The Hunt Report: Key Recommendations

Key recommendations from the Hunt Report (or National Strategy for Higher Education) have been announced today in the Irish Independent. The Hunt Report has been discussed by Kevin and myself before on this blog. On a previous occasion, I also flagged a report entitled: "Policy Options for New Student Contributions in Higher Education", which dates from July 2009. There is no sign of the Hunt Report on the websites of the Higher Education Authority or the Department for Education and Skills. However, the Education and Skills website does have a link to "Strategy for Higher Education" on its homepage; but this link does not appear to be working. The key recommendations from the Hunt Report, as announced in today's Irish Independent, are as follows:

* Means test for families of students applying for higher education grants to be extended to include assets.
* Mergers of institutes of technology and of smaller colleges.
* Lower fees in key subject areas where there are skill shortages.
* Performance-related pay for college staff but much greater transparency of their workload.
* Increase investment in research and development to 3pc of national income, nearly double the present level.
* No university status for the Waterford and Dublin institutes of technology.

Addendum: The above set of recommendations do not say anything about a student contribution, something that many observers had been expecting. of course, the recommendations listed above may not reflect the entirety of the full report. Also, the other report mentioned above - Policy Options for New Student Contributions in Higher Education - covers the issue of a student contribution comprehensively, for those who are interested. Update: According to another article in today's Irish Independent: "For years, an argument has raged as to whether tuition fees should be brought back or student loans introduced. Controversially, it (the Hunt Report) recommends both." According to a third article in today's Irish Independent, students would have the option of paying part or all of their fees up-front or taking out a loan. The third article also mentions that the report recommends a stronger Higher Education Authority - which would monitor performance by colleges and keep back some funding until they improved their performance. I discussed the potential pitfalls of such an approach before on the blog here.

In relation to the recommendation on means-testing, this issue was previously investigated by an expert group led by Dr Donal De Buitleir in 1993. That group made recommendations to improve the fairness of maintenance grant awards. It was proposed that family assets, including businesses and large farms, be taken into account as well as declared taxable income when eligibility for maintenance grants is being calculated. In addition, an OECD panel of international experts looked at the De Buitleir recommendation in 2005 and strongly urged that it be implemented. So it can be argued that the implementation of this recommendation is long overdue in Irish higher education. Myself and Kevin discuss the above, and other aspects of Irish policy relating to higher education in this blog-post: How Education Policy is Made.

Irish Policy Options for New Student Contributions in Higher Education

Readers may or may not be aware of this report to the Irish Minister for Education and Science: "Policy Options for New Student Contributions in Higher Education". The report dates from July 2009 but I have just found it on the website of the recently re-branded Department of Education and Skills. It is not clear whether this report is connected to the National Strategy for Higher Education in Ireland, recently discussed by Kevin on this blog.

In any event, the report outlines a number of issues in it summary, which are relevant to the potential introduction of a student contribution in Ireland. These include:

(i) Affordability considerations: "It is proposed that the level of any new student contribution should be related to current fee levels for Irish/EU students who do not qualify for free fees."

(ii) Top-up Fees: "Consideration could also be given to providing for a premium or ‘top-up’ range within which individual institutions would be free to increase charges for particular programmes. This would allow individual institutions to incentivise participation on particular programmes or to generate additional revenue according to their ability to compete for students. Such an arrangement could have the benefits of promoting competition and quality within the system."

(iii) Transition: "In transitioning to new fee arrangements, it would be important to avoid any potential for immediate shortfalls in institutional budgets by pitching fees at levels that do not match current ‘free fee’ contribution rates."

(iv) Collection of loan repayments: "The involvement of the national tax collection agency has been identified as being a critical success factor for a number of income contingent student loan facility models that operate internationally... It is recognised, however, that there are significant operational pressures on the Revenue Commissioners in the current Irish context which would limit their capacity to take on a role of direct collection agent for an income contingent loan scheme."

(v) Public finance: "In the current economic circumstances, it would be important that the introduction of a student loan facility would be designed to minimise any impact on the General Government Balance (GGB) or on General Government Debt (GGD)."

(vi) Upfront payment and tax relief: "In the context of any introduction of a loan system, continuing tax relief for students who pay fees upfront would amount to a form of discount for upfront payment. From an equity perspective, this would need to be factored into any consideration of the appropriate rate of surcharge on those availing of a loan rather than paying upfront."

(vii) Communicating complex issues: "Any policy change in this area will impact on significant numbers of students or potential students. A number of the options being considered are complex in nature and would give rise to very significant demands for information and clarification. An information strategy will need to be in place to communicate the details of any changes and to provide user friendly access to relevant detail on how the changes impact on individuals."