University Places and Seats

Another thought in regard to Sam Bowman's article about the proposed change to university places. He argues that allowing someone rich to buy a place at university doesn't take someone else's place away.

The government’s proposals would allow some applicants to pay their own way – creating a place that would otherwise not have existed. This is the crucial point to remember. If a girl's parents pay the extra price for her to go to Oxford, nobody else is deprived of a place.

I simply cannot see how that is true. There are only so many seats in the lecture theaters. One of the comments on the article raises a similar issue with regards the lack of quality teachers. The response was that as demand for those teachers increases their wages rise and more are attracted to it.

This is true for teachers and to some extent true for buildings. But the problem is surely one of elasticity? No university is going to build a new lecture room for 1 extra student. And no university is going to hire an extra lecturer for 1 extra student. For a while, at least, the rich people buying places will be depriving the poorer people of places.

What is more is that we know that the current tuition fees cap is below the actual cost of tuition. In that case universities would like to offer all their available places to those paying the higher fees. They wouldn't hire new staff simply to allow more people to join the university who cannot cover their costs.

And so the inevitable result would be that the government would place a limit on how many of these bought places are available. And that limit would mean that it would never become worth building that new lecture room because there would never be enough of an increase in the student body. And that means that the places taken from the poorer students would never become available again.