Bad review

We were told the reason the higher education strategy document was delayed by almost a year was because the government wanted to get things right. This was Margaret Hodge's mantra at many public events. They appeared to recognise that delivering a quick fix would not be sufficient to appease dissatisfied voters.

So, after waiting many months, we hoped the proposals would have been a little better thought out. Instead of tackling the problems of student debt and hardship - which were the issues on the doorstep at the last general election - we have a collection of contradictory proposals and an obsession with figures and targets that the government is calling a white paper.

And some of these figures are already being torn apart. Since the paper was released last month, the government has been forced to admit that current data would only support a figure of less than 10% of students getting the targeted grant - not 30% as they suggested.

After such a long period of consultation, and a determination to "get things right", it is a shame that they clearly got things wrong.

However, the problem here is that even if this were true, a paltry ?1,000 (or around ?19 per week) is not enough to make even a dent into the real cost of being a student for those who qualify for a grant.

Instead of introducing a living grant, the government is finding a way to meet its 30% commitment without any rationale as to why this figure was chosen. Why not 60%? Or 20%? In fact, why is the grant set at ?1,000 - a figure that bears no correlation to the true cost of student living?

Surely a better situation would be one where students who are in need of financial assistance receive a decent level of support? The National Union of Students believes that dealing with statistics rather than dealing with people is helping no one.

Take the widening participation target for example. The government wants 50% of 18 to 30-year-olds to have some experience of higher education by 2010. An honourable ambition and one that NUS supports. However, why 50%? When the target is met, will all widening participation initiatives be abandoned? And will the 50% have actually increased the percentage of poorer, lone parent or working class students going to university or will it just be a case of the government ticking off another target?

Widening participation can only be a success if it does what it says on the tin: there is no point in cramming more students from wealthy backgrounds into our institutions if students from poorer backgrounds are priced out of higher education by the terrible top-up fees.

We also question how the government can justify increasing student debt at a time when it is supposed to be making university accessible to non-traditional students who are priced out of higher education even now.

Education ministers' suggestions that the government's new proposals will not deter students from applying to university are ill-founded and their rhetoric is contradictory.

For example, Margaret Hodge said recently that the government's proposals will "go down in history as providing the essential springboard on which higher education can flourish both in its contribution to the economy and its contribution to a more inclusive society." However, she conceded to Jonathan Dimbleby, just days before, that students from the poorest backgrounds would be ?900 worse off under the new proposals. She also admitted that debt acts as a deterrent for many people from a range of backgrounds.

The embarrassment continued last week when the education secretary, Charles Clarke, conceded that the increased tuition fee could indeed put off students from the poorest backgrounds from applying to university. After 15 months of "review" NUS is amazed that the government did not manage to work this out before releasing the white paper.

In highlighting the abolition of up front fees and the reintroduction of a maintenance grant, the government is admitting that debt and hardship are a barrier to potential students. Having recognised this, the decision to introduce differential fees and raise student debt makes it just another paradox in ill-thought out government policy.

So, the fudging of figures continues as government facts turn into fiction.

NUS has always maintained that increasing fees and debts is not the way to get a broad spectrum of people into university. It is astonishing that the government opted to bring back a nominal grant and abolish up-front fees, yet actually triple the cost of studying at university.

NUS has facts and figures - thousands of our members are being priced out of education every year; thousands are forced to drop out due to financial problems and thousands are put off from even applying to university due to the fear of debt. The problem is not how to change them so they accept debts larger than their parents' mortgage, but that the government finally gets its figures right and supports them to have a higher education experience.

The recent backtracks have done little to convince students that the government is any closer to knowing what it wants for higher education than it did 15 months ago.

· Mandy Telford is president of the National Union of Students.