Laura Trott: ‘we’re not on an anti-university crusade’

Public money should be diverted from university courses that fail to lead to jobs and instead be given to colleges and apprenticeships, while universities that perform well on graduate outcomes should be better funded, according to the shadow education secretary.

Conservative MP Laura Trott has insisted that her party is not on an “anti-university crusade” but does want to shift “the focus away from funding university courses which are not benefiting young people”. 

“I believe that universities are doing amazing work for young people; they are a huge export for us as a country, but they’re not all the same,” she said. “And us treating them like they are is actually devaluing some of the excellent work which is going on.”

Speaking at an event hosted by thinktank Policy Exchange on 23 June, the shadow minister said her party wants to stop funding courses “that are not delivering for young people” and instead focus on expanding apprenticeships “which are much more likely to lead to jobs” and deliver better “value for money for the taxpayer”. 

Trott later said: “We want to use some of the money that we save from cutting back on university courses to put money into colleges.”

She added that the party would make sure that the universities “who are delivering for young people are better funded”. 

It comes as the Department for Education announced its own “new deal for young people” on 22 June, including promising to “crack down on poor-quality university courses”.

New plans for the Teaching Excellence Framework could see universities lose funding and face student number controls if they fail to score highly enough on student outcome metrics. 

The plans were drawn up under departing prime minister Keir Starmer’s government and it is unclear whether future ministers will take the same approach. 

Asked about prospective successor Andy Burnham’s education policies, Trott said: “Nobody knows anything about what Andy Burnham thinks because he changes his mind every five seconds.” 

She added that there isn’t “some magical pot of money that he’s going to be able to find” if Labour MPs continue to refuse to cut welfare spending. 

Trott later commented on the incoming lifelong learning entitlement (LLE) – a policy first drawn up under the Conservatives when they were last in power.

She said the LLE has “the ability to revolutionise the way education is delivered” and that enabling people to retrain throughout their careers “is going to be absolutely critical to our future success as an economy because the nature of work is going to change”.

Trott added that the advent of artificial intelligence means universities need a “fundamental rethink” and that the LLE should be part of that. 

“We also have to think about value for money and what is actually delivered,” she continued. “Because I do think that for too many young people, they go to university, they will see their tutors a couple of times in a year and then they’ll get some online lectures delivered, and then they’re asked for…nearly [£10,000]. I don’t think that’s OK.

“What I would like to see with the lifelong learning entitlement is a fundamental change in what young people...expect when they give their money out for further education. And I think this is a really exciting and new opportunity to rethink how we do that.

“I just think the university sector has been too slow to really react to the fundamental changes which are taking place under the bonnet,” she said. 

helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com