The ostensible injustice of university tuition fees have become somewhat of a cause célèbre for student activists and union officials up and down the country, and none other than our present and former CUSU presidents have forayed into the media, decrying the “cold unfeeling market” that tuition fees allegedly create in higher education. However, these concerns, while well intentioned, are completely misguided. Rather than an unwarranted burden on current students, tuition fees are part and parcel of a fair society.

“University education remains the most effective means for young people to become upwardly mobile”

First, we should address the rather silly argument that has become the major NUS line of criticism against tuition fees: that education is a public good. I think it would be difficult for any reasonable person to disagree, but it does not follow that education confers minimal private benefit. It is rather obvious that in modern society, university education remains the most effective means for young people to become upwardly mobile. It would also take an NUS ideologue of particularly grand proportions to ignore the enormous tangible income and social benefits (a network of connections being one of many such perks) of attending a Russell Group university. If nothing else, students should be expected to pay something for these benefits that accrue primarily to the individual. I for one have no intention of financing someone’s ticket into McKinsey.

Given these enormous private benefits, benefits that offer in particular a chance for poorer students to better their conditions, it is worth emphasizing that eliminating tuition fees necessarily involves capping university places. This is not a theoretical point, but one that is clearly evident north of Hadrian’s Wall, where places are strictly allocated for Scottish and EU students (full-paying overseas places are, surprise surprise, not capped). This has resulted in a full doubling of the number of Scottish students missing out on a university place since the introduction of the cap. It does not take a genius to imagine that this results in students from weaker schools missing out as private and wealthy state schools monopolize places with stronger results. You end up with an absurd situation where Fettes students receive free education while the benefits of university elude a full 41% of Scottish school leavers. For the many, not the few indeed.

This state of affairs is not confined to the Highlands. Since the introduction of a demand-driven system in Australia, which has allowed a far greater number of students to actually attend university, tuition fees have been raised out of necessity (although they remain lower than those in the UK). If the left was actually serious about extending educational opportunity, they would realise that educational rationing is the ultimate result of eliminating fees.

Government suffers defeat in fees vote

Further, given the grossly inequitable state of the British education system (one need only look at the Cambridge matriculation rates of private school students relative to the proportion actually enrolled in private schools across the country), the elimination of tuition fees at the moment would amount to the subsidisation of the status quo. It has been pointed out to me that David Cameron was cruel for raising tuition fees, even as he attended Oxford for free.

Given that prior to the 1990s more than 50% of all students enrolled consistently came from private schools, I respond that it was and is cruel to allow sons and daughters of some of Britain’s wealthiest to attend one of the best universities in the world for free, while many others are denied the opportunity simply because of Britain’s weak state school system. When Britain’s state schools catch up to its private schools (as state schools have in Canada, Sweden, Finland, Japan and Denmark, among others), we can talk about free tuition.

Finally, it is worth noting that tuition fees need not be uniform nor ignore the needs of the most disadvantaged. As much as the American system is derided, they at least see the absurdity of asking the child of a single mother on welfare to pay the same as a private-school educated son of a banker. If nothing else, the government should explore a sliding tuition scale based on income, as is practice in France’s grandes écoles, or Canada’s extensive use of financial incentives (such as well-funded scholarship programs).

Frankly, if CUSU wants to do something about encouraging working class students to apply, they should start by asking why Cambridge, with its enormous endowment, isn’t waiving fees for some of its poorest undergraduates, and why Cambridge has insisted on the same level of fee payment for every student. If we actually want to make a real difference, these bread and butter fights will have far more impact and be much more equitable than any ideological crusade mounted by the NUS and its ideological brethren