28 July 2014 
Matt Sisson, Projects and Membership Manager
Quentin McKellar, V-C of the University of Hertfordshire has written an article for The Conversation this week, defending the government’s decision to remove the student number cap in 2015/16. The government has planned to sell the student loan book in order to finance the extra numbers, but the U-turn last week has put the sustainability of the funding system in doubt. Under the current system, the government already expects to have to underwrite over 40% of the value of student loans. Mr McKellar writes:
“A U-turn on uncapping student numbers as a result of not selling the loan book would be a huge mistake. This is the coalition’s most progressive higher education policy. Allowing universities to recruit as many students as they wish will expand opportunity and foster greater competition between institutions. It will mean more students will be able to go to their first choice university and help resolve the existing problem of tens of thousands of students who have got the grades to get a place, having to apply the following year because of a failure of the system to match supply with demand.”
The view is supported by Libby Hackett, Chief Executive of University Alliance who, in a letter to The Times, called on the government to “resist the temptation to reverse the uncapping of student numbers”, and take the “chance to examine how to put funding of the HE sector on a sustainable footing with a better student loan design”. University Alliance’s alternative proposal is their HELP (HE Loan Programme).
