This is UCU's campaign blog on the government's white paper on the future of higher education. Here you can access all the related resources and campaigns being produced by UCU, but also links to resources being produced by campaigners across the sector in response to the government's draft legislation.
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UCU today welcomed reports that American-style government plans to allow private for-profit companies access to publicly-subsidised student loans have been shelved.
UCU said, if true, then the reports were to be welcomed. However, the union added that it would remain vigilant and oppose any efforts to introduce privatisation or allow companies to acquire universities without proper legislation.
This morning’s Daily Telegraph reports that the plans, originally expected to feature in a forthcoming higher education bill, have been shelved until at least 2015. The union has been leading the campaign against government’s proposals and said it was pleased that the government appeared to have listened to the concerns of the academic community.
Read the Telegraph article here: http://tinyurl.com/84o4vdx
Read the union’s press release here: http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=5883
(19 January 2012)
The Harvard University report on the appalling record of for-profit companies in the US is timely (“US for-profits leave students worse off”, 12 January).
This welcome contribution adds to the growing body of evidence pointing to the toxic effects of the profit motive in higher education.
Yet still the government presses on, tempted by the siren voices of the for-profit lobbyists. Profit is seen to be too dangerous for our schools, but students wanting to enter higher education, who are already condemned to a working life of debt, are now to be offered up to the powerful, predatorial US companies, the same companies whose shameful legacy is illuminated by the Harvard report.
We have the opportunity to prevent a similar catastrophe for students and taxpayers in the UK. It is not too late to change the government’s mind. The academic community is opposed to any moves to create a for-profit sector in this country, as the recent letter of protest from 500 leading academics published by The Daily Telegraph shows. But time is short and we need all the representatives of our sector to wake up to this threat and unite around the simple demand to keep profit out of higher education. I am determined that the University and College Union will do everything in its power to build that unity.
Sally Hunt, General secretary, University and College Union
Read the original letter here
The Huffington Post and particularly journalist Chris Kirkham, have continued to shine a valuable light on the activities of the for-profit companies in the USA. In an extremely revealing article, Kirkham spoke to former employees of Education Management Corporation, which is currently the object of a federal lawsuit alleging an $11 billion fraud. The employees testified to the baneful effects of Education Management’s acquisition by a private equity offshoot of the investment bank Goldman Sachs. Once Goldman took over, they allege, the culture became about creating a high pressure call-centre environment geared toward the aggressive pursuit of enrolment whatever the cost. Read more here.
Kirkham also covered Kaplan’s robust response to accusations of creating a boiler room atmostphere among recruiters in which staff were encouraged to tap into potential students ‘pain’ to convince them that college could solve their problems. The article carried a shocking copy of a leaflet given to staff. Read more here and here.
Last week, the Huffington Post carried a moving article by a former recruiter at a for-profit college, testifying to the pressures generated by the need to turn a profit on professional quality and ethics. Read more here
Students at for-profit colleges in the USA “wind up with higher debt burdens, experience greater unemployment after leaving and, if anything, have lower earnings six years after starting college than observationally similar students from public and non-profit institutions,” according to a new report by a team of Harvard academics. ”Not surprisingly, for-profits’ students end up with higher student loan default rates and are less satisfied with their college experiences” the report continues.
The report, which was covered in the Huffington Post and then, following a UCU tip off, in the Times Higher, reinforces the findings of the Education Trust in their earlier report ‘Subprime Opportunity’ and calls into question, once again, the de-regulation agenda at the heart of the government’s White Paper. Commenting on the story, Sally Hunt said:“ This latest report from the USA has real lessons for the UK, issuing yet another timely warning of the dangers posed by the for-profit model to students and taxpayers alike. What will it take for ministers here to stop listening to the siren voices of the for-profit companies and start to look at the evidence? As this report shows, the government faces a choice between investing in publicly funded institutions that provide a social and economic benefit for their communities, or throwing taxpayers’ money at predatory companies who are very good at lining the pockets of their wealthy CEOs and shareholders but which signally fail their students.”
Read the story in the THE here
Read the Huffington Post coverage here
UCU was once again at the head of the higher education sector’s fight against for-profit companies this week as almost 500 leading academics used a letter to the Daily Telegraph this Wednesday to warn against government plans to allow for-profit companies to play a bigger role in UK higher education.
The letter, signed by 471 leading members of the academy, warns against giving for-profit companies substantial access to taxpayers’ money through publicly-subsidised loans and allowing companies, including private equity firms, to acquire struggling universities.
The signatories, which include the general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU) Sally Hunt, the vice-chancellor of the University of Salford Professor Martin Hall, two former principals of Oxford colleges Alan Ryan and David Marquand and 10 emeritus professors, say the government must learn from America where for-profit companies have been embroiled in scandals over the mis-selling of degrees.
You can read the letter here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/8938812/Universities-should-not-be-run-for-profit.html.
The Telegraph also carried an accompanying article on the Open Letter which you can read here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/8881937/Professors-warn-over-expansion-of-private-universities.html
Read the union’s press release here: http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=5848&from=5840.
UCU General Secretary Sally Hunt this week wrote to David Willetts calling on the government to change tack in its White Paper and ensure that no public subsidies go to any company whose first obligation is to its shareholders.
Her letter followed reports from the USA that Apollo, who own BPP University College, and Education Management Corporation, together with Corinthian Colleges, had been given a high-risk rating by the independent ratings agency GMI. GMI, which advises pension funds, insurance companies and other investors on the soundness of companies, described the three companies as at high risk of ‘outright failure’. The agency explained,
“Apollo Group, Education Management Corporation, and Corinthian Colleges have all been assigned poor ratings on the basis of their corporate governance, social impact and financial governance characteristics alone. But these are not just poorly governed companies; these are companies that seem to have been run with little regard for sustainable value, and are organized around business models that are entirely dependent on this industry’s ability to maintain a very high degree of regulatory capture. It is our view that the risk of outright failure for all three of these companies has reached a critical level, and is likely to rise even further. We strongly recommend investment fiduciaries consider the risks identified in this report before taking an active position in any of these three companies.”
Sally Hunt called on David Willetts, who met with both Apollo and Education Management Corporation in the run up to publishing his White Paper, to learn the lessons from the US and to rule out channelling public funding toward any company driven by the need to satisfy shareholders.
Read Sally’s letter to David Willetts here
You can read the full report from the agency here
In May this year, David Willetts revealed in a written answer to a Parliamentary question, that he had held talks with representatives of Education Management Corporation, the USA’s second biggest for-profit higher education company.
In August, the Times Higher reported that Education Management Corporation was being sued for $11 billion for defrauding the US taxpayer. What links these events is a drive by powerful Wall Street-backed US for-profit companies to open up the UK higher education market, with the active connivance of the Coalition government, at a time when for-profit companies are in crisis in their own backyard, the USA.
Following the publication of the White Paper, with its tortured attempts to gerrymander a market out of the higher education sector, among the happier people were the CEOs of some of the biggest names in the US for-profit industry. In March this year, Greg Capelli, the Chief Executive of Apollo, which owns the University of Phoenix and BPP University College, soothed investors by assuring them that ‘the UK Government is encouraging private sector growth in the UK post-secondary education market. They’re looking for innovative cost-effective solutions to help meet the growing demand for higher education in the UK. And BPP, with Apollo’s support, we think is well-placed as a leader in the sector.’
Read the rest of this article in the latest edition of UC magazine for UCU members, here….
Birkbeck College’s academic board has backed calls for the government to suspend the implementation of its white paper. The motion, passed with an overwhelmingly majority on Wednesday, said the government’s plans could inflict ‘great and irreversible damage to higher education in the UK’.
UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: ‘The government’s plans for higher education have been a complete mess from day one. The academic community has no confidence in the reforms and it is time the government halted its drive to create a market in higher education and listened to what the experts have to say’.
Meanwhile, UCU members at the OU have launched an e-petition calling on the government to reverse its cuts to teaching funding, which have forced the OU to treble its fees. You can sign this petition here: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22316.
Read more on Birkbeck here: www.ucu.org.uk/5826.
The influential Business, Innovation and Skills Committee has published its report on the government’s reforms of higher education. The committee’s report called for the government to urgently reconsider plans to allow for-profit higher education providers access to increased public funds without passing regulatory standards. It also criticised delays to the government’s higher education white paper.
UCU said it was pleased that the report also drew attention to warnings from the funding council that for-profit institutions could damage the UK’s international reputation for academic excellence.
You can read UCU’s full reaction to the BIS committee report here.
The BBC website carried a story recently revealing more evidence of the close connections between the people driving the White Paper’s de-regulatory agenda and the for-profit education education industry. According to Hannah Richardson’s report, David Willetts met for-profit companies, including some of the worst offenders from the US system, 12 times in 12 months in the run up to publishing the White Paper. Notein particular that he met with Education Management Corporation, who are currently being sued for $11bn by the US government for fraud, as well as Apollo and their subsidiary BPP. Willetts also met Pearson’s three times in the immediate run up to the publication of the White Paper, around the time that he began to talk about breaking the link between teaching institutions and degree-awarding powers.
You can read the full story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14987073
Those campaigning against the de-regulation in the White Paper will need to focus all their energies on countering this lobbying with mass political pressure.
One way you can do this is by making sure that by the time any legislation comes before Parliament, MPs and peers know the dangers associated with for-profit higher education. UCU is screening the PBS ‘Frontline’ documentary ‘College Inc’ in Parliament on 14 November. Take a moment to encourage your MP to watch this film by emailing them here: https://www.ucu.org.uk/collegeincinvite
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