Students and business

Student loans are in the news again, with the ludicrously high interest rates and the burden of debt that hangs over most graduates. I make no apology for pointing out once again that the student loan system does not work. It is both inefficient and unfair. Students leave university with a massive burden of debt, much of which will never be repaid.

I have said before that the way to bring extra money into higher education is via business sponsorship. If you agree to sign up for the RAF for two years after graduation and to spend vacations training, your fees and expenses will be met in full.

We should introduce the same system for business sponsorship. As well as applying to a university, potential students should apply to a business sponsor. If they agree to work for the firm for two years after graduation, it will pay their fees and expenses as a tax-deductible business expense,

The student works with the firm during vacations, and acquires hands-on business experience to come out already qualified and ready to move up through promotions. The firm gets to know their future employee and their abilities. It is an extension of existing apprenticeship schemes to cover student finance in general.

Some suppose, wrongly, that this would discriminate against liberal arts and language students. Having worked alongside business recruiters, I have found then quite ready to employ such graduates, and would be ready to sponsor them. The same is not true of Mickey Mouse courses in surfing, Disney Studies or various grievance studies courses. But it could be argued that neither business nor the taxpayer should be funding such courses, and that anyone determined to undertake them should be prepared to finance them personally.

This would shift the focus of what a university is all about. Maybe this should happen, in that university these days has strayed beyond what it used to be, and perhaps what it should be. It would mark the end of teenage years for most students, and be a preparation for adult life. The social and intellectual advantages that university life bestows would still be there, with the added advantage that students would not be plunged into an uncertain job market at the end. They would already have a job lined up, one they had been trained for.

Student loans are part of a broken Britain. They no longer work, and should be replaced by a system that does work.

Madsen Pirie