For my father's generation education was they key to everything: success, happiness, social mobility, prosperity. Brought up during the years of the Great Depression and World War II, his generation suffered the kind of deprivation which most of us can only imagine. Yet, alongside that deprivation, others continued to thrive.
During my youth my parents inculcated in me the importance of getting as good an education as possible. Without it I would have ended up as factory fodder, with low income and virtually zero job satisfaction (whatever that is). With the best education the British welfare state could provide I have managed to avoid deprivation and live in a fairly affluent manner, my wife and I providing for our kids at a level unimaginable when I was their age. And without the loss of any job satisfaction.
As an economist I genuinely believe that education is the key to the future. It may not guarantee happiness, but it can improve a person's chances of success, social mobility and prosperity. At a macroeconomic level it is the primary generator of economic growth in the medium- and long-term, especially at the level of Higher Education (HE). And yet, it appears that post-secondary education in the UK is under attack, and in decline on global relative league tables. That attack comes from several fronts, of which the most important is the lack of vision among UK governments for nearly a decade.
For HE to succeed it needs to be able to attract the best potential, regardless of their current position on the socio-economic ladder. For this to occur, the funding of HE must not act as a hindrance to access; currently it does. To not invest in the future minds of young people is not only economically damaging, it is also morally abhorrent.
At the time I entered University, UK HE was based on the Robbins principle: that HE "should be available to all who were qualified for them by ability and attainment". It was recognised that HE was an investment, not only in the individual, but also by the state in the future of the state: a social investment. Thus, if you were good enough the state paid your fees and provided an income-based maintenance grant.
At that time less than 10% of the population went into HE, a figure far exceeded today. And things are more complicated by the legal requirement to treat all EU students equally. So how might we return to a system similar to that which gave me a "leg up" in society? One that promotes HE? I believe the principle is simple, and not so very different from that which prevailed in the early 1970s. Back then, to qualify for payments of fees and a grant you had to be UK-resident for three or more years. I would argue that a similar system in place today would ensure that good minds from poorer backgrounds would not be deterred from entering HE, and also be primarily available for UK students without breaching EU regulations, thus it would not only be affordable, but the future benefits to the UK would significantly outweigh the costs to the public purse (i.e. the taxpayer).
It is time that we demanded a longer-term perspective, especially on education, from the governments we elect in this country. To do anything else is an economic and moral abdication of our duty to future generations.
(also available on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/importance-higher-education-ivan-k-%25E5%258F%25AF%25E6%25B1%2597-cohen/edit)
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