I will try to make a whistle-stop speech covering just two aspects that allow potential students to make informed decisions, the first being career options and the second the cost of tuition fees.
One of the things that all parties have done over the past 10 to 15 years is desperately chase the target of getting 50% of young people into higher education. I have to say that sometimes I question whether that was the right target, in part because it created such a stigma for those who did not choose to go into higher education. There are alternatives, and I welcome the increase in the high-level apprenticeships and in apprenticeships in general, the options to consider work-based learning and the Government’s decision to invest £350 million in university technical colleges, from which my constituency is determined to benefit.
I have also been doing a lot of work, both in my constituency and by making speeches in Parliament, on encouraging more young people to consider becoming young entrepreneurs. Over the past six months, 759 start-up businesses have started in Swindon and some of them have involved young people.
My hon. Friend Pauline Latham made a valuable point that we need to empower students who are paying tuition fees to become more like consumers, because we are going to make universities display statistics and information relating to their courses, the contact time available, the employability ratios, which are essential if students are going to make informed decisions, and student evaluation surveys, which I certainly would have enjoyed completing following my time at university.
I want to reflect briefly on my time at university. I was one of 350 students who went to Oxford Brookes university and studied business with a mind to set up a business, but I was the only one who actually went on to run one. With hindsight I would question whether it was beneficial for me to spend four years doing that, because we did not learn very much about setting up a business. Actually, they managed to teach 349 people out of taking the risk of doing so, whereas we certainly need more people to make that step up.
The cost of tuition fees is also important when it comes to making informed decisions. My hon. Friend Gordon Birtwistle set out clearly the challenges and confusions that potential students face. The system is complex. Recent research by the Sutton Trust and Universities UK shows that less than a third of prospective students fully understand how they will pay for their education. Just as worryingly, more than half of parents believe that they have not received enough information, and a third say that they little or no understanding. That concern is shared by 95% of vice-chancellors.
One strand of the work of the all-party parliamentary group on financial education for young people, which I chair, relates to higher education. We were delighted that Martin Lewis of MoneySavingExpert was keen to support that work. He did not comment on whether tuition fees were good or bad, but was just determined to set out clear information. On behalf of our group, he approached Ministers, who empowered him to set up the studentfinance2012.com website, which set out to educate prospective students and their parents through leaflets, videos and online calculators. He busts some of the myths with his ten points:
“You don’t need cash to pay for uni”,
“There are no debt collectors”,
“Earn under £21,000 and repay nothing”,
“After 30 years the debt is wiped”,
“Repayments will be £470 a year less than before”,
“Repay the same per month at £6,000 or £9,000”,
“You will owe longer and may pay more”,
“Loans and grants for living costs are given too”,
“For many £9,000 doesn’t cost more than £6,000”,
and finally,
“Paying fees upfront could be a big mistake”.
That is the sort of information that is needed so that people can make an informed decision about what is the best option for their career and what is their best option financially.
I congratulate the Government on listening and making the change to allow graduates who are fortunate enough to get a good graduate job to make early repayments and not be locked in to costly repayment costs.
Finally, we all have a duty to help young people to make an informed decision, regardless of which system they face.