THE IDEA of postgraduate loans (THES, December 6), funded from the private sector, is nothing new.
The "deal" negotiated by the '94 Group of Universities is no different from what is on offer on the high street. The only "new" aspect is that a precedent is being set whereby individual universities, or groups of them, are being allowed to enhance their image, and attract a more students in a particular sector. They are motivated by the fact that postgraduate study and research attract the largest Government capital spends.
Many students believe that the system of student support is unworkable, and needs to be reviewed. Any steps forward, particularly in an area such as postgraduate study where funding is virtually impossible to find, should therefore be welcome.
However, there is already a leaning in postgraduate funding towards medicine, law and the sciences, and this "deal" reflects that by, for example, offering lower interest rates to students in these areas. These students are more likely to achieve higher paid employment than students in some arts fields. If these loans are to be universal, and encourage all postgraduate study, then there should not be no differential rates.
Further, the fact that these loans are only available to students in a very small number of institutions takes us away from a mass participation system. They disregard the fact that ability to learn, not to pay, must be the predominant entrance factor. Private loans take us towards the Ivy League that every student finds abhorrent. Loans also create debt of a size that is unacceptable when education forms not just the academic, but social, economic and spiritual basis of any society. It is the case that many of the arguments against top-up fees for undergraduates, whatever their nature, apply equally to postgraduate loans.
The '94 Group seems proud of introducing these loans. There is nothing to be proud of in being the first to take a step towards a two-tier higher education system. The wider challenge comes in universities standing by their students, and fighting for more funding across the board. In pre-empting Dearing, the '94 Group is taking a chance that may irrevocably change our education. At the very least, universities should be united with each other and with their students until the outcome of Dearing. The '94 Group should be condemned for being the first to create the split.
Lee Findell,vice president education, NUS; Ewan Jenkins, president, Durham University students' union; Steve Bradley, president, Bath University SU; Rebecca Colley, academic officer, UEA SU; Erin Lyon, president, Exeter guild of students; Ben Halliday, president, Essex University SU; Stuart Shaw, president, Reading University SU; Sharon Baker, president, University of Surrey SU; Simon Michaelides, president, University of Sussex SU; Fergus Drake, president, York University SU