The development of English university tuition fee policy from 1960 with lessons for today

ABSTRACT

Higher education in England has expanded in most years since the Second World War, moving from an elite system to a mass one where half of school leavers now progress to university. A lasting funding settlement, however, has proved elusive as the generosity of the post-war decades became unviable as the sector expanded. Eventually this led to the reintroduction of tuition fees, which have added complexity to the debate about how higher education should be funded since the late twentieth century. The political reality of making changes to higher education funding is, however, more complex than the tense nature of the debate might make it seem.

KEYWORDS:

• Fees and funding
• government policy
• HE policy
• history of higher education
• student admissions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Twelve in England, four in Scotland, and one each in both Northern Ireland and Wales.

2 The five private universities as at August 2019 (with the year that university title was granted) are: University of Buckingham (1983), University of Law (2010), BPP University (2010), Regents University (2013), Arden University (2015). Both the University of Law and Arden University are owned by Global University Systems.

3 Constituent colleges of the federal universities of London and Wales are not counted separately, though many have the characteristics of a university, are larger than some universities, and have degree-awarding powers in their own right.

4 Initial Entry Rate (IER) pre-1963 (Wyness 2010); Higher Education Initial Participation Rate (HEIPR) 2017/2018 (Department for Education 2019)

5 This Act is commonly called the Butler Act after Rab Butler, the Conservative MP who was at that time President of the Board of Education.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Matthew Andrews

Dr Matthew Andrews has an extensive university career including roles as Academic Registrar at Oxford Brookes University and Director of the Graduate School and Director of Undergraduate Recruitment at Durham University. He is currently Secretary and Registrar at the University of Gloucestershire. Matthew has an interest in the history of universities as well as the contemporary sector and is the author of ‘Universities in the Age of Reform, 1800-1870’.