How not to be fair to poor students, or better off ones either

Yet another example of PRDave’s last minute creation of policy on the hoof in order to gloss over the ineptitude of his ministers and to pacify rebel MPs, has been revealed as an unthought out sham.

Just days before the tuition fees vote, it was announced that the Tory led government were going to use a £150m fund to provide a year's free tuition for poorer students.  This was clearly a ruse to persuade some Lib Dem MPs, who were under intense pressure after each publicly pledged to abolish tuition fees, to vote for higher fees.

The last minute proposal was that students from poorer backgrounds, i.e. those who had been eligible for free schools meals, would have one year’s fees paid by the state, matched by another from their university, as long as it was charging a fee of more than £6,000 a year

However Universities UK chief executive Nicola Dandridge says the scheme would hit newer universities, because up to 25% of their students were from poorer backgrounds, and was therefore 'not workable' and counterproductive" because these universities would have to pay out millions of pounds to provide free tuition.

Nearly 20,000 students could benefit, although free school meals, which are available to families claiming benefits, are available to around 80,000 pupils each year.

Of course the repercussions didn’t matter to PRDave when the “concession” was announced as long as the LibDems were kept in tow.  And anything that gives those new universities a hard time and leads to them getting rid of Mickey Mouse courses, and eventually amalgamation or bankruptcy, so that a shaken up university sector can be privatised, must be a good thing, don’t you think!

Shadow Business Secretary John Denham said the government's scheme was falling apart.  The understatement of the week.

At the same time Simon Hughes is telling readers of the Observer that universities should recruit “on the basis of no more people coming from the private sector than there are in the public as a whole”, i.e. universities must cut their intake from private schools.

What a mess. On the one hand the Tory led government are potentially crippling newer universities, those that have a record of admitting students from disadvantaged backgrounds, with the requirement to provide free tuition, on the other it wants to limit well qualified potential students just because they have had a private education, so that more poorer students can have the privilege of graduating from university with up to £40,000 of debt.