"It’s just a shame it’s come so late"

Wednesday 25 January 2017

Jersey's Chief Minister says all options are still being considered to solve the current higher education funding issue.

Senator Ian Gorst was giving evidence yesterday to a scrutiny panel investigating the current problems for parents to afford sending their children to university.

It comes following a fraught public battle for Jersey to adopt a UK-style student loans system initiated by the over 700 member-strong Jersey Student Loan Support Group.

They claim that the current grants-based funding is “failing families” – some of which can’t fully afford to put their children through tertiary education even at the upper limit.

Despite panel member Deputy Tracey Vallois’ challenge over maintenance grants that do not fully cover some students’ tuition and living costs, the Chief Minister maintained that students receiving ‘full’ States subsidy, “…receive great support, not only for their fees, but also for their living expenses…There is a third that actually our system is doing really well for.”

He later added: “If we compare our system to some other places where they just have loan systems and everybody has a loan, they leave university with debt…[our] system is currently superior to that. If there are issues being faced by those lower income families in that third then we are happy to consider how we can support them as well.”

In order to plug the funding gap, the Scrutiny Panel had previously heard from the Student Loan Support Group that some parents had been remortgaging their homes or dipping into their pension pots in order to fund their children’s degrees – “difficult decisions” lamented by Mr Gorst.

Deputy Andrew Lewis, Head of the Public Accounts Committee, had suggested that a government-funded loans system might be the only way to solve this “crisis” in a previous scrutiny hearing.

But Senator Gorst did not come down firmly on one side of the debate or the other, claiming that the recently-formed Higher Education Sub-Committee – comprising himself, the Education Minister and the Treasury Minister - were assessing a “blended solution.” According to Education Minister Rod Bryans, this may include encouragement of degrees at European universities and 'University College Jersey' (Highlands), as well as a potential bursary scheme to be bank-rolled by a mystery benefactor.

But Deputy Vallois, who led the hearing in the absence of Panel Chairman Deputy Jeremy Macon, lamented the timing of the action, given that post-18 educational funding has been an ongoing issue.

Pictured: Deputy Tracey Vallois of St John, a member of the Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel.

Senator Gorst responded that Education’s priority had, “…been very much focusing on raising standards across the education system,” with progress noted in the form of “excellent results” coming out of alternative higher education institution Highlands College.

But such an attempt to raise standards, the Panel observed, might not be fruitful without the prospect of affordable university education.

The Chief Minister maintained, however, that, even though there hadn’t been a mention in the Strategic Plan, the States remained committed to allowing students to, “fulfil their potential” without having to make a decision about university, “…purely based on finances.”

Following the meeting, Deputy Vallois told Express: "It’s good to hear that they’ve actually made [higher education funding] a priority now, but from the evidence that I’ve seen up to now and until we heard about this group being structured between the Treasury Minister, Education Minister and the Chief Minister, I don’t think anyone was convinced that there was any priority given to university. You can see that with the Strategic Plan and the business plans. I think it’s quite positive. It’s just a shame it’s come so late. That’s the thing that’s really bothered us, because it’s been an ongoing issue for parents for a few years now.”