A review of tuition fees is poised to unsettle coalition government

One of the potential benefits of university tuition fees, which people often forget to mention, is that, by directly linking a student's financial contribution to the service they receive this may actually create incentives for university staff to actually teach as poor performance, and the long-term reputation ramification this creates, will have more substantive implications (students as consumers are more demanding than students as taxpayer-subsidised agents). This is something Adam Smith noted in the Wealth of Nations in which he compared the superior teaching experience of the University of Glasgow (where teaching incentives existed) with the rather different experience he received at Oxford where college endowed professors had quite different incentives:
"In the University of Oxford, the greater part of the public professors have, for these many years, given up altogether even the pretence of teaching."
(As anyone who is at Oxford knows, our relatively imperious professors have not changed their way much since Smiths days).

Universities are institutions created to produce students who develop innovative ideas. They must be financially and morally supported by government and business. Students should never have to worry about tuition fees, because if they do well in their studies they should be guaranteed employment by their industry sponsor. In other words the apple should never be put before the cart. Ensure education programs are supported by industry who creates the real jobs.
The recent problem with universities is that they have become self-serving. Employment within government has outpaced private industry. Wages and pensions within government have outpaced private industry, as have wages within universities. One has to be a government employee to afford university.

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