Labour MP challenges Hugh’s
By Harry Darkins
A debate about postgraduate funding in the House of Commons last week raised concerns about the lack of means-tested scholarships, but at the same time MPs expressed hesitation about any form of Government-funded loan scheme for postgrads.
The debate in parliament was organised in racetin to the case of Damien Shannon, the postgraduate applicant who is suing St Hugh’s College for “selecting by wealth”. MPs discussed various issues surrounding the financial requirements placed on students applying fo graduate courses, as well as the specific funding demands made by Oxford University.
In a specially-convened adjournment debate held in Parliament last Wednesday, Shannon’s MP Hazel Blears spoke at length about the case, as well as the general “growing importance of postgraduate education for individuals, the economy and social mobility.”
She told fellow MPs: “Oxford University’s demands for a guarantee on living costs are deeply unfair – they will price gifted students out of doing these courses and our country will lose out on some really talented individuals.
“It is ludicrous that any student deemed to be of sufficient academic merit to attend one of the world’s best universities is considered incapable of budgeting to ensure they have enough money to live on.”
She added: “I also believe that it is for universities to support people in these circumstances. I have made inquiries at Oxford and at other universities. Of all the scholarships that are available, none are means-tested, so they are not available or targeted at people from poorer backgrounds. That needs to change.”
David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science, echoed Blears’ comments on the increased requirements for postgraduate education in the UK, saying: “Postgraduate education is becoming far more important. There is an increasing range of jobs for which a postgraduate qualification is expected.”
Referring to the financial support provided by bodies such as the Higher Education Funding Council for England, Willetts stressed the importance of continuing investment in postgraduate education.
He added: “We must not erect a new barrier to the spread of opportunity.”
However, responding to calls by some organisations, including the NUS, for the establishment of a postgraduate loan scheme similar to that already in place for undergraduates, Willetts conceded that there were “risks” involved.
He said: “The biggest single risk is that as soon as we [have] a general public expenditure programme or loans scheme, the Treasury would immediately become interested in how many people were eligible, controlling postgraduate numbers and setting new conditions. It would be a great pity if this open and diverse sector found itself with a highly regulated loan scheme that constrained its growth.
“I do not accept and have not been persuaded at this stage that a Government-funded loan scheme is the answer, but I am happy to consider that proposal and others if people make them.”
Blears has sent letters to Willetts, Michael Gove and Nick Clegg urging them to put pressure on the University and to look at all possible ways of outlawing this specific financial requirement. She is set to back Shannon’s legal claim at the first hearing on February 15th.
Meanwhile, officials at Oxford have also responded to the outcry caused by Shannon’s case. A spokesperson for the University spoke at length to The Oxford Student about the University’s position on postgraduate student funding and the financial guarantee policy: “Oxford has been proactive in highlighting this national issue and works very hard to provide more financial support – both by fundraising for scholarships and by lobbying for a national loans scheme. Oxford offers more postgraduate financial support than almost any other UK university, but even here finance is still a challenge.”
The University stipulates that students admitted for postgraduate study possess at least £12,900 to cover living costs, a figure set according to the results of a yearly survey of domestic bursars in every college.
Responding to claims that this figure was an overestimation, the spokespe son pointed out that it is in fact lower than the minimum living costs stipend provided by the UK Research Councils, which currently stands at £13,590.
They added: “Postgraduate courses at Oxford are very demanding and time-consuming, so do not allow for significant earning while on the course. We do not want students to be misled into thinking they will have significant time to earn money and to then be at a disadvantage while on the course, or be unable to complete it.
“While projected earnings during the course are not taken into account, projected earnings before the start of the course are taken into account.”
Brendan Callaghan, Master of Campion Hall, one of the University’s Permanent Private Halls, expressed his support for the current postgraduate admissions policy: “If someone is going to commit themselves to what is an expensive investment in terms of personal finances and time, then it is appropriate that they can demonstrate that they have the financial resources as well as the personal and intellectual resources.”
He continued: “No-one questions the appropriateness of the University assessing the personal and intellectual resources available – I think the financial guarantees need to be seen as a parallel to this.”
Joseph Bricker, a postgrad at St Hugh’s, commented: “It seems perfectly legal and reasonable to demand that students don’t go destitute during their degrees, but one of the bigger problems is the gutting of funding for graduate students in the humanities.
“No qualified student should be turned away for not meeting a financial guarantee.”
Damien Shannon
31/01/2013 at 14:56
Interesting article. The University are pedalling the same nonsense before the courts too. First, RCUK do NOT fund a one year MA/MSc course to the tune of £13,590 – a maintenance grant of £9,490 is provided, as you can see here: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/Funding-Opportunities/Postgraduate-funding/Documents/MaintenanceFeesRatesUpdatedMarch2012.pdf
Second of all, there is absolutely no evidence that the £13,590 figure is set by the Research Council on an assessment of the minimum funds for living costs. Indeed they have denied this in correspondence.
Third, two not particularly wise people to approach for comments. I see Mr Callaghan graduated long ago, when he wouldn’t have even been obliged to pay fees. Joseph Bricker, on the other hand, appears to be a Canadian citizen funded by a scholarship. Were he not funded by a scholarship, his home government would lend him the money to study at Oxford. So, yet again, people speaking whereof they know not.
Otherwise, good article.
Alex
02/02/2013 at 00:07
The fundamental question of why the Shannon in question hasn’t worked for a few years to build up the funds for a postgraduate degree, remains unanswered. Having spoken to MCR people, this seems to be what the majority have to do and have done, and why most of them are 28+ years of age.
Damien Shannon
03/02/2013 at 08:23
@Alex – in law, the selection policy must be justified at the time and in the circumstances that it is applied. It cannot be justified by reference to some theoretical point in the future when an applicant may be substantially wealthier.
The essence of your “argument” is that the University ought have the right to tell people to just go away for a few years and come back when they are richer. That is not an option for many people.
Alex
04/02/2013 at 15:03
@Damien: I’m sorry but I think that you’ve abstracted the point of my “argument” (and I think you’ll find it was a question, or comment, as opposed to an argument) almost entirely. The point is a simple one and was neither conceived nor posted within the framework of legal analysis.
Quite simply, what my comment proposes is that in life things cost money (although as a would-have-been-potential economic and social history student, I suppose you already know that), and if you don’t have enough money for something, you work to get yourself to a position where you do. As everyone but a select few (and yes, even at Oxford, they are a select few) does.
We may all have fundamental access rights (note use of the word access implying reasonably conditional opportunity, as opposed to “rights for automatic gratification of our intellectual desires and plans”) in the way of further education, however certain fundamental conditions have to be met for those rights to be fully accessed within a framework of reasonability, and if (and yes, the following is my “argument”) working for a few years in between an undergraduate and postgraduate degree is what has to be done to do so, well, there you have the answer to your problems (as opposed to, say, undertaking a lawsuit).
Damien Shannon
04/02/2013 at 17:37
@Alex – thanks for replying. I fear you have rather missed the point. There are three things you ought to consider. First, for those who can (and do) save up the money to study at a later time, they should not have to suspend their professional and/or academic advancement, potentially for years, in order to accumulate funds they do not need. Like so many others you are overlooking the basis of the University’s ‘guarantee’. Why should a University be able to turn away people simply because they do not have sufficient funds to dine in College, or sufficient funds to socialise, or sufficient funds to pay a level of rent that they are not even being charged by their landlord (or, as I have recently explained to the College, are not even likely to be charged)? I had more than sufficient funds to complete study. I just could not afford to meet some truly ridiculous costs in the financial guarantee (rent and utilities at over double what I was paying!). The fact that some individuals do choose to go away and earn the moneys the University demands over a period of years does not make the University’s policy ethical or lawful. That option will not be open to many. How realistic is it for some to suspend careers, relationships, quality of life and so on in the hope (possibly forlorn) that they may be made an equivalent offer of study in future years? Applicants cannot defer an offer for financial reasons. The later offer may never materialise.
Second, you are conflating the principle of conditionality of access with the basis of my legal claim. I have no aversion to access being conditional. I have explicitly acknowledge the right of the University to charge fees, and to undertake all reasonable steps (including a financial guarantee, full payment up front etc) to ensure these will be received. Other Universities do this very successfully. The right to education enshrined in Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 of the European Convention by its very nature calls for regulation by the state. In Oxford’s case this is the University formulating these regulations on delegated authority. Regulations by their very nature create a restriction on a right, and it is not necessarily unlawful to restrict the right to education. However, such restrictions must not injure the substance of the right and deprive it of its effectiveness. To this end in order to be lawful the restrictions must have an objective and reasonable justification.
Such justification must be empirically demonstrated to the satisfaction of the court – it is not sufficient for a public authority to say, “we believe the measures are justified”. Hence ‘objective’.
Finally, as I said prior, those who seek to justify interference with a convention right must do so at the time and in the circumstances that exist at the time. It is not a legal defence to state that the same applicant may be (but may not be) substantially wealthier at some point in the future, and therefore the policy is justified. Some will never acqurie £21,000 in liquid capital, still less those that do be able to spend the whole lot on one year’s education.
Alex
04/02/2013 at 19:14
@Damien: Hi Damien, thank you for the reply (and apologies for the somewhat sarcastic previous comment – the sarcasm was not intended, rather the message was typed in quite a hurry).
Although I can of course sympathise (as will any rational person), there are still problems with your argument. In terms of the projected costs of study, to simply claim that they are unreasonable, without having subjected yourself to the Oxford student lifestyle (and by that I don’t mean living like a king, I mean studying hard on a level that most never get close to) seems a little poorly thought out. In terms of dining in the college’s hall and the alike, they tend to be significantly cheaper than anywhere else due to the subsidisation. Similarly on the socialising front, you may have heard the phrase ‘work hard play hard’ in conjunction with Oxford and Cambridge – this is not just a corny tag line, it is a necessity, otherwise you simply don’t survive the academic demands. Those are obviously relatively slight matters (which do of course add up nonetheless), and I can only presume that the basis is sound, or the University would not have set it. Nonetheless I digress.
I acknowledge and once again sympathise with what you state at the end of your first paragraph, however I do still think that my comment stands – however unpleasant a conditional academic hiatus may be, if it is necessary in a given circumstance, it is a necessity, and stating that it is ‘…not open to many’ seems like a slightly too convenient way of avoiding simple facts of life.
Just on a final note sorry, thank you for the previous comment, it is by far the best demonstration of your claim and beliefs in this matter that I have stumbled upon. You should have the media publish articles that follow the same ideas and logic, as from what I have seen of articles and comments thus fur, you have effectively been presented as a sensationalist non-sensical “anti-elitist” whiner to anyone that knows vaguely what they are dealing with.
Damien Shannon
04/02/2013 at 22:57
@Alex – likewise, apologies for any perceived sarcasm. I am replying from my hotel room in between jaunts to the swimming pool/beach, so also in something of a rush.
I think there is a danger of your argument becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy. Saying that everybody who has studied at Oxford has felt compelled to socialise etc, and therefore funds to do this are a ‘necessity’, is a circular argument. If the University have never admitted anybody who did not have the funds to do these things, then it of course becomes de rigeur. If I had the funds, I would no doubt have chosen to indulge in these things – of course, if I could afford it, I would prefer to have my meals cooked for me. There is a question every prospective applicant ought be able to ask themselves. “Am I prepared to accept a detriment in my standard of living, for a finite period of time, in order to reap the educational rewards an institution like Oxford can offer me?” That is a reasonable question. For me there were lots of questions I had to consider. Was I prepared to turn down a very well paid job (a big deal when you come from poverty), move away from my girlfriend (potentially for years), and live at a materially limited standard, in order to reap the benefits of study? The answer for me was obviously yes, and I had planned my finances carefully and accordingly. I was prepared to lose out on a job, and potentially my relationship. I am afraid I simply cannot agree with you – dining in College, having funds for rent I am not even being charged, and having money to socialise, are not things I *must* be able to afford in order to successfully complete study. Since “sufficient funds to successfully complete study” is the University’s claimed ‘legitimate aim’, that is the yardstick we should measure their policies by.
The ‘work had play hard’ thing – it is a very unusual policy which seeks to force that mantra on all entrants to a University. My idea of ‘playing hard’ is sitting around reading case law, or Hansard, or legislation.
As I said above – in order to be lawful, a restriction on access to a University must have objective and reasonable justification. The courts equate this to the restriction being ‘a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim’ – this is what St Hugh’s will attempt to argue before the courts next week (that the policy meets both requirements). Since ‘proportionate’ has been held to mean ‘goes no further than is necessary’, my guess is that the courts are going to look at whether the figures that make up the £12,900 sum are all necessary, and all represent the minimum restriction on the right. This is all assuming that they even consider the question of proportionality (they may simply hold the policy not to be in pursuit of a legitimate aim and rule accordingly). I have been asked by their lawyer not to disclose their supporting documents, but I will say they are taking a highly unusual approach to justification. I would be very surprised if it were to succeed. A number of solicitors have contacted me to say that it will not.
Finally – as for the ‘anti-elitism’ portrayal, I have noticed this myself. The best article I read was in ‘Russia Today’. Funnier than the article itself were the comments, which quickly turned to Syria and anti-west rants. If I were ‘anti-elitist’, I would not have applied to Oxford. It is ‘elite’ in the sense that it is the best institution in the country for the course of study I was applying to (economic history). This particular policy I am challenging I believe is ‘elitist’ in the worst sense of the word – that is, unlawful discrimination based on wealth. I would be very surprised if the courts do not agree with me. My guess would be that if the College fail in their application for strike-out, they may not proceed to full trial.