Patten blames government for lack of funding
Lord Patten, the Oxford University Chancellor, called for more spending on higher education in his speech in the House of Lords last Thursday. This followed the previous day’s discovery that Oxford colleges are financially reliant on their endowments and fundraising from alumni.
Colleges admitted a total £91 million deficit between spending on student teaching and income from tuition fees, a figure that was alleviated by transfers from endowments, running conferences and donations from former college students. Lord Patten of Barnes started the debate by focusing attention on the role of British and European universities in the promotion of research and development. He also highlighted the need for the Lords to move for Papers, the initiation of legislation.
“I find it inexplicable that we have made such little progress in investment in research and development and in higher education,” he said. Patten argued that both Tory and Labour governments have failed to provide adequate funding for the country’s universities. He told the peers, “Our problem in Europe is largely the aggregate of problems in individual countries and the principal issue is that we simply don’t spend enough on our universities.
That was true under the Government of which I was a small and insignificant part, just as it is true today.” American taxpayers currently contribute more to higher education than taxpayers in Britain and the rest of Europe. Patten stressed that while the UK spends 1.1% of GDP on higher education, as do France and Germany, this figure is less than half of the 2.2% of GDP spent in the US.
Patten told the House of Lords, “We sometimes kid ourselves that this is entirely because of the huge endowments that American universities have and because of their charging of tuition fees.” Patten said, “The Treasury call that higher productivity in universities.
What higher productivity means is depressed salaries, is degraded facilities, libraries and laboratories and in many cases a debased learning experience with the acquisition of a university degree being seen all too often as a rite of passage and the acquisition of a credit to get a job.” In the first thirty years of the last century, French, German and British citizens won more Nobel prizes in science and economics than the US.
Since 1970 however, the US has won 60% more than the whole of Europe. Patten said, “Our figures for the past few years look a bit better if you count the European academics who have done their research in America, but that is just an indication of the talent we are losing.” The so-called “brain-drain”, the move of UK graduates to other countries, is on the increase. Having completed a PhD in America, UK graduates have the highest stay-rate of all international students.
While 75% of German graduates return to their country for careers, 70% of UK graduates remain in the US, an indicator of the lack of research and development funds available to UK universities. The AUT press officer, Dan Ashley, said, “Salaries have decreased by about 40% over the last couple of decades and, as a result, our best brains are leaving our universities. It is absolutely paramount that we do something to stop this.
Baroness Rawlings also spoke to the peers, pointing out that the 2006- 07 Higher Education Funding Council will distribute £6.7 billion of which £l.34 billion will be for research. However, she supported Patten by saying, “Despite that sum, the United States is [...] the most important source of top-quality research, with the UK coming second. Rawlings stated that “the fundamental basic response for the government to consider is a review of tax for higher education.
We need tax incentives as they have in America”. The head of the Chemistry department, Professor Graham Richards, explained how increased funding in research and development would be a good investment for the university. “Chemistry has a fantastic record, we have contributed about £80 million to the university over the past ten years. If more money is put into science there would be financial returns”, he said.
Patten told The Oxford Student, “One of the reasons of raising the issue at this time, aside from it being an ongoing important issue in the UK and Europe as a whole, is that the government is in the throes of the spending review. Higher Education should not be forgotten. “We shall see what the government intends to do with the announcement of the spending review.
Since Oxford is one of the greatest universities in the world, more money for Research and Development is bound to be of assistance.”
4th May 2006