Student grants a dissenting view
RICHARD LYNN
RiChard Lynn is professor of psychology at The Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin.
The argument for student loans in place of student grants is being increasingly heard. But do we need either? It will, of course, be objected that without one or the other the working classes would be deterred from entering the universities. But would this matter? We can con- sider the question from the point of view of the individuals themselves and of the nation. As far as the nation is concerned, such a development would probably be desirable. A large propor- tion of graduates enter the public service and only around 25 per cent take up careers in business. The effect of this is to starve British business of talent. It is probable that this im- balance has now got out of hand, and recently the Government has rightly reduced the number of post-graduate awards to try to deflect graduates towards business.
This is certainly a step in the right direction. It cannot be sensible for a country to encourage too many of its most able young people to enter the professions and thereby deprive its wealth- producing sector of ability. But simply reducing the number of post-graduate awards will not do a great deal to deflect graduates to business. Graduates tend to prefer the professions, and this is especially true of working-class graduates because this is the part of the middle-class world in which they feel most at home. Now if the deflection were to occur earlier, before university, the clever working-class boys would go into business because there would not be much alternative. So the question is, where is the best place for our clever working-class boys to work : in British business, or as school- masters, probation officers, planners, scientists and so forth, either in Britain or (because about a third of our graduates are now emigrating) abroad? There can be little doubt that it would be better for Britain for them to be working in .British business.
'Of course, many will say that the country needs more trained minds. Three replies can
be given to this objection. First, with about a hard of our graduates emigrating it is doubtful nfhether the training does Britain much good. Possibly it may be useful for the Americans, Canadians and Australians, but hardly for us. The universities can be regarded as a kind of siphon for draining a substantial proportion of the most able young people out of the coun- try. Secondly, the theory that university educa- tion trains the mind has been much exaggei-ated by professors and others who have axes to grind in arguing for educational expansion. Is it really likely that a clever young man is going to be better at, say, selling British cars to the Americans if he has a university degree? I for one think it improbable. Thirdly, graduates simply aren't going into business in very large numbers, so that the universities are not only acting as a siphon to drain clever young men out of the country. They also drain them into the professions.
So from the point of view of the national interest it would be all to the good if we could dissuade clever young people, from whatever class, from going to the universities. Having neither grants nor loans would be a good way of doing this. No doubt many will say this would not be fair on the working class. But such an objection would take a rather donnish view of success in life, typified by the educa- tionist's term 'wastage' for those who decide to get off the educational ladder and make their way in the tough world. To those in a cosy niohe towards the top of the education hier- archy, progress means more like themselves. But we need not all subscribe to this view. Who can say whether a clever boy who leaves school at fifteen or sixteen, enters business, and eventually ends up as a company director would have been happier if, at the age of eighteen, a generous state had paid for him to go to a university and then enter some minor profes- sion? Which of us can say whether our lives might not have been more satisfying if force of circumstances had obliged us during adoles- cence to take some step which we would not at the time have chosen voluntarily?
In T. S. Eliot's play, The Elder Statesman, there is a character called Fred Culverwell who is sent down from Oxford and becomes a millionaire as a result of nefarious activities in a central American republic. In middle age he is thankful for the severity of his college, which spared him the fate of becoming a schoolmaster. One can sympathise with him. The best life does not necessarily lie in the path mapped out by a paternalist state.
Some will object to our proposal on the grounds that university education is a 'right,' a claim made recently by the student power movement. This view should be resisted. Higher education benefits principally the recipient, so that it is difficult to see what moral right the student has to be maintained out of the taxation of people who might well prefer to spend their money on other things. Taxes are paid by all, including 'the very poor, and it is doubtful whether many of them would wish to support students at universities any more than they would wish to pay for students to have holi- days on the Riviera. Personally, I cannot see the moral arguments for asking them to pay for either.
The parallel between university education and the Mediterranean holiday is a valuable corrective to modern fashionable opinion. Both are pleasant, confer status, and are assets in conversation. The provision of grants or loans obscures this simple truth and encourages a lot of the hocus-pocus about the necessity for trained minds in a complex technological society. The effect of this is to inflate the egos of students and make them think that they are much more important than they really are.
It is not difficult to foresee some of the consequences of having neither grants.nor loans.
One of the first would be that many more students would live at home and go to the local university. Instead of Birmingham boys going to university in Manchester and vice versa, both would stay in their own cities. This would save a good deal of money on the building of halls of residence and the employment of wardens to safeguard morality. The problems of com- muting and finding somewhere quiet to work would be stimulating challenges to ingenuity. Few students read books for more than eight
hours a day.. Some of the remaining time might just as well be spent travelling by bus to and from outer suburbia. When I was a warden of a hall of residence I often used to spend the evenings playing bridge with the intellectuals, while the other students would play monopoly, ping-pong or watch Peyton Place on television. We had some good games, but I was never sure what the old-age pensioners who contributed to our support were getting for their money.
After the rather bad press which students have been having in recent months there can be little doubt that the public would be quite re- ceptive to these proposals. The students have done an excellent job in the preparation of public opinion. The abolition of 'student grants would almost certainly be an electoral asset. As the Labour government, apparently intent on suicide, enacts one vote-loser after another, it may care to consider the attractions of this scheme to the electorate.
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