Another week, another suggestion for how to fund higher education. Yet the proposal from the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) is part of a new strand in the higher education funding debate that is starting to realise the money doesn’t have to simply come from the state or students.
The union’s proposal is that a new tax of one per cent on corporate profits would generate €550 million a year, adding another proposal to the debate on how to fund the higher education sector. It might be dismissed – yet another union, calling for a corporations to pay their share, with a little chance that an economically conservative Fine Gael government would listen. Besides, this is a country whose governments have always been protective about corporate taxes.
Yet, in some ways, the old student-state divide, which has dominated the funding debate for years, is beginning to break down. The higher education funding debate has been remarkable not just because we’ve had the most public acknowledgement yet of the sector’s desperate need for more financially support, but because numerous groups, from students’ unions to trade unions, have pushed into the mainstream the idea that corporations and businesses should help fund the education they benefit from.
So while it is unlikely that the government will rush to adopt the TUI policy as their own, it is not inconceivable that we could see more measures introduced that seek to ensure businesses and corporations contribute somewhat to higher education. It was only in March that the government recommended an increase in the yearly levy it applies to employers – a key proposal from students’ and trade unions.
Ibec, which represents employers across the country, is clearly nervous – it told the Oireachtas Education and Skills Committee last year that an increased levy on employers shouldn’t be used as a “sticking plaster” to fund universities and colleges.
It isn’t totally clear why this shouldn’t be the case or indeed why corporations and businesses shouldn’t pay for the labour they benefit from. We might fear giving corporations too much of a license to interfere in our institutions, but they are here already, sponsoring courses and shaping our graduate attributes. The least they can do is pay for the privilege.
