Tory plans to tackle ¡°low-quality courses¡± in England could mean cutting loan support or making universities bear costs for courses deemed below par on graduate earnings,?while?institutions may shift focus towards winning research funding as per-student spending dwindles, according to policy observers.

The publication of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat manifestos has produced broad consensus on increasing research funding ¨C while floating some potentially major changes to the research funding system ¨C but no agreement whatsoever on higher education funding and student finance.

The Conservatives said that they would ¡°consider carefully¡± the ¡°thoughtful¡± recommendations on tuition fees from the Augar review, which called for a reduction from ?9,250 to ?7,500.

Labour has pledged to abolish tuition fees and reintroduce student maintenance grants at a cost of ?7.2 billion a year. And the Liberal Democrats sought to sidestep the party¡¯s past traumas over tuition fees, committing only to a ¡°review of higher education finance to consider any necessary reforms¡±.

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The Tory manifesto also says that a Conservative government would ¡°continue to explore ways to tackle the problem of¡­low quality courses¡±.

Guy Miscampbell, senior research fellow at the Onward thinktank, said that the manifesto ¡°rightly pledges to tackle the scourge of low-quality degrees which deliver poor value for students and taxpayers¡±.

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¡°The best way to do this would be to cut financial support for courses that deliver below a certain earnings level, or make universities share the risk through the loan system,¡± he said.

Andy Westwood, professor of government practice at the University of Manchester and a former Labour adviser, said the various party positions ¡°suggest that the unit of resource [per student] is unlikely to go up in next five years and is much more likely to come down ¨C either by the erosion of value from inflation or from more dramatic interventions in the fee¡±, such as ¡°in types of provision that any party might see as lower value and/or priority¡±.

Highlighting the commitments of all three major parties in England to increasing research funding, Professor Westwood added: ¡°For universities, then, over time the strategic focus will move more to winning more R&D funding ¨C however it is distributed¡­than to using undergraduate fees to cross-subsidise it and other things. That¡¯s quite a big difference to the past few years since 2012.¡±

The Tory manifesto also pledges to ¡°reform the science funding system to cut the time wasted by scientists filling in forms¡±, once again chiming with the preoccupations of Dominic Cummings ¨C the prime minister¡¯s most senior adviser ¨C on science policy.

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James Wilsdon, professor of research policy at the University of Sheffield, cautioned that a drive to ¡°reduce bureaucracy¡± could be a ¡°double-edged sword¡±. ¡°If the alternative is a process in which somebody or some elements within government or elsewhere decide on a more arbitrary or more political basis to allocate funds¡­the net result may be something a lot of academics are very unhappy with,¡± he warned.

john.morgan@timeshighereducation.com

Listen: John Morgan wades through the 2019 party manifestos and discusses how the parties¡¯ proposals will affect higher education in our É«ºÐÖ±²¥ podcast