David Willetts speech at UUK

David Willetts speech at UUK; **BEWARE FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY** **CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY** David Willetts MP (Universities Minister) speech SOT - Now, this is the month when the first students will arrive at university under the new fees regime. I believe the financing changes, despite the controversy, are in the best interests of universities, students, and the nation. As the Institute of Fiscal Studies concluded over the summer, the new regime is "substantially more progressive" than the previous system – with the poorest 30 per cent of graduates set to pay back less over their lifetimes. The IFS noted that universities will receive more money to invest in education, while taxpayers will save around £2,500 per graduate. And we are proud of the extra financial support for part-time students. / So, in constrained circumstances the reforms achieve three crucial objectives. / First we have saved money for the Exchequer without reducing the cash flowing to our universities. In 2011-12, the sum of teaching grant and student loan money reaching institutions was £7.2 billion. In 2012-13, it is £7.4 billion. The indicative figure for 2013-14 is £7.9 billion. That is not bad in these austere times./ Second, there is more competition and choice for the benefit of students. Under the new funding system, students still receive public funding. We have to predict and control this cost, so – like every previous government – we have to maintain student number controls. But we favour relaxing these controls for individual universities within an overall total, so that more students can go to whichever university wants to accept them. We favour maximum possible choice for students, to accommodate for example those who may want to study locally, and those who may want to choose an institution offering lower tuition charges. We are moving from a world in which each institution is allocated a fixed number of students to what is indeed a more open and competitive system. / As...