03 July 2019 
Karel Thomas, Executive Director
"Be careful what you wish for" is often the advice to anyone suggesting radical changes. So if you have not yet watched the proceedings of the Science and Technology Committee held on Tuesday 25th June, you should. Whilst the HE commentariat has been busy on all issues Augar since publication of the report, and conferences have been quickly arranged (Wonkhe on 2nd July and UUK on 17th July), University Finance Directors may now want to reflect on the power and impact of what is said in a Parliamentary Committee hearing. On questioning by Lord Griffiths, who has some knowledge of how universities work, of how the Review Committee had reached the figure of £7,500 as a base-line fee, Dr. Augar replied, “[I]t emerged that the basic cost of provision as reported by the universities [who participated in the KPMG study] of the lower band of degrees was £8,800. Analysis of the data revealed that includes a 10% margin called the MSI which is effectively a discretionary provision against future expenditure. We noted that universities already spend a considerable amount [to keep up to date] and in our calculations we thought that simply adjusting for this would take the base cost down to £8,000 or just below” (our emphasis on discretionary and simply). In a very good article on Wonkhe David Kernohan thinks, "even though the data that demonstrates there’s no profit from home students is not perfect – there is no data at all that suggests that there is a £1,500 excess." Wonkhe's conference held yesterday sounds like an excellent forum for discussion and if you were not there, the running comentary on their website is worth a visit.
