With a Provostial election looming in early 2011, securing the finances of the University is the issue set to dominate the campaign trail.
Though the University avoided some of the more severe cuts predicted for Budget 2011, the 5% cut in the non-pay grant comes on top of large cuts in direct state funding in last year’s budget. That resulted in a real cut to funding of about 7%, as most of the cut to the recurrent grant received from the HEA was offset by the increase in the student service charge from €900 to €1,500. The college avoiding running a deficit for the academic year ending September 2010 by utilising part of an uncommitted €5.5m strategic fund.
This year’s cut will be mostly offset by the increased and rebranded “student contribution” of €2,000 for the first student in a family and €1,500 for those subsequent. The College had been anticipating much more severe cuts in the core grant, but lobbying by the Green Party and Independent TDs seems to have minimised the cuts demanded from the higher education sector. Much of the post-budget discussion amongst USI has focused on the likelihood the this years cuts will have a greater impact on the Institute of Technology sector than universities.
With the Croke Park agreement removing the possibility of further pay cuts, and staff pay constituting around 70% of expenditure, the University has been forced to concentrate on reducing non-pay expenditure and staff numbers, targeting a 6% reduction in staff numbers by the end of 2010. In addition, there has been a focus on diversifying income away from state sources, such as the quota for non-EU students reported in this issue of the University Times.
It is in this context that the reintroduction of third level fees is raised. Critics of the free fees regime say that it has done nothing to increase representation amongst the most disadvantaged, and leaves universities overly reliant on the Government for funding. On the first point, critics are right. Research by Dr. Kevin Denny of UCD shows that there has not been an increase in participation in third level education amongst the least well off, and attributes this to gaps in primary and secondary education. This however does not necessarily mean the reintroduction of fees would do anything to advance their cause – the key to that is increasing the resources dedicated to access programmes, such as the Trinity Access Programme. To ensure funding is available for such programmes and secure from capricious swings in Government spending, fees are thus needed, or so the argument goes.
However, shifting the University towards an independent source of revenue remains a distant pipe-dream. Firstly, it is hard to see the sudden emergence of a philanthropic culture amongst graduates, particularly given the increased level of taxes in recent years. Secondly research funding is hugely reliant on state funding – for example, over 75% of Trinity’s research budget comes from the state in one form or another. Lastly, the single greatest funding line in universities’ budgets is the recurrent grant received from the state, even at its reduced level.
For the academic year ending September 2009, tuition fees paid by the Government to Trinity on behalf of EU students came to €45m. The beneficial effect of the introduction of a student loan system on the University’s finances is limited to the extent exchequer revenues saved are reinvested into higher education through either research funding or the core grant. While there is little reason to believe this will be the case while the Government continues to incur such a large fiscal deficit, it is worth discussing the implications.
The recurrent grant received from the HEA is weighted heavily towards research and PhD students. For example, whereas undergraduate social science students receive a weighting of 1 in the HEA’s allocation formula, postgraduate lab-based research is weighted at 4.8. This is replicated in universities’ internal allocation mechanisms, meaning that research postgraduate students would be the beneficiaries of increased undergraduate contributions.
Another alternative is for a large increase in tuition fees, though paid for by the student through a loan scheme. To achieve even a 20% increase in such a revenue stream, fees for arts, humanities and social science degrees would have to increase to €7000, a level comparable to much more prestigious institutions such as Oxford and LSE, even after the Browne review. At such fee levels there is little doubt that the brightest Irish secondary school students would start to look abroad.
The real problem facing higher education, and the University sector in particular
is that it failed to convince the public, and exchequer of its importance over the boom years. Tertiary education spending as a share of total spending declined over the Tiger years, reflecting its decreased priority, despite the policy of successive Governments to increase student numbers.
The challenge facing Provostial candidates is to convince the new Government that higher education should be adequately financed, to increase income from voluntary graduate contributions and to provide clarity on the issue of a student contribution. While the introduction of tuition fees through a loan system is no panacea for either government or universities, the continuing uncertainty merely causes anguish amongst aspiring students.
