When is a graduate tax not a graduate tax?

Last week Vince Cable announced that he had asked Lord Browne to consider a graduate tax as part of his review of higher education funding which is due to report in the autumn. Since then confusion about what skills secretary Vince Cable has proposed and how that relates to the National Union of Students’s proposals has been widespread.

Vince-Cable-contemplating-life Dr Cable said he was “interested in looking at the feasibility of changing the system of financing student tuition so that the repayment mechanism is variable graduate contributions tied to earnings”. This is the basis of a progressive graduate contribution that asks those graduates who gain the most financially from their education to contribute the most to the continuing of the system.

With this as our base line there are still many variables to decide upon – the threshold at which contribution begins, the level at which the contribution is set, etc – and I look forward to working with Dr Cable and Lord Browne to find the fairest way to set these.

However, over the last week it has become clear that many see Dr Cable’s exploration of a graduate tax as simply a rebranding exercise to mollify Liberal Democrat backbenchers, who fought the election on a promise of scrapping tuition fees, and students, who have campaigned for many years for a fairer higher education funding system.

The Russell Group of universities proposes keeping, and liberalising, the ‘sticker price’ market in higher education and whether you call the payback scheme a loan or a tax it will still be a ‘poll tax’ and not based on ability to pay. That graduate tax is not a graduate tax at all, but fees by another name.

Those sceptical of the idea of a graduate contribution, see only the rebranding exercise and argue that free higher education is the only progressive way to ensure that university education is available to all, and in an ideal world higher education would be paid for through existing taxation, but a graduate tax is a fair and progressive system. It adds a small amount of extra taxation onto those who gain financially from attending university.

The current system, and an expanded market in fees, ask a social worker, teacher or nurse to pay the same for their education as an investment banker, corporate lawyer or high-flying executive. No one could rightfully claim that the former group work less hard than those in the latter group, but they do earn less.

Over the coming months as Lord Browne continues his review, the debate will rage about the best way to fund universities and we must be clear about what we mean when we are discussing the various systems. A true graduate tax is a clear and progressive way of funding universities and removes any link to ‘sticker prices’ decided by institutions based on their self-aggrandising assessments of the future worth of their degrees.

Choosing a place and course of study is not like buying a car and we will ensure that any system that places students in a market place cannot call itself a progressive graduate tax.

http://twitter.com/houseoftwits/status/19481898885 House Of Twits

RT @leftfootfwd When is a graduate tax not a graduate tax? http://bit.ly/cGgQaO
http://twitter.com/drjonathanphd/status/19482257423 Jonathan Davies

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http://twitter.com/drkmj/status/19482746590 DrKMJ

When is a graduate tax not a graduate tax? http://bit.ly/cGgQaO via @leftfootfwd
http://twitter.com/nixmyth82/status/19483427420 Nick Smith

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http://twitter.com/susan_nash/status/19483462440 Susan Nash

RT @leftfootfwd When is a graduate tax not a graduate tax? http://bit.ly/cGgQaO @nusuk
http://twitter.com/andy_s_64/status/19483688888 Andy Sutherland

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http://bestblogs.labourhome.org/2010/07/25/when-is-a-graduate-tax-not-a-graduate-tax/ When is a graduate tax not a graduate tax? « The best Labour blogs

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http://twitter.com/judyhea/status/19485503342 Judy Smith

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http://twitter.com/brucemoll/status/19485504162 Judy Smith

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Simon

First of all we need to establish why the system of funding needs to change. Have the costs increased so much that public funding is no longer an option? What are the factors? There seem to be too many assumptions in this debate.
http://socialisteconomicbulletin.blogspot.com/ Michael Burke

Aaron, you say, “The current system, and an expanded market in fees, ask a social worker, teacher or nurse to pay the same for their education as an investment banker, corporate lawyer or high-flying executive.”

Quite right.

But a graduate tax asks a graduate social worker, teacher or nurse to pay higher taxes than their non-graduate counterparts, higher taxes even than a non-graduate investment banker. Nothing pogressive about that.

The principle should be those who receive more pay should pay more tax, irespective of their educational attainment. It’s called progessive income tax.
http://twitter.com/itsmotherswork/status/19490137105 Rachael

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Rich

I’m not sure if I like the idea of a graduate tax or not yet. I’m assuming Aaron has more details than are actually public, as most of the talk about the graduate tax has been based on widely varying assumptions about how it would be implemented. So how anything has become clear over the last week, I really don’t see. I’m waiting for some cold hard details rather than speculation and varying briefings on what a graduate tax would mean. Not the article I’d hope to see from the President of NUS really.
http://twitter.com/aaronporter/status/19510848504 Aaron Porter

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http://twitter.com/paulduxbury/status/19510921191 Paul Duxbury

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http://twitter.com/wesstreeting/status/19511022265 Wes Streeting

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http://twitter.com/jocaulfield/status/19511633026 Jo Caulfield

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http://twitter.com/samanthakennedy/status/19512023595 Samantha Kennedy

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http://twitter.com/WilliamCB http://twitter.com/WilliamCB

“When is a graduate tax not a graduate tax?” Good question. Your answer seems to be, when it’s not a “progressive” graduate tax and more specifically, when it’s not part of a market in higher education. Those are fine positions for a progressive organisation such as NUS to take, but they are not actually intrinsic to a graduate tax at all. So it’s not a very strong argument, is it?

More importantly, even 10 days after the event and with access to ministers, NUS does not seem to have got to the bottom of what the government’s current position on all this is. Rather than saying, “many see Dr Cable’s exploration of a graduate tax as simply a rebranding exercise to mollify Liberal Democrat backbenchers”, why aren’t you telling your members what the reality of the coalition’s current position is? For this, see http://bit.ly/bzhfjV
http://twitter.com/williamcb/status/19567554314 William CullerneBown

RT @AaronPorter 'When is a graduate tax not a graduate tax?': http://bit.ly/aaafV1 < NUS finally gets the message, sort of
http://twitter.com/sjwku/status/19567855742 Steve Woodfield

RT @WilliamCB: RT @AaronPorter 'When is a graduate tax not a graduate tax?': http://bit.ly/aaafV1 < NUS finally gets the message, sort of
http://twitter.com/94groupresearch/status/19570158455 Harriet

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