Probably biased by the number of medics in my social circle it should be said

The current halfway house of tuition being too low for effective competition and high enough to feel expensive makes graduates feel like they’re worse off and leaves one of our more successful export industries underfunded.

I’ve mentioned it probably 1000 times but the U.K. policy sphere needs to decide if unis are social goods (so subsidise them), social goods only for locals (so don’t complain about internationals) or market entities (let them set tuition to what the market will bear).

Because, while complaining you don’t have a mansion when you have a 2 mil home sounds odd, it does speak to a real issue. Many places which were built in the 20th century for the “normal” middle classes are now only available to the very rich. And this reverberates down the housing ladder

Here in Durham, our remaining vote is A) pensioners who have been Labour their whole life and B) professionals & students from outside the region, who are usually connected to the University (e.g. me). The former, definitionally, cannot grow as a voting bloc. The latter maybe can

Also from a purely cynical perspective, Labour is aware that this isn’t a small niche sector, but a fairly large one which is the anchor of a lot of regional economies with voters which normally vote for us. Seems like a bad idea to sink that!

Is it

A) a social good, in which case it requires state subsidy

B) a social good only for locals, in which case you can’t really complain when it subsidises locals with internationals

C) private business, in which case it should be able to charge market rates

The answer for 15 years has been 🤷‍♂️

As I’ve banged on about time and time again, the problem is policy makers not really knowing what they want UKHE for, which leads to a halfway house on how to fund it which is neither workable for institutions nor beneficial to individuals