The National Union of Students (NUS) is lobbying the government to introduce a system that would charge most students more for their degrees than at present.

The NUS blueprint ‘Funding our Future’, published this summer suggests that a “graduate contribution” model is “fairer, more progressive and supports widening access” and ensures “a better deal for part-time students”.

But the average student would pay more under the system proposed by the NUS, and a senior NUS official admitted to London Student that the blueprint had been designed with the fear that it would be “taken much less seriously” by the government if it had not.

The NUS is proposing a model that would see students pay for their degrees through a contribution from their income during the first 20 years of their working lives – from 0.3% for the lowest earners to 2.5% for those in the highest income bracket.

However, the NUS blueprint also states that it will provide “more money for higher education in the long-term” – and this extra funding would come out of students’ pockets.

If you earn an average of £27,500 a year during the first twenty years of your working life – very near the NUS’ estimated average for graduates – the eventual price tag on your degree would be likely to total around £15,240 under the NUS’ plans.

This is £1,502 more than the £13, 738 you would pay under the current maximum top-up fees of £3,225 p.a, even after interest on loan repayments, at a 3.5% rate of inflation, is factored in.

Graduates who earned relatively little over their careers would pay less than at present, while higher earners would be hit harder – but the majority of graduates would end up paying more than they do now.

Graeme Wise, NUS political officer, defended the blueprint, saying: “It was designed to ‘compete’ in policy terms with fees if they were raised to £5,000pa, not fees at the present level.

“We felt that in order to ensure the work was politically credible, it needed to offer an alternative to increased fees and deliver more resources to the HE sector in the long-term.”

Wise added: “The blueprint is only a ‘machine’ with a certain set of figures put into it. It could easily be adjusted so that the average student only pays the same as what they pay today; this would raise less revenue than in the example we published, but would still raise more overall than fees at their current level.

“We could easily have published a version of the blueprint where the average person would pay the same as under the status quo – but it would have been taken much less seriously as a result.”

He also warned that there is “a powerful lobby in favour of linking the interest rates on student loans to the government’s cost of borrowing – which itself could rise to 5-6%. We cannot afford to assume a continuation of inflation-only loan interest, though clearly we will wish to protect it”.

But James Haywood, NUS National Executive Committe member and Goldsmiths student, said: “From my experience I haven’t met a single student who whole-heartedly embraces the blueprint – why would any students support a system that asks most of them to pay more?

“But also, in capitulating to the idea that education is a private good, it’s actually helping the process of privatisation because with a separate tax we’re suggesting that education isn’t a public service that we should all pay for out of the taxes we pay normally.”

The government has not given the NUS a seat on the panel reviewing higher education funding, which is made up primarily of businessmen and university chiefs.

“The blueprint was written to try and get NUS ‘taken seriously’ and get them a seat on the review panel,” said Haywood, “but their tactics have failed and they’re absolutely gutted that they’ve been snubbed. The government doesn’t take this seriously, and more importantly, nor do the vast majority of students.”

In April 2008 NUS conference passed a motion that ditched its traditional call for free education and focused on opposing a rise in fees. NUS President Wes Streeting – who wrote the NUS blueprint with Vice-President Aaron Porter – said this “pragmatic” approach would give the union more influence in the debate.

After this motion was passed, and before the blueprint was formulated, the NUS consulted with students on its funding proposals. Wise said the number of students involved in this consultation was “in the low hundreds”, and that “very little of the actual design was based on the consultation, although the basic principles were”.

He added: “There comes a point where you have to get your head down and work something out, while ensuring it is consistent with the principles agreed at our annual conference.”

Haywood responded: “They may have consulted conference but that’s seven hundred students, mostly sabbatical officers”.

In London, Goldsmiths, SOAS, Birkbeck and UCL student unions have all passed motions in support of free education, the latter at the same time rejecting a motion endorsing the NUS blueprint.

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