Chris Patten Calls for More Public Funding for UK Universities. (April 28, 2006)

Oxford Chancellor, Lord Patten

Chris Patten (Lord Patten of Barnes), Chancellor of Oxford and Newcastle Universities, opened a debate in the House of Lords with, "The principal issue is that we simply don't spend enough on our universities. That was true under the government of which I was a small and insignificant part just as it is true today."

According to Lord Patten the UK spent 1.1% of gross domestic product (GDP) on higher education, the same as France and Germany, but less than half of the 2.2% of GDP spent in the US.

A 2003 article in The Age, states Australian government funding for higher education in Australia fell from 0.9% of GDP in 1996 to 0.6% in 2003 and was set to “contract as a proportion of GDP to 0.5% in 2003-4 and 2004-5”. The Age calculated that an additional $3 billion a year would have been required to lift state spending on tertiary education back to the 1996 level of 0.9%.

Lord Patten went on to tell the Lords, "Taxpayers in America are spending more on higher education as a proportion of GDP than they are in France and Germany and considerably more than they are in this country [the UK]."

He told peers: "What has happened in this country is that we've funded the welcome and substantial expansion of higher education by reducing the amount of investment that we put into every student.

"The Treasury call that higher productivity in universities. What higher productivity in our universities means is depressed salaries, is degraded facilities, libraries and laboratories and in many cases a debased learning experience with the acquisition of a university degree being seen all too often as a rite of passage and the acquisition of a credit to get a job."

Whether or not there will be a turn around once Gordon Brown assumes leadership of the Labour Party is a moot question. So far he seems to have indicated that changes for the better will be instituted but matters have a habit of assuming altered priorities once in the top job.