University course fees a must for 2020 expansion

Making students pay their way for university education will be essential if Malta is to reach a 2020 target to increase full-time students to 35% of those aged 18-21.

Philip von Brockdorff, a veteran of the civil service, writes in the Bank of Valletta Journal that increasing university students by 1,588 over present levels will require €13.5 million for their stipends, and another €8 million for the university budget.

Von Brockdorff, who is also chairman of the university’s Institute of Public Administration, says the university will be caught in a pincer between trying to attract more students, and the pressure they put on its already-strained resources.

The National Commission for Higher Education’s (NCHE) 2020 strategy aims to attract 5,000 fee-paying students to study in Malta. But this means either excluding non-resident EU students, who currently benefit from the free regime, or that all fee-paying students must be attracted from outside the EU.

But von Brockdorff also reveals that Malta’s university has a dismal €820,000 for research funds, and just €760,000 for co-financed EU projects – a true testimony to Malta’s bottom rankings in European research and development leagues.

“If we are to reach the participation rate target of 35 per cent in tertiary education by 2020, the budget vote for higher education would have to be increased further to support greater student numbers and to maintain standards in the level of education at the UoM,” von Brockdorff writes.

“This target participation will also require more expenditure on stipends and one might need to consider alternative support mechanisms including student loan schemes in order to divert funds into new investments in higher education to support the target participation rate.”

Referring to how the economic crisis can affect higher education, he points out that universities whose revenue was from endowments had run into financial difficulties because of failing asset values. “Additionally, governments in both US and UK are running massive budget deficits,” he writes, adding that these will need to be repaid at some point “and universities are likely to face cuts to their budgets in the near future.”

He also warns that Malta’s deficit-reduction action could limit the government’s ability to fund the university. “Among countries which have been hardest hit by the economic recession, such as Ireland Hungary, and Latvia, it already has.”

The “inevitable question”, Brockdorff asks, is how will increased participation, further investment in research and quality be paid for.

Dismissing funding from private donations or commercial university companies – an option touted by the education ministry – von Brockdorff identifies two courses of action.

“The first is to increase efficiency and productivity by teaching more students with fewer faculties,” he says, questioning however how soon such as shift in mentality could be achieved.

The second options is to inject more private money into the system through cost-sharing by charging tuition fees. “This option will no doubt raise a few political eyebrows, even if it is accompanied by a student loan scheme at very favourable terms.”

If not addressed, Brockdorff warns “the financial difficulties will constraint the choices facing this and future governments and the tensions faced by the UoM on funding will weigh heavily on the minds of University management for many years to come.”

The rector of the University of Malta has also warned that setting up a fees system for university courses will be “crucial” if the institution is to generate more revenue for its development.

In his report ‘2020 Vision or Optical Illusion’, Professor Juanito Camilleri writes of his concern that the university’s internal revenue stream “has not grown in absolute terms” it cannot charge neither EU nor Maltese students for day courses, and that fees for MATSEC exams, evening courses, and for non-EU students are regulated by government.

“The adoption of a system of fees for all courses and for all students in tandem with a scholarship scheme which covers both tuition fees and maintenance for EU nationals who are established residents of Malta is crucial,” Camilleri said.

“A system of indirect financing of higher education institutions, through cost-based fees, may be the most desirable way forward, at least to finance the teaching aspect of such institutions,” he writes.

Camilleri says that financing the expansion of the university and the Junior College sixth form requires a 33% growth in revenue between 2011 and 2013 – amounting to €58 million in 2011, €66 million in 2010, and €72 million in 2013. In 2010, the University and Junior College were jointly allocated €49,000,000.