Tories should embrace universities – not be led astray by the likes of Hill
Henry Hill’s editorial of last Friday reflected a widespread Conservative hostility to universities. The evidence does not bear out his criticisms. For a start the graduate premium is not disappearing. Non-graduates aged 21-30 earn on average £26,000, whereas graduates earn £31,500 and post-graduates earn £35,000.
The gap gets even wider as people work their way through the labour market – applied-vocation qualifications tend to get someone onto a plateau whereas graduate earnings grow or longer.
Given this continuing premium it is reasonable to expect graduates to pay back at the rate of nine per cent if they are earning above a threshold, recently set at £25,000. That means the average better-paid young graduate, earning £31,500 in our example, would be paying back about £50 per month. And of course the debt is not like an overdraft or a mortgage – it is a fixed outgoing.
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