Higher Fees, Higher Debts: Unequal Graduate Transitions in England?

Abstract

This chapter draws on findings from a comparative, qualitative research project that investigated the decision-making of different groups of English higher education students in central England as they graduated from a Russell group university (46 interviewees) and a Post-92 university (28 interviewees). Half of the students graduated in 2014 (lower tuition fees regime) and the other half graduated in 2015 (higher tuition fees regime). The students interviewed were sampled by socio-economic background, gender, degree subject/discipline and secondary school type. Semi-structured interviews were used to explore students' future plans and perceptions of their future job prospects. Despite higher debt levels, the 2015 sample of Russell Group graduates from lower socio-economic backgrounds had a positive view of their labour market prospects and a high proportion had achieved either a graduate job or a place on a postgraduate course prior to graduation. This group had saved money whilst studying. The 2015 sample of Post-1992 University graduates (from both lower and average socio-economic backgrounds) were worried about their level of debt, future finances and labour market prospects. This chapter raises questions about whether a fairer university finance system, involving lower levels of debt for graduates from less advantaged backgrounds, might avoid some graduates' transitions to adulthood being so strongly influenced by financial anxieties.

Student loans as symbolic violence

“…The reason we invoke the concept of violence, rather than keep to the language of wellbeing and mental health, is because students report unforeseeable disruption to their aspirations. Among the perceived constraints were the need to: (a) delay or reject further study; (b) rush into non-graduate jobs to relieve the immediate pressure of the loans; and (c) re-join the family home to save money (see Vigurs et al, 2018). In other words, though the student loan system is materially framed in the language of opportunity and empowerment, many routes to self-fulfilment were regarded as inaccessible by the point of graduation.…”

“…is negative and guilt-inducing, reinforcing their psychological hold on the individual student rather than allowing for collective, societal responsibility. 'It's a bit stupid but I trust the Government' -learnt acquiescence to the loan system Our final section covers our interviewees' reflections on their decisions to enter higher education, including the minority of students who more readily accept the dominant student loan rhetoric (Vigurs et al 2018).…”

Using Comic-Style Posters for Engaging Participants and for Promoting Researcher Reflexivity

“…They are also used as visual support for recorded presentations by scientists in animated videos (e.g., by RSA Animate; see https://www.thersa.org/discover/videos/rsa-animate). Moreover, research results have been published in the form of comic books, to better reach target audiences (e.g., Dahl, Morris, Brown, Scullion, & Somerville, 2012; Vigurs, Jones, & Harris, 2016); and the first PhD thesis has been published as a comic book (Sousanis, 2015). Even highly regarded scientific journals such as Nature have published comics (Monasterski & Sousanis, 2015).…”

Discursive framings of market-based education policy and their negotiation by students: the case of ‘value for money’ in English universities

“…However, subsuming societal advancement (Barnett, 1990) and public value creation (Moore, 1995) within individualised, economistic VfM narratives 1 risks reducing higher education to an 'investment' in search of a 'return' (Brown & Carasso, 2013) rather than a step toward a better informed, more civically engaged society (Nixon, 2010). Discourses that champion the student-consumer deflect from the personal indebtedness increasingly associated with university participation in England (McGettigan, 2013;Vigurs et al, 2018a) and the structural disempowerment of the sector as academic autonomies are conceded within a more centralised, metricised model (Smyth, 2017). In England's higher education landscape, so embedded is the language of VfM that it is difficult to imagine policy discourse without it.…”

“…All but 18 of the 92 participants were successfully matched. In this way, comparability was maximised (seeVigurs et al, 2018a). 14 WP stands for Widening Participation.…”