Expressions of student debt aversion and tolerance among academically able young people in low-participation English schools
Steven Jones[(]
University of Manchester, UK
Introduction
The notion of cost sharing, upon which many changes to higher education funding are predicated, involves a “shift in at least part of the higher educational cost burden from governments (or taxpayers) to parents and students” (Johnstone, 2004, p. 403). In England, the Browne Review (2010) recommended the cap on tuition fees be abolished, and state contributions reduced accordingly. However, the government instead opted to raise the maximum annual fee that universities could charge from £3,375 to £9,000 in 2012, introducing a repayment system that required graduates to contribute 9% of their income above £21,000 per year until their debt was repaid, with interest charged at up to 3% above inflation and unpaid loans forgiven after 30 years. Supplementary measures included non-repayable maintenance grants of up to £3,250 per year for students with household incomes below £40,000 per year, plus a bursary entitlement for those with household incomes below £25,000.
This paper assesses how young people from very low participation backgrounds conceptualise student debt within the English Higher Education system. It does not make comparisons across different systems or between different social classes. Young people from very low participation backgrounds are focused on for three reasons. First, the group is under-represented in English Higher Education, both historically (Reay et al., 2005) and currently (HEFCE 2013). Second, the group was specifically identified as being at-risk when fees were introduced (Browne 2010). Third, according to some research, the group could be disproportionately resistant to accumulating education-related debt. Evidence for reason three includes Callender’s (2003) investigation of 1,953 potential applicants, which found the most anti-debt individuals to be from the lowest social classes, and Callender and Jackson’s (2005) subsequent demonstration of statistically significant, class-based difference in attitudes towards debt. Gorard et al (2006) also found the fear of debt to be more common within low participation groups, and Lawton and Moore reported that students receiving Educational Maintenance Allowance (because they were from low income backgrounds) were “twice as likely to be strongly concerned [about supporting themselves at university] than those from middle class backgrounds” (2011, p.5). Studies that challenge assumptions about the fear of debt being class sensitive include Maringe et al., who find that debt “does not seem a big deal, especially if [students] have to repay it over a long period of time and on low interest rates” (2009, p. 156). Ina similar vein, Schwartz reminds us that people from low-income backgrounds were just as willing to apply for mortgages and loans as those from higher-income backgrounds, asking “who were first in the queue to purchase council houses when they went up for sale?” (Woodward, 2004).
The 2012 funding model for English Higher Education differs from those upon which many previous studies of debt aversion were based, and offers an ideal opportunity to incorporate new evidence from young people who are often positioned at the heart of cost-sharing debates. The goal of this paper is to drill deeper into the decision-making processes of those for whom university is not a natural destination and for whom headline tuition fees are largest relative to family income. Research is informed by recent studies of student debt (e.g. Harrison et al., 2013; Bachan, 2014), but rather than survey those already at university, data were elicited from young people in the process of making higher education participation choices, specifically those in Years 10 and 11 (aged 14 to 16) who have the academic ability to attend university. The aims of the research were threefold: (1) to gauge the accuracy with which young people from very low participation backgrounds understand the 2012 student fee and repayment structures; (2) to consider how young people’s responses interact with their other social, cultural and academic dispositions towards university entry; (3) to assess the extent to which those responses are reflected in wider public discourses about participation.
Under-representation and its causes
Despite expansion in UK undergraduate student numbers, social class inequalities persist in higher education. Application figures for 2013/14 show that “18-year-olds from the most advantaged areas are still three times more likely to apply to higher education than those from the most disadvantaged areas, and entry rates to institutions that require high grades are typically six to nine times greater for applicants from advantaged areas” (HEFCE 2013, p. 4). This section will outline three key reasons for under-representation: lesser academic achievement; an admissions process that may advantage some applicants over others; and differing cultural and social inclinations towards participation.
First, the state schools at which young people of low socioeconomic status tend to be educated are associated with lower grades than those found at independent schools. The proportion of A-level pupils from independent schools gaining AAA grades (or better) is nearly four times greater than the proportion getting such grades from comprehensive schools (Russell Group, 2012). This ‘attainment gap’ is often held directly responsible for low participation rates of some groups (e.g. Chowdry et al., 2013). Compared to state school children who qualify for free school meals, independent school children are over 22 times more likely to enter a highly selective university and 55 times more likely to gain a place at Oxford or Cambridge (Sutton Trust, 2010). As Voigt notes, “it is hard to see how fair access to higher education can be made consistent with private schooling, as it exists in the UK” (2007, p. 104). However, even when prior achievement is accounted for, a disparity remains. Indeed, girls and boys in the lowest socioeconomic quintile are 5.3 percent and 4.1 percent respectively less likely to attend university than those of equal attainment in the highest quintile (Chowdry et al., 2013). The Sutton Trust (2013) report that 25% of access gap to higher-prestige universities is not due to academic achievement. Such findings are particularly worrying in light of the growing evidence that the link between socioeconomic status and academic performance unravels once students reach university, where state educated undergraduates tend to outperform those from independent schools with identical grades (HEFCE, 2014).
Second, concerns have been expressed about disadvantage at the point of application (Stevens, 2007; Zimdars, 2010). Not all candidates are equally familiar with the procedural requirements of the higher education admissions system, and many lack the cultural capital needed to “enter into the game” (Byrom, 2009, p. 220). For example, equal attainment applicants in the UK construct their personal statements in ways that are very different and which correlate closely with the type of school they attended (Jones 2012). Access to high-prestige work experience and extra-curricular activity is unequally distributed (Jones 2014a), and levels of information, advice and guidance vary greatly (Kirkland Hansen, 2011). This may help to explain differences noted in the proportion of offers made to applicants of different backgrounds (Boliver 2013).
A third, broader reason for non-participation is traditionally characterised in terms of ‘dislocation’. Working-class students face “considerable identity work” (Reay et al., 2010, p. 120) as they attempt to ‘fit in’ at university. Testimonies collected from young people of low socioeconomic status, and often viewed through Bourdieu’s lens (e.g. Reay et al., 2009), repeatedly flag up disinclination towards participation driven by “the discomforts generated when habitus confronts a starkly unfamiliar field” (Reay et al., 2010, p. 120). Though some recent research avoids constructing working-class status as a barrier (e.g. Lehmann, 2009), other evidence suggests that many young people struggle to negotiate the tensions between their background class habitus and the perceived elitism of many English universities.
Dominant Public Discourses about Higher Fees
According to Reay, policy makers fail to understand students’ “material and cultural constraints and class dispositions” (2007, p. 194). This failure is often reflected in (and legitimated by) neoliberal public discourses of higher education participation, which tend to emphasise individual human capital and are rarely sensitive to factors such as sex, disability, ethnicity or educational background (see Archer, 2007). For example, the title of the government-accredited Independent Student Funding Taskforce’s guide to higher fees is “You Can Afford To Go To Uni” (Lewis, 2012a). In this document, the argument is made that debt levels are “irrelevant to most people - they'll just keep paying the same proportion each month and if they don't earn enough, they won't come close to paying back what was borrowed (never mind the interest)” (Lewis, 2012b). Fees are constructed as “a psychological deterrent” (Lewis, 2012b), the implication of which is that anyone in full possession of the facts would not be deterred. Barr (2012) goes further, arguing that the use of the word ‘debt’ is itself misleading.
Such rhetoric ultimately places the blame for non-participation on individual young people (or on to the government for not giving them an appropriate message). However, much of the literature suggests that participation decisions are not made solely on rational economic grounds. Archer et al., dismiss simplistic return-on-investment analyses because variables are “not equal for all social groups” (2003, p. 119). Similarly, Voigt warns against framing the debate in exclusively consumer terms, noting that “a certain absolute ‘price’ … may translate into different ‘costs’ for people from different backgrounds.” (2007, p. 94-95). This distinction between ‘price’ and ‘cost’ is now explored and extended. Close attention is given to the non-pecuniary ways in which the stakes are conceptualised by young people from very low participation backgrounds, and the types of debt aversion noted in the literature (e.g. Finnie 2002, 2004) are revisited in light of the 2012 funding model for English Higher Education system.
Data and Methods
This research focusses on young people from low-participation schools who have the academic ability to pursue higher education. Three schools were chosen, all located in one of the five most deprived local authorities in England (Office for National Statistics, 2010). In each case, the school’s most recent Ofsted report notes a disproportionately high number of pupils with Free School Meals eligibility. All schools have higher than average proportions of pupils speaking English as an additional language and of minority ethnic heritage and, according to one of the reports, pupils come from “very challenging social and economic backgrounds.” Each location has an above-average proportion of residents with no qualifications (based on Lower Layer Super Output Area statistics from the Office for National Statistics’ 2011 Census for England and Wales), and the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index places all three schools in the top 30% of deprived Local Super Output Areas in England (Office for National Statistics, 2010). Two are in the top 10%.
Access was granted to Year 10 and 11 pupils who had been streamed into higher-achieving, mixed gender classes. Based on attainment scores and rankings within the year group, all of the young people surveyed would fall in the top 40% of achievers nationally. This approximation was used to ensure, as far as possible, that they could be reasonably expected to have the academic ability to participate in higher education. Contact with the young people took the form of a one-hour session, class sizes varied between 17 and 33, and up to four classes per school were taken. Young people were given a questionnaire at the outset, followed by an informal, interactive presentation that allowed their knowledge to be assessed (“Does anyone know what a bursary is?”) and inclinations elicited (“Who thinks they might like to go to university?”). The second half of the session provided information about the 2012 fee and repayment structure, and about the higher education admissions process. Care was taken to separate views expressed before and after information was supplied (see Jones 2014b for a detailed discussion of issues surrounding researcher identity and integrity when data is collected by university staff in the school classroom). All interaction took the form of open dialogue and questions were taken throughout. With permission, classes were audio-recorded. In total, 198 young people contributed.
Though some questionnaire data will be drawn on, responses elicited in this way are not relied upon because they may have been influenced by class teachers’ urgings for young people to “try very hard to answer the questions” and “remember to give a good impression of the school to our important visitor”. One teacher even distributed her own reformulated version of the pre-sent questionnaire so that “better” responses would be received. These responses were discounted for quantitative purposes (see Jones, 2014b); other questionnaires were drawn on, but only to gauge students’ understanding of key information (fee levels, etc.). More reliable and informative were young people’s verbal contributions to the session. Almost all were willing to answer questions, engage in discussion and offer opinions; the data reported below mostly emerge from this interaction.
Findings are now presented in a structure that maps on to the study’s three research aims. First, under the heading of ‘information asymmetry’, I borrow market-based approaches and terminology to interpret key aspects of young people’s knowledge and understanding. I then draw upon on previous research into student debt to characterise the types of aversion and tolerance articulated, before briefly considering the accuracy with which public discourses about higher education reflect the decision-making processes undertaken by young people from low-participation schools.
Information Asymmetry
This section examines the extent to which potential undergraduates understand the mechanisms by which they will be required to contribute to financing their own higher education participation, and their awareness of the support available to low-income applicants. Analysis is framed in terms of ‘information asymmetry’, a phrase used in economics to describe transaction decisions in which one party is privy to knowledge that is more accurate or more extensive than other parties (Dill Soo, 2004). Previous studies have shown that information asymmetry presents challenges to the marketization of public services (e.g. Wang et al., 2010) and, in discussions of higher education, Del Ray (2011) uses the term in its broadest sense to refer not only to asymmetry between buyer and seller, but also between different types of buyer.