Mastering Masters

The full consequences of the undergraduate fees decision and the HE White Paper are yet to become clear. The broad direction of travel for institutions such as UCL is however, more or less apparent. It is appropriate that now some attention should focus on postgraduate taught provision, which forms a large part of our portfolio and that of other research-intensive universities.

Obviously, the situation in which a full-year postgraduate course, with a lengthy dissertation requiring close supervision, would be priced below that of an undergraduate programme, of shorter duration and lesser intensity, is unsustainable. Thus it will be necessary for universities to raise the fees for most postgraduate taught masters (note: some professionally oriented courses already have high fees) to somewhere above the £9000 payable by incoming undergraduates. At UCL we may choose to taper the fee increases in order to test the market and to subsidise some specific courses. Our capacity for continuing subsidies will however, necessarily be restricted, undergraduate students will expect the experience they are paying for and financially such subsidies are a zero sum game.

It has been suggested that the propensity for students to follow an expensive postgraduate taught course after having accrued a large 'debt' pursuing undergraduate studies will be diminished. Particularly as such courses will not be covered by the generous loans extended to undergraduates. I doubt this, for reasons that follow. First, students are coming to university less well prepared than hitherto. Though they have a broader range of transferrable skills they are weaker in core competencies such as mathematics and scientific problem solving. A further year is necessary for almost any professional formation. Second, with a greater proportion of the population having an undergraduate education, a postgraduate degree is set to become the educational marker required for what was formerly known as graduate level employment. If the value of a university education results in some substantial part from its status as a 'positional good', then the increased exclusivity associated with a masters degree may well become increasingly desirable. Thirdly, the UK 3-year degree has historically been regarded as internationally competitive when set alongside its longer continental masters level competitors, but is no longer so. If a UK student wants to compete in employment in a global setting they will have to complete a programme of education that looks sufficiently similar to programmes offered elsewhere.

At the moment the 1-year UK masters degree can hold its own internationally and indeed is attractive as an offering to overseas students as a consequence of its relatively short duration. I cannot however see this persisting and ultimately we will have to shift to a 2-year masters degree closer to the Bologna Agreement norm (technically UK masters degrees are Bologna compliant). At this point we will need a serious rethink and will minimally have to move postgraduate taught degrees onto the government loan book, more may be required.

The most sensible strategy for a current student, at least one who can see their career trajectory clearly, is to take a 4-year undergraduate masters programme (MEng or MSci) which gives access to the government loan book for the additional year. I expect a boom in these programmes. My guess is that, once a more mature appreciation of the fees position sets in, the demand for stand-alone masters degrees will also rise rather than fall.

An important challenge is then the implications of increasing masters degree fees for access. Having been required to make very extensive provision in access agreements for undergraduate students there is little slack to ameliorate the position for postgraduate students. It would be a shame if, after a lot of work to ensure that students from less well-off backgrounds can secure an undergraduate education, we exclude them from the best paying jobs and the professions because of high postgraduate taught course fees. In fact, the best option would be to use the research-intensive universities as postgraduate finishing schools for the sector and explicitly support a postgraduate access mission.

I hope that policy makers are aware of the position of postgraduate taught courses. I suspect that amid current uncertainties they have been set aside for future consideration. This is an error because the political will to address larger structural concerns in higher education is now present but the window of opportunity may close. I commend this matter to their immediate attention.