properly drawn up, signed, witnessed, sealed and delivered to the individual receiving the payments. Any amount can be paid under a deed but only covenants in favour of certain individuals qualify for tax relief. A deed must be capable of exceeding a period of six years to qualify for tax relief.

Up to and including the 1993/94 tax year, tax relief was available to the covenanter in respect of covenants in favour of all individuals and for research, teaching of natural sciences and to certain bodies for the promotion of human rights. There was evidence that this tax relief was being abused. To curb this abuse, to stem the rising cost to the Exchequer of covenants and to help fund the phasing out of fees for third level education, this regime was phased out, for both existing and new covenants, in tax years 1994/95 and 1995/96. Since the tax year 1996/97, unrestricted tax relief can only be claimed by covenanters in respect of covenants in favour of permanently incapacitated minors (other than covenants from parents to their own minor incapacitated children) and in respect of covenants in favour of permanently incapacitated adults.

Tax relief can also be claimed by a covenanter in respect of covenants in favour of adults aged 65 or over but the amount of tax relief available on one or more covenants cannot exceed 5% of the total income of the covenanter. When paying over the monies under the covenant, the covenanter deducts tax at source at the standard rate of tax (currently 20%). A covenantee may be entitled to a refund of all, or part, of this tax where his or her tax credits reduce his/her tax liability to less than the amount of income tax deducted by the covenanter, or if the covenantee’s total income is below the applicable income tax exemption limit.

The attached table provided by the Revenue Commissioners shows the estimated cost of the tax relief in each tax year from 1993/94 to 2005. The cost of the relief dropped considerably in tax year 1996/97, the year in which certain restrictions already outlined were introduced. The Revenue Commissioners have also provided figures (rounded to the nearest hundred) for the number of taxpayers since 2000/01 claiming tax relief on covenants.

Tax year Numbers of Claimants Estimated cost of tax relief
(€) m
1993/94 51.8
1994/95 58.3
1995/96 31.0
1996/97 8.4
1997/98 8.8
1998/99 8.9
1999/2000 10.3
2000/01 4,700 11.2
2001 6,100 10.2
2002 5,900 12.8
2003 6,000 15.0
2004 6,000 17.1
2005 6,100 18.9

Another analysis that would be interesting to look at is drop-out. There are few good drop-out studies in the Irish context and the ones that exist are out-of-date at this stage. As well as drop-out, examining the effect of being relieved from frees on the grades of people in the system would go further into examining whether there were effects other than entry. One consequence of a loan-based system would that students would, of course, graduate with already up to 30k of debt, depending on their course. There are many second-round effects that may result from this.

As I’ve said so many times, arguing this issue in terms of its lack of effect on the very poor and the very rich at best misses the point and at worst is downright dishonest.

Let’s compose a vague picture of who will be substantially affected and then ask those who want fees reintroduced if the people in the frame are the ones who can afford to pay?

According to information supplied to me in early 2009, which likely refers to 2008, the VAST majority of public servants earn less than 60K. Let’s assume that earnings in the private sector are no better. Leave out the top and bottom and we are talking about people on about 30 or 40k a year. I normally dislike basing anything on family income but let’s say two working and bringing in 50K. That’s all very crude and it could be argued that a typical case would be up or down on that but neither objection will affect the argument very much.

If fees are to be reintroduced and if they are to bring in significant amounts, families on 50k will be paying.

Ok, so what will they be paying? Fees could be 5k or 10k. I don’t know. Let’s say 8k. As you will see, this doesn’t have to be anything like accurate to make the point.

Let’s assume the family planning was good with a three year gap between two kids who are good students, will make college and will not need repeats or want to do post grad.

That will mean our 50k p.a. family will have to find 8k each year for 6 years!

All of these assumptions/guesstimates are wide open to quibbles but move some up, move some down, allow for the grant or not, the picture won’t change very much. The reintroduction of fees will make life very hard for a lot of people.

Another part of Kevin’s paper that needs more attention is the finding that having a parent with a disability impacts negatively on participation. It is very difficult to know what is happening there. The coefficient could be picking up a range of complex health and social factors associated with disability but it points to a potentially very important source of the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage in society.

@ Colum:

Rather than:

*With a student loan scheme in place, no families would be “broken”. *

Insert:

*With a student loan scheme in place, no families would be prevented from doing ordinary things that make life good. *

Liam,
You can’t pretend that the education budget arrives from God on tablets of stone. It is decided upon and there are opportunity costs in relation to it just as there are costs to decisions within it.

In a world in which all parents stopped behaving as parents as soon as their kids reached maturity a loan scheme might be the answer. However, the family I sketched above would react to a loan scheme like this, “Look love, we’ve been thinking about this loan business and we don’t want you up to your neck in debt when you’re only starting out. We can’t really afford it, but this is family, forget the loan we’ll find the money for university.”

One reason why the fees debate is sometimes confusing is because there is insufficient clarity more generally about the role (or lack of it) for universal benefits in this setting. I have just blogged on this, here:
http://universitydiary.wordpress.com/2010/05/28/tuition-fees-and-universal-benefits/

@all

Now that my non-middle class credentials have been established – my mum, by the way, is really enjoying finally being seen as middle class! – I have to say that I am enjoying this debate as it plays out. Keep it up – it is very important (and well moderated, Liam).

Let me summarize my view. I think the following:

1. The abolition of fees in 1995 did nothing to change the representation of lower SES in the University sector. That is not the be all and end all of higher education, admittedly. But it is the point of comparison that is related to the policy changes (which impacted the Unis) and as such, as a straight statement of policy effectiveness with no other value judgement imposed, it failed. At one level that is what the Denny work, and that of Olive Sweetman etc, shows. QED.

2. A lot of what has been discussed thereafter actually goes off the track of that fact and of what these series of papers demonstrate – which is fine but worth debating. I think the supply of HE places, and the increase in the cohort size, means that more lower SES children are in HE – fantastic. But more are in IoTs mainly, and more drop out or don’t complete (lets research that too), and tiny amounts are in the professional disciplines like Law or Medicine etc. Social mobility is not happening at that level and I strongly encourage folks to look at something I had the great pleasure to be an advisor on – the UK social mobility white paper (Getting On Getting Ahead – find it here – http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/66447/gettingon.pdf) for an example of a lifecycle framework that is (a) about opportunity and mobility but (b) about productivity and output.

3. All this really says is that if we believe that there are bright kids out there who are not going to Uni (and I do believe that) then this type of policy based on funding will not encourage them. I am not trying to be flippant but money is not the issue here. It is much harder than money. The issue of money only matters when you get to the point where you are competing for a place in University and for a large cohort that is just not happening.

4. @Joanna raised the point of what the Uni’s could do about this. The answer is (1) little given the CAO system is blind and (2) what little they can do given (private) investment in access programmes have been very successful. Ironically, fee income from those that pay would allow the University sector to do more on that front! Stuff we are working on here shows clearly that the socioeconomic gradient does not translate into grades in University – so the Uni treatment does a good job at leveling the pitch. It is the entry that is the problem.

5. As an aside – I am a fan of the progression pathway from IoT to Uni’s etc. I think that the IoT’s evolution into degree programmes has provided a substitute not a complement to that pathway. And perhaps (I don’t know the facts) the Uni and IoT could work better together than they do. Regardless – I think that a pathway to, say, a Law Degree for a low SES youngster that takes a long and tortured road through an IoT degree programme first is perhaps a bigger disincentive than fees are…..remember the basic problem I stated in my Indo Op-Ed is that you are trying to change the way youngsters (and parents) value the future over the present and something that says ‘sure, you will do less well in the Leaving because your school ain’t so hot but you can go to an IoT, do something there for three years, and if you perform well we will let you go to UCD’ is both mildly insulting and unlikely to do the trick.

So now what?? Well, I think:

6. Bringing back fees is not a symmetric argument to what happened when you abolished them. The fact that abolition did not change low SES behaviour is not the same as saying that bringing them back won’t have any impact. How, and under what structure, you do this will be critical, particularly in a recession period. This, I hope, is what the Hunt Review of Higher Education recognises. If we are planning what seemed to be planned under then Minister O’Keefe, would have been a very very blunt. We need careful debate on the ‘how’.

7. Finally, I always end up feeling irritated by the whole debate about fees, grants and parental income. These are young adults. We need to ensure equality of opportunity (and ambition) to admit them to HE, and we need to then look at how they finance themselves. Grants, Loans, Access Programmes all form part of that process but for the student not the parent. It is a total red herring to say that because your family earns 100k you will face fees and if they don’t you won’t. All students should face fees, institutions should be free to decide on what they should be even perhaps varying by course (perhaps subject to some cap as in the UK), and an infrastructure is in place to pick up on the funding issues through loans and grants for those that need them. We need to get the point across that all can go, needs blind, and if you need help we will give it to you. That, in my mind, is more powerful than a system that sort of has the issues of how much my parents have available hanging about like a bad smell from the time the prospective students hits secondary school.

Hope that helps give a sense of what I think on this. If you don’t agree, I will talk to some of my old school friends in Ballyer and you can expect a knock on the door….

@ Colm
Whats with the IOT bashing?

As someone who went to university in the early-mid 90s…

Here’s what was wrong with the grant system:
1. Operated by local authorities which was administratively inefficient and led to different payment schedules for classmates based on which LA they applied to.
2. Thresholds not properly indexed – there was an uplift in 1994-5 I think as I got fees-only payment for the last two years of undergrad. The previous years I had a 12.68% credit union loan but I had classmates paying AIB nearly 20%. Those were the days.
3. PAYE workers hammered since it basically operated against gross income.
4. Many people eligible for the full fees+grant still couldn’t go to college as the amounts were unrealistically low particularly in university towns with high living costs.

Free fees did not solve many of these problems. The lifting of thresholds, payment levels and fixing of eligibility assessment would have solved far more problems but would not have benefited the people the champagne socialists were chasing and would not have created the same “splash”.

We should also stop referring to the current regime as “free fees”. The registration and other charges universities levy now are mostly on items which are not frills or options (such as exam fees). Universities were always free to charge for repeat exams or losing your ID card, but if you don’t pay something and you are prevented from taking your course or receiving your degree – IT’S A FEE.

The proposal by UCC to charge graduates to shake their President’s hand is not a fee, it’s optional. Hopefully when they hang a portrait of said gentleman in the college they will put it in a room where you also have to pay a charge to look at it – it would be only fitting.

I think the far more pressing problem in Irish universities is admission, especially given a horizon of declining funding and likely cuts in staff and capacity. It should be tougher to get into universities so that lecturers can get on with teaching and not remedial education, but at the same time the race for maximum points is corrosive and simply enriches the owners of grind schools.

If I had the power to do so I would set a ceiling points level in the upper 500s and simply instruct CAO to admit randomly above this level for ALL courses including med, vet, etc. since the financial ability to grind/repeat your way above this level should not be disproportionately rewarded. (See McWilliams’ article above)

At the lower level, I would instruct HEA to examine MINIMUM course requirements in all courses and get the universities to set realistic ones. I find it bizarre that, for instance, you can study Chemistry at my alma mater with a LC consisting of a few humanities subjects and applied maths.

@Joanna. I don’t mean to be disrespectful or patronising, but what you say about universalism is very old-fashioned socialism, and has increasingly been questioned by social democrats and socialists in some other countries.

In relation to higher education, the evidence doesn’t back what you say. If you were right, then with free fees far more people from the lowest income groups should have come into HE. They haven’t. The very small increase that has occurred is almost entirely due to the universities’ own access programmes (which are not state-funded), and which as it happens have a means test approach.

I do acknowledge that middle income groups have benefited, but as I have said in my blog it seems absurd to suggest that we need to throw lots of money at wealthy people in order to get some more middle income people into the system. They should be targeted much more directly.

The IOTs don’l like fees because they believe – wrongly, I think – that they would be disadvantaged vis-a-vis universities.

76 comments. “Whispering” Ted Lowe, the great snooker commentator of the 80s, is coming to my mind. Though he always cautioned against calling a century break too early.

Liam,

The point is that that trend did change as evidenced by the HEA statistics. Kevin’s paper is looks at universtity applicants, and he only does it as an economist. A sociologist might produce a different paper on the same issue (whether the abolition of fees made a difference in terms of participation) and come to a different conclusion to Kevin. As someone said above two pieces of information can be true even if pointing to different conclusions.

I do not reject his findings what I do not accept is his conclusion that that the abolition of fees made no difference to the participation rates of lower income groups at college. You can say that the reason the percentage of the children of skilled manual workers almost doubled between 1998 to 2004 as being caused by the increase of third level places. However it is the percentage not just the absolute numbers of those children of skilled manual workers increased. And then again there are those three low to middle income groups who against the otherwise trend of increasing participation rates of all other socio economic groups, including the most disadvantaged, that declined in their participation in the 6 years prior to the abolition of fees, who then reversed that decline and had a continuing increase in participation at third level after fees were abolished. Kevin does not examine that phenomenon, naturally, as it was not within the remit of his paper.

I do not take an offence at Kevin’s comment to me above. I bat for Labour. As a politician that is what I do. You develop a thick skin, and that is what politics is about – standing for something and being prepared to defend it when needs be, particularly if you feel passionately committed to a particular policy of your party. But there is Kevin makes a point elsewhere on this debate (on Ferdinand’s blog) that he is all for open debate, as long as it is informed debate. But we can’t all be economists and I do not have the time right now to study for a degree in the subject. But an open and informed debate can include lots of different information, that can lead to different conclusions, and still be true, and it can include opinions, idealism and even anecdotes about taxi drivers and all of those inputs can help shed light on a subject, and help inform where we go next in relation to the provision of free education to our children.

@Joanna
I agree and have said above that your contribution on this post is well within any normal definition of informed debate. In fact, we have probably used this post as well as any I have been involved in to make sure all the different sides have got a hearing.

The evidence in Kevin’s paper, to repeat, indicates that the trend did not change when the fee initiative was introduced. The evidence you have been giving only shows longer run trends that are not inconsistent with Kevin’s findings but in no way point to a causal effect of the abolition of fees. This is not a very technical point. You simply have to show that something changed “because of” the 1996 initiative and not simply as a continuation of an underlying trend that was happening due to increased places and growing levels of wealth and other non-fee factors. Anecdotes and other information can be useful for illustration but for policy, the key issue is what the actual effect was not what some people remember it to be due to their idiosyncratic personal experience and the people with PhDs wandering around claiming otherwise are a menace to honest policymaking in Ireland. This is one for a wider discussion but we are not going to get far in linking policy and academia if politicians take flight into anecdotes when the evidence gets tough for them. Nor will we get very far if academics start hurling insults when they are questioned on their findings.

There may be other critiques of Kevin’s findings. For example, no-one has asked about the response rates to the surveys, any measurement problems and so on. We haven’t even really asked Kevin how sensitive his results are to alternative statistical specifications. The fact that Olive Sweetman’s results are so similar is in some way reassuring. But on an issue this important, replications with different data would be a good thing.

I think be critical Rory. I’m sure Kevin would welcome criticisms of that nature. Hope of a century break aside, we are probably well passed the point were anyone is reading this anymore.

It is a useful question as to whether probit is the right specification. If a less restrictive specification completely changed the results then the paper would be less of a “smoking gun”. Kevin himself has written papers using this type of reasoning in the past. I have also a question as to whether leaving cert points should be in the main specification. There is a case to be made that it hoovers up too much variance as it correlated with many other things. I think there is a case for looking at a specification where LC points are ommitted. If Kevin’s argument is correct, this should not impact on the interaction terms (though it would of course have an impact on the main effects of SES).

I wont get too bogged down in a particular phrase but I stand behind the idea that Kevin has shifted the burden of proof. No paper is perfect and certainly no paper is beyond debate but sometimes papers do shift our thinking or else we are really wasting our time.

If someone did a thorough analysis of the HEA data and demonstrated that there was indeed a shift post-1996 and not just a trend continuation, then this would point the burden back to the other side as the HEA data should be better quality. But the authors of that report did not claim that and Joanna’s argument does not make the case that you would need to make. To be honest, Kevin and Colm both have convinced me (from an initially reluctant starting position) that bring back fees at about an 80k threshold and ploughing the money into really correcting early disadvantage would be a good thing to do. Though this is not neccesarily the correct way of framing the choice (why not free frees and lots of money on early disadvantage), so lets have that debate properly soon.

Liam,

Surely my whole point is that it was not a trend continuation.

I repeat that for the 12 years pre 1998 all socio-economic groups improved their participation rate for the previous twenty years bar three lower to middle income groups that stayed static in terms of their participation rate for 6 of those years and for the 6 years 1986 to 1992 declined their rate of participation at college. The declining trend did not continue post the abolition of fees, rather it was reversed and turned into increasing participation rates.

You ask an interesting question above. You ask wehter the leaving certificate should be the main specification. Now not being familiar with the model, I thought of that question too and I would add the point in that regard that not all people that get the points actually go to college. And that was more the case surely when less people went to college, And anecdotal and all that what follows is, I distinctly remember girls that left school with me in the 1980s, of lower middle income backgrounds to my knowledge, getting places in college, but declining those places and taking the job they applied for and were offered, straight out of Leaving cert instead. I meanwhile, though my parents struggled, went to college, probably partly because, my father having been the only one to go to college of his family, my mother having left school at 14, there was an expectation that I and our siblings would, like my father, go to college. Plus he was a lecturer in a third level college, DIT, Kevin Street. Fees did not stop me, and family expectation made me. However in my peers case there was no expectation due, I imagine in large part du to lack of family history, and that those girls faced with parents struggling with fees versus being able to contribute to the household income via a job in the civil service/credit union, they chose the less financially straining route for their parents of not going to college despite getting the points and instead took that clerical job at aged 18.

Actually, I missed the obvious trick point out by other posters also that the HEA report refers to higher education more broadly rather than just the universities so this is an added source of confusion.

Fair and balanced article. Capturing the key points succinctly.

@ Joanna

A question in relation to “skilled manual participation”.

Does the HEA figure include apprentices going through Phase 4 and 6 of their apprenticeship in the IOTs around the country.

Considering the construction boom rise in apprentice numbers and their percolation through the IOT’s, they may be a part of that figure?

Night

Al,

This is a link to the 2004HEA report (published 2006) here:

http://www.hea.ie/files/files/file/archive/statistics/2004/Who%20went%20to%20College%20in%202004.pdf

What is says is “The focus of this report is on new entrants to higher education in Ireland in 2004. New entrants to higher education are defined as first-time undergraduates in the first year of study in full-time higher education in the Republic of Ireland…Higher education: is defined as courses offered in recognised higher education institutions (hence Post-Leaving Certificate courses, which are delivered through the further education sector, are excluded) and which normally demand a minimum entry requirement of a Leaving Certificate with at least grade D in five subjects (almost all colleges admit some mature students who may not have reached these required educational credentials).”

Liam,

The bulk of the change in the three declining group looks like it happened in the 1998 to 2004 period.

There is another point made in the 2004 report that is relevant to the debate:

it says it is apparent that those social class groups displaying improvements in their retention levels since 1998 ar those groups with greatest levels of participation in the Leaving Certificate Applied programme (unskilled manual, semi-skilled manual and other agriculture). It then goes on to say that this suggests the Leaving Certificate Applied that improvements in retention levels are to some extent being achieved because of through the provision of and participation in the Leaving Certificate Applied. However, it points out that the HEA report does not factor in the students going to college via the Leaving Certificate applied as those students that take the Leaving Certificate Applied are not eligible for direct entry into higher education. Nevertheless, according to the researchers, Philip J. O’Connell, David Clancy and Selina McCoy, state in the report that notwithstanding such growth in LCA participation, students from semi-and unskilled manual backgrounds have made important and positive gains in their rates of completion of second level relative to other social groups.

The point I am highlighting here is, and Kevin can correct me if I am wrong, which I could be, is that there are also implications for Kevin’s paper that the Leaving Certificate Applied students would not be part of the points race, nor gain admission via the CAO? Ditto the students (there may be overlap of course) that gain admission via access programmes, and other modes of progression, to third level that happen post Leaving certificate?

I am not contradicting Kevin’s findings just the conclusions (that fees did not increase participation rates of those other than the wealthy) on the basis of the following aspects that are not, as far as I can make out considered by Kevin’s paper: –

1.The paper does not consider the issue of those with the points that do not go to college and why
2.it excludes ITs (and by the way, contrary to what some seem to believe from the comments above, and something that I am aware of from working in the Registrations office in DIT Bolton Street when the ESF funding was in place was that many IT students did not have free fees pre abolition of tuition fees – degree courses in Bolton street were not covered by the ESF funding, for example)
3. It excludes those that gain entry via access programmes
4. It excludes those that gain entry via other modes of gaining entry to university courses.

Finally, Kevin’s research is only one way of looking at the issue, using the model concerned. It is not a sociological study for example that might lead one to different conclusions.

Ok, let’s assume that “free fees” had absolutely no effect on poor people. Assume that not one extra poor person has gone to university. That is not sufficient reason to reintroduce fees.

If the great majority of students were from rich families and if they were made to pay fees, the money so raised would fund the universities. Problem: the students from rich families are in a minority and the fees they would pay would go nowhere close to funding the universities. The only way to raise that kind of money is to charge the majority – not the rich, not the middle class – the majority.

Those who argue for the reintroduction of fees should talk about income figures and stop the airy-fairy stuff about “the well off”, “those who can afford to pay”, “the middle class”. How much would each student have to pay? (Now, let’s not have any messing about over tuition fees vs. registration fees. It’s the total amount a student would have to pay.) And who could be said to be able to afford it?

@ Joanna

I did a few fast searches thru the document.
It does not mention the words apprentice or craft.

Apprentices are registered as full time students, entitled to ID cards and also entitled to represent the Institutes in sporting events like the Siegerson and Fitzgibbon cubs, much to the dissapointment of the Universities!!!

Presumably, the distinction wouldnt have been made to the researchers.

Night

Liam,

The Leaving Certificate Applied is relevant or why else do Philip J. O’Connell, David Clancy and Selina McCoy, state in their 2004 HEA report, that the absence of the Leaving Certificate Applied from their analysis “has important implications” for their analaysis? Don’t forget a key point is that the points are a factor and the evidence that those in the lowest socio economic group are less likely to get the points. The Leaving Certificate Applied was established by Niamh Bhreathnach to help those people that couldn’t get the points, to have an alternative way of completing their education and for some to proceed to further education and third level.

The exclusion of Institutes of Technology is relevant because as Kevin himself points out in 2004 ITs accounted for 42 per cent of new entrants to higher education and as I have pointed out many students in ITs did not get free fees under the ESF fund, including DIT degrees and for example the course my sister studied, the Diploma in Architectural technology.

The exclusion of those that progressed through alternatives to college, such as PLCs etc, is relevant because those people might have lost out on the points but may subsequently have gone to college and may have been partly influenced to do so because fees were no longer in place.

@Colum

“It is impossible to make such a distinction”. Its quite an important distinction and one that I haven’t been careful enough in making myself. The extent to which we can draw from the evidence of past reforms to guide thinking on future reforms is one of the central questions of economics and economic policy. Much of the debate here is focused on the “what was the result” question rather than what will be the result. Let’s not split hairs too much on this though. Both questions are interesting. You say that “no one thought that “free fees” would result in lots of poor people going to college.” I think many people did and judging by this post many people (including potentially the people that will be in charge of education policy in a few years time) continue to do so. I absolutely agree with you though that we cannot use Kevin’s study in itself as a motivation to bring back fees. It does remove one of the motivations not to bring back fees, namely the believe that abolishing impacted positively on poorer students participation. The way you are framing the debate in terms of potential revenue raised and the affordability issues for middle-income families is a better way of thinking about what is at stake in this debate.

@Joanna, there is nothing that you have said about LCVP, the IOTs, Access Programmes and so on that leads me to doubt Kevin’s conclusions.

@Ferdinand
“If you were right, then with free fees far more people from the lowest income groups should have come into HE. They haven’t. The very small increase that has occurred is almost entirely due to the universities’ own access programmes (which are not state-funded), and which as it happens have a means test approach.”

Given that I am spending a lot of time asking people to back things up on this thread, this doesn’t sound right as a claim. I will have a closer look myself later but surely this is overstating the case, or at least working a little with the idea of “lowest income group”.

Hmm…I think we might be getting to a close here. A 147 is not likely.

@Joanna – still no idea why IOTs are relevant here to a study of removing fees for university and we are heading now to a position where nothing is going to be gained on debating this further without more data thrown into the mix.

I have already agreed partly with you that someone needs to look in much closer depth at the trends from the HEA data. The Clancy et al findings as they stand do not support your position but they do not prove you wrong either.

The points you make move us away from the effect of the 1996 reform and toward the potential return of fees. I am thinking of how to craft a post on this that allows us to move on from this current part of the debate and on to the question now facing policy. I think the publication of the Hunt report will help to do this.

Liam,

So the Hunt report is going to be an open minded and pro student consideration of whether free fees should be returned or not?

@ Liam Delaney

“Hmm…I think we might be getting to a close here. A 147 is not likely.”

I think you are working on commission 🙂

Professor McNamara’s letter is below. All of the points in the letter have been raised also by Joanna above and I hope we have at least pointed out why this argument needs to be scrutinised properly.

http://bit.ly/9Hwig7

I cannot pinpoint the research being referred to. They have written several papers over the years pointing out that the dice are loaded against poor people accessing college, something that Kevin’s research confirms in spades. A paper showing a causal effect of the return of fees in the UK on decreasing college participation among lower SES groups is not something I have seen but feel free to link to it here.

http://bit.ly/aY7cPD

@Brian J Goggin,

Well it could be neither.

@ Joanna:

I have considered the argument that fee-abolition eradicated the potential effects of (a social gradient in) debt-aversion. My main thought in this regard is that a well-funded Access program (which began at second-level) could eradicate debt-aversion; and well-funded Access programs are desirable in their own right. Even if fee-abolition reduced some psychological barrier (related to a social gradient in debt-aversion), the social gradient in school performance needs to be addressed with Access programs. The most binding constraints to university attendance are matriculation requirements, and the “points” requirement. This message (about the social gradient in school performance) also came through in the Rowntree-sponsored research.

Any economists out there for free third level education?

reference was: National Institute Economic Review, Vol. 191, No. 1, 106-117 (2005) DOI: 10.1177/0027950105052662

@ Joanna

Free third level education?

It is not free, it has a cost.
The issues we should speak of is the unit cost and who meets the cost.

You are advocating that the users will perform better without the cost burden?

Maybe!
But we cant call it free.
The universities and iot’s arent providing the service for free?

On the one hand…..
But on the other….

Good point about 1 and 2nd level..
Perhaps the notion that adults should pay…?

I agree with the point, if you are making it, that full fees would decimate participation. I think the idea being floated is ‘student contribution’.
I understand while SU’s are against it, but it would also enfranchise students with a seat at the table.

We also need to look at what constitutes 3 level spending also.
I fear there is an new ecclesiastical aristocracy in the land, with the power to save or damm through education, and also with a sense of entitlement for a palatial existence.

Night

@Joanna – I think many of the economists are in fact left leaning if not left wing….you might not believe it!!

Aaaarrrggghhhh – I had a nice post which I hit send on – and nothing appeared. Either Liam has found it offensive (he finds most of what I say offensive!) or some gremlin. I will try reconstruct. If all this appears twice…sorry!!

I think we are heading to 147.

I am still not hearing anything to contradict the simple point Kevin made. I think a lot of what is raised – IoTs, access programmes (see the Geary work on those!), LC Applied – is all very interesting and important but does not get at overturning Kevin’s point.

I wanted to point readers at some really nice economics work. IFS in London do a huge amount on this. Look at Lorraine Dearden, Alissa Goodman and Emla Fitzsimons work at IFS (www.ifs.org.uk) – see in particular the stuff Lorraine has done at http://www.ifs.org.uk/docs/uuk_presentation10.pdf on how the reforms in the UK work (if you end up in no work, or low paying work, you won’t repay – if you get high paying job, you will clear debt fast – either way Govt is actually subsidizing more not less since the student contribution came back in the UK). Lorraine and ALissa also have a nice paper which tracks from age 11 a full education cohort (all of them!) up to age 19 and shows that ‘it is not barriers arising at the point of entry into HE (e.g. borrowing constraints) that are most problematic, but poor attainment in secondary schools. Indeed, if results can be improved between age 11 and age 16, those from poorer backgrounds are at least as likely to go on to university as their more advantaged peers.’

Nice work by folks at LSE for the the Sutton Trust latest report (hardly a right wing group – see http://www.suttontrust.com/reports/ST_submission_20100520.pdf) have a really nice report on what next in the UK – the exec summary says (my emphasis) that ‘There is a danger that a substantial increase in – and variation of – tuition fees could negatively impact on student choices in a way the current regime HAS NOT’.

Look forward to seeing the Rowntree Trust work.

Liam,
The “past positive Vs future normative” distinction is important in many situations but not here because the study in question would not have received the attention it did had it not featured as material for those who oppose “free fees”.

There may indeed be people who believed that the abolition of fees would produce a rush of poor people into the universities but such people know nothing about poverty. No informed person had such hopes and is certainly not surprised now.

You could progress this debate by insisting that anyone arguing for the abolition of “free fees” must avoid evocative but meaningless use of “middle class”, “afford to pay” and “means tested” and instead talk in terms of income figures. Jesus wept, I’m beginning to talk like an economist!

Hat-tipping Rory, here is a BBC news story from last year which includes Lord Mandelson’s comments and a description of the Oxford admissions policy:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8347700.stm

Colm

If you put more than one link in the comment then wordpress puts it in the overall site moderation queue. I am merely the post moderator so, alas, I cannot rescue it immediately.

Joanna,

The point is one about how the CAO system works. Every school-leaver in Ireland cannot “benefit” from third-level because they don’t all qualify to attend. The process of qualifying to attend is an integral part of Kevin’s paper. And this relates to the ability threshold that Aedin mentions.

In Ireland, all children must receive compulsory education between the ages of six and sixteen years, and all children up to the age of eighteen must complete the three years of post-primary education: http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2000/en/act/pub/0022/sec0001.html

Children have no choice in this matter, and their choice about subjects to study at second-level is heavily restricted. Third level is optional, and certain standards must be met at second-level before one can progress to third level.

Perhaps you are suggesting that if there was a place in third-level for every school-leaver (which is currently not even close to the case), then every school-leaver could be admitted and stand to benefit. However, just as you wouldn’t progress to Honours in Leaving Cert without doing Honours in Junior Cert, there are matriculation requirements. And these also exist internationally:

http://www.tcd.ie/Admissions/undergraduate/requirements/matriculation/other/

Access programs can lead to individuals who don’t get the points requirements for a certain course out-performing their peers. Other research that Kevin has worked on has shown this:

http://ideas.repec.org/p/ucn/wpaper/201011.html

However, there are also matriculation requirements for Access programs:
http://www.ucd.ie/access/downloads/HEAR%20UCD%20Entry%20Requirements_2010.pdf

Martin,

The places expanded to allow for greater access and that is a trend that should continue, but not everyone can or wants to go to college straight from leaving certificate, and not everyone can study full time, or part time at night. We need a more flexible model of education and in addition to widening access of school leavers to address the far greater inequality that existed in the more distant past, and give those people that wish to take it up, every opportunity for a second chance.

This idea that places must be restricted is more of a university thing than a IT thing and hence my issue about Kevin’s paper only looking at universities. Of course bringing in free fees was not going to ensure someone got the points for medicine. But it is possible that free fees helped others do science in Institutes of Technology and that the points were not such a constraint.

“The places expanded to allow for greater access and that is a trend that should continue”

I agree. But there are pressing cost issues at present, and matriculation requirements are a critical issue.

“but not everyone can or wants to go to college straight from leaving certificate, and not everyone can study full time, or part time at night. We need a more flexible model of education”

I agree. I expressed my enthusiasm for life-long learning earlier in the thread.

“This idea that places must be restricted is more of a university thing than a IT thing and hence my issue about Kevin’s paper only looking at universities.”

I never put forward an idea that places ‘must be’ restricted. I did point out that places ‘are’ scarce.

“Of course bringing in free fees was not going to ensure someone got the points for medicine. But it is possible that free fees helped others do science in Institutes of Technology and that the points were not such a constraint.”

Of course, as you have previously stated “many students in ITs did not get free fees under the ESF fund (before 1996), including DIT degrees.”
Do you know which specific ITs? Did it only apply to degree qualifications or were other qualifications covered? I’ll try to do some digging myself.

@ Tim

When the previous Minister published the unit cost of processing student grants by the various councils I had a massive eye brow spasm at the overall unit cost as well as the variation.

It would be intersting to know the breakdown of a homogenous course nationally per student. Especially what is included or not: presidential palaces or pet projects being bourn on the back of actual educational work being done.

However, could one trust the authorities to respect individual universities and IOTs soverignty in defining their individual indentities and priorities????

@ Liam
This is an area far from my competencies…

But you have outlined a per unit funding?

Unit cost:
Admissions
Admin: general, school, department, etc
Lecturing, assignments, projects
Exams, invigilating, corrections
Facilities, maintenance

What I was trying to point out was it may be of interest to discover a cost comparison where comparisons could be made.
For example if there were significant deviatons in costs, why?
Good reasons or Bad reasons>?

Etc
night

@Joanne T
First, well done for coming on here (you arent Labour’s education spokesperson are you…?) and defending the policy. If more politicians were willing to do this, and to have calm, well argued debate with the issues involved we would be all much better off.
Second – so, for ideological reasons labour is against fees. Fair enough, you are politicians. Ideology is what you do. What I find worrying then is that there is no policy that I can see from Labour as to how the third/fourth level will gain the resources to deliver even the mass sheep-dip type courses that society seems to want to be delivered. Leaving aside the cargo-cult ideas that more university/IOT graduates is , per se, a good thing, the report in the IT today (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2010/0602/1224271678150.html) on the forthcoming job cuts/course closures in universities shows the difficulty heads face when they do not control their resource flow.
That leaves aside the €4b needed in capital investment
So, where then would Labour get the resources, how would these be ensured to be diverted to this area. If you can show me that, then i have no objection to free fees on financial bases. Theres another argument on the signal that paying something gives in terms of willingness to work hard but thats another day

Following in the wake of Kevin’s research (though not related), there is an op-ed in today’s Irish Independent by Senator Fidelma Healy Eames, Fine Gael Seanad Education Spokesperson (In my opinion: Radical re-think needed to provide some equality). The piece focuses strongly on drop-out at second-level.

http://www.independent.ie/education/features/in-my-opinion-radical-rethink-needed-to-provide-some-equality-2203292.html

A 147. A rare event on this stage though I did do my share of the potting.

A real 147 is below. Took us a little longer but overall a good thread and thanks to everyone for vigorous debate. Look forward to the next one on higher education.