Education: Students, will you pay as you learn?

How should higher education in the United Kingdom be funded? Should the Government continue to pay the entire cost of tuition for all undergraduates? Or should students and/or their families contribute as they do in some other countries, repaying the money through income-contingent loans after graduation and once their incomes reach a certain level?

Such questions have begun to exercise university vice-chancellors as a result of government cuts in funding that have left universities seriously strapped for cash, unable to buy necessary equipment or to upgrade facilities.

The crisis became especially acute after the last budget announcement when vice-chancellors talked about imposing an extra charge for students of pounds 300 . The Government responded by playing for time. It set up a committee, chaired by Sir Ron Dearing, to look at how higher education should be financed and organised over the next 20 years. That committee will report in 15 months.

Students are concerned, too. This week higher education funding is the hot topic for debate at the National Union of Students' conference. NUS activists are split. Some think students should pay more for their higher education and favour the Australian system which links repayments closely to income after graduation. Others want tuition to remain free.

What do ordinary students and their parents and lecturers think?

AGAINST

THE STUDENT

Imran Chaudhry, 24, has a degree in business information systems and is on a one-year sabbatical as president of the students' union at the University of North London. He was on a full grant but has still had to work and take out loans to make ends meet.

He thinks that charging students for tuition will deter young people from entering higher education. Already, he believes, students are dropping out of university because they cannot afford to stay. Even many of those that stay are having to work part time to make ends meet.

Almost every student he knows is borrowing money from the Student Loans Company because they cannot manage on their government grants. Imran himself was on a full grant because of his parents' low income but still clocked up student loans of pounds 2,200 during his three years at university, as well as a bank overdraft worth at least as much again. The money was spent keeping himself clothed, fed and entertained.

He lived at home with his parents in Ilford, Essex and worked as a labourer, an electrician and postman to earn extra money.

He wonders how he would have been able to pay back tuition fees as well as the loans he has taken for living expenses, though he thinks income- contingent loans on the Australian model (often known as a graduate tax) would be fairer than the current loan system.

THE FATHER

Murid Chaudhry came to this country from Pakistan in the Sixties. He is retired but used to work in engineering. He is totally opposed to students and their families having to pay towards tuition. "Tuition should be free for working-class people," he says. "Charging more would put people off higher education."

THE STUDENT:

Ross Forbes, 21, is in his second year studying sports science and fitness at the University of North London. He is on a full grant and a pounds 2,600 student loan.

Higher education would be virtually impossible if he had to find more money to stay the course. He finds it hard to make ends meet without working during term. Last semester he worked night shifts for a security company at Middlesex University. "I did my academic work with great difficulty," he says.

Ross shares a house with other students and his monthly rent is pounds 248, with utility and food bills on top. He is hoping to convert his diploma into a degree by staying on for a third year next year, but is not sure whether he can afford it.

THE FATHER:

Hugh Forbes is a self-employed newsagent on the Isle of Wight.

He is amazed that the authorities are encouraging students to go into debt. "I was brought up not to have any debt until I could afford it," he says. "My son is in debt and his argument to me is that everyone else is in the same boat. The point is that this is being forced on them, and it is quite possible some of them are going into debt unnecessarily." Being in debt is no way to start out in life, he believes. "Is it right to be teaching the next generation to be living like that?"

THE STUDENT:

Mary Kuligowski, 28, is a single parent with a child studying for a degree in communications and Spanish at the University of North London. She is on a full mature person's grant. "Paying for tuition would mean only people with affluent backgrounds would go to university. I think that is wrong," she says.

FOR

THE STUDENT:

Mags Whelan, 24, is a former student union president at Oxford Brookes University. Both her parents are dead. During her school years she worked in the evenings and on Saturdays at Marks and Spencer's to save for university. She has continued to work part time in Oxford.

She believes it is only fair that students should contribute to the cost of their tuition because they will be benefiting as individuals once they have a degree. "I don't mind contributing towards the cost," she says. "You can't just take all the time; you've got to give as well." Ms Whelan is studying for a degree in politics and retail management and wants to be a Conservative politician.

With three student loans under her belt, she will owe pounds 3,500 when she leaves. Ms Whelan budgets carefully, spending pounds 50 a week on rent, and pounds 20-pounds 30 on food. She lives on pasta and curries and eats quite well, she says. She saves money by not going out and not drinking.

THE LECTURER:

Dennis O'Keeffe is a senior lecturer in education at the University of North London, and a national expert on truancy.

He thinks people taking part in higher education should make some contribution towards the cost of it. He believes a charge for tuition would reduce demand for higher education, but feels that would be a good thing.

"We have gone quite a way down the mistaken American route of almost indefinite expansion, but, unlike the Americans, we have compounded the cost by paying for almost all of it through public funds," he says. "If you are going to expand higher education - which is a dubious venture - you should make those who benefit make some contribution."

Mr O'Keeffe believes the accessibility of higher education in America has lowered standards and reduced the pressure on secondary schools to improve quality, and that the same thing is happening here. Some of the money that has gone into expanding higher education in Britain might have been better spent in the labour market helping the long-term unemployed, he says. "We have had a huge consumption spree by the middle classes which the middle classes don't want to pay for."

His son, Matthew, attended Oxford University and the London School of Economics. Mr O'Keeffe thinks that he should have contributed towards his son's fees because he and and his wife could have afforded it. "It would have been perfectly reasonable if we had been asked," he says. "We would not have felt hard done by."