First of all, I must apologise for posting this late. I’ve had a very busy weekend, so tiring in fact that I fell asleep that 9pm Sunday evening, just as I was about to start writing this. I’ll post my usual commentary later today as well.

I wanted to use this week’s Best of the Week to outline my views on the university tuition fees debate. As I outline in my summary on the views of young people in Britain (http://hanrott.com/blog/the-mood-of-young-people-in-britain/), most young people are left wing, particularly when it’s in their economic interests to be so. Thus, it should come as no surprise that most of them want tuition fees abolished and government spending on higher education increased.

The classic conservative objection to the abolition of fees is succinctly argued by Katy Balls (https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/07/jeremy-corbyn-talking-uneducated-nonsense-tuition-fees/). She points out that contrary to the predictions of tuition fee opponents, working class students are applying to university in ever-higher numbers. But because most students who go to university are still middle class, abolishing tuition fees would essentially be a middle class subsidy, not a redistribution of wealth the way socialists often claim it to be. Moreover, Scotland has abolished tuition fees, and working class Scots are actually less likely to attend university than their English counterparts.

For Jonn Elledge, the class dimension of tuition fee policy is beside the point. (http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/education/2017/07/maybe-scrapping-tuition-fees-would-be-regressive-perhaps-we-should-do-it). What matters is that public policy over the last two decades, but particularly since 2010, has overwhelmingly favoured the elderly. The generosity of pensions and other benefits for the retired has increased. Meanwhile, young people have borne the brunt of austerity, the tripling of tuition fees being one of many such examples. It doesn’t help that young people are naturally disadvantaged economically anyway, because they don’t own as many assets, don’t have as much in savings, earn less and are more likely to be unemployed. So abolishing tuition fees wouldn’t reduce the inequality between the classes, but we should do it anyway because it would reduce the inequality between the generations. It’s worth nothing that generational inequality manifested itself in the 2017 general election, where age was a far more reliable predictor of voting intention than class: middle class young people voted Labour, working class elderly people voted Conservative.

I find myself largely agreeing with Balls  here. I accept the conservative argument that abolishing tuition fees would be a middle class subsidy. I also accept that British universities may be more expensive than their European competitors- which often don’t charge tuition fees at all- but they are also a lot better. I don’t want to fall into the trap of demanding as much government funding as possible for my own interests. If we all did that, the country would be bankrupt. So I accept that given the reality of limited resources, it makes sense to use public expenditure as progressively as possible, not shower more money to those that don’t need it.

Having said that, the logical conclusion of the conservative argument would be not to subsidise universities at all. If spending money on students amounts to a middle class subsidy, then why not cut higher education spending even further? After all, shouldn’t those that benefit from a service pay for it? Of course, we can all see that this argument doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Virtually everyone accepts a compromise between making education affordable enough for both individual students and wider society. So if we are going to spend money on higher education, the money should be targeted at lower income students. The Educational Maintenance Allowance, a grant to help poor students with their living costs, should be reintroduced. There should also be more scholarships for talented young people from working class backgrounds. I also accept that the poorest students should be exempt from paying tuition fees.

On a visceral level, Elledge’s point about the need to rectify generational inequality resonates. As young person myself, I understand the levels of disillusionment and hopelessness amongst my generation. But where I disagree with him is that I don’t think young people would be happier if only the government gave them more money. What young people really resent are the lack of opportunities available. Making university a viable option for the poorest students is certainly a crucial aspect of expanding opportunity, but it is not the whole answer. Instead of increasing spending on middle class students, the government should invest more in other forms of tertiary education- apprenticeships, vocational qualifications, training programmes. Under all of these proposals, anyone good enough to go to university will be able to, regardless of their income. Middle class students would be paying for something that would result in higher earnings later in life, addressing conservative concerns of excessive government spending. At the same time, working class students would have more opportunities than ever before. If they decided to go to university, it would be more affordable than it currently is. If they decided against it, there would be more investment in alternative career paths.