More on funding tertiary education THE DISCUSSION is up and running. I have received several, mostly positive, private responses to my column of May 5, 'Financing tertiary education'. Ronnie Thwaites discussed it with me favourably the following morning on Independent Talk. The Gleaner has run a supportive editorial on May 15. And Robert Gregory, the executive director of the HEART Trust/NTA who is also chairman of the Board of the Student Loan Bureau, has written a lengthy response offering an explanation why the HEART Trust fund should not be tapped for student loans (The Gleaner, May 23). Today, I would like to take the discussion further in response to Mr. Gregory's position. Right up front, it is useful to consider vested interests and how these might affect the discourse on such a vital matter as financing tertiary education which is so widely regarded as a main key to further national development. Mr. Gregory speaks as the executive director of the HEART Trust/NTA who would necessarily have the strongest of interest in preserving the status quo with respect to the use of the funds of the Trust. To declare my hand, I have various attachments to, and engagements with, the three home-based universities operating in the country two public and one private. I have both studied in and worked in community colleges. I have been involved with the work of the HEART Trust on and off from ground zero in 1982 and have a high regard for the work of the institution from the Joyce Robinson days to the Robert Gregory days. My vested interest is in the expansion of tertiary education, the greater availability of loan financing to students, the scrapping of the 'scientific means test' which the SLB uses to grant loans only to so-called 'needy' students, and greater equity in the deployment of public revenue for post-secondary education. The discussion properly ought to go well beyond Robert and myself and engage the leadership of tertiary education institutions, tertiary students, employers, taxpayers, and the Government itself, all stakeholders with their own perspectives and interests in tertiary education and its public financing. Today's column is a call to these stakeholders to come in. Mr. Gregory and I agree on at least two important things: The HEART Trust/NTA has done, and is doing, good and important work in a range of areas. We need not be detained by a long, rehearsed itemisation. Secondly, there is a need to shift the burden of the cost of post-secondary education more away from the taxpayer and the public purse onto students and parents. But why the beneficiaries of the HEART Trust/NTA should be exempt from this 'radical' prescription has not been explained by Mr. Gregory in a long article. The stated unique mission of the HEART Trust/NTA "to work with employers who have been paying the agency to prepare workers who will add value to their businesses and enterprises" begs the questions: Do college and university graduates add anything to the economy? If so, compared to HEART graduates, how much? Why should employers (through direct taxation for the purpose) not pay for other graduates who may add to the value of their enterprises? Is the HEART Trust/NTA solely responsible to produce 'a world class Jamaican workforce'? It is highly incongruous to argue in the same breath for the reduction of state support for college and university students while justifying full coverage state expenditure on HEART Trust/NTA beneficiaries. What case can be made that HEART beneficiaries are more deserving? A practical case will further illustrate the structural incongruity built into the system: two youngsters are graduating from grade 11. One with six CXC passes, the other with two. The higher achiever gets into college and pays 15 per cent of tuition cost (Mr. Gregory is proposing moving up to 60 per cent). The low achiever is accepted into a HEART Trust programme not only at full tuition but with a subsidy for expenses. No one intended such an inequitable skew. When the Trust was established there were no tertiary fees. The introduction of the cess changed the equation. As Robert has reminded us "the HEART Trust was created in 1982 as a signal response to high youth unemployment and the relatively low absorption of secondary school [mostly under-achieving] graduates into the economy." But the reality on the ground today is that secondary school successes are punished to go into tertiary education while underachievers are rewarded for going into HEART Trust programmes. This is no indictment of HEART or of Mr. Gregory's distinguished work with the agency. It is a simple common sense statement of fact. Certainly in the short to mid-term the HEART Trust second chance programmes and vocational training programmes based on Grade 9 (not Grade 11) education cannot be scrapped. Such a desirable move must await the large-scale improvement of secondary education. As things stand, and as Mr. Gregory knows much better than I, there are substantial problems in finding enough Grade Nine-competent students for these programmes. The proposition "to reconstruct the configuration of university and college fees to represent a higher percentage of real economic cost [to students]" coincides with my own view that "there needs to be... a shift away from the entrenched view of college education as a right (for a few) to be provided by the state, to the view of professional education as a personal investment made in self-development against future income (by the many)". But when linked to such a stout defence of retaining the HEART Trust status quo as untouchable by the executive director, then self-interest seems to be obstructing both fairness and reason. There is no real justification (not even a political one now) for HEART beneficiaries to be endowed with such advantages vis a vis college and university students. There is no reason that I can discern why a tax for skills training cannot be extended to providing support (loan not grant) for tertiary level professional training which pumps skills into the economy at the highest level. Such a move would help to partly redress a major anomaly in the public financing of post-secondary education and would be a significant move towards greater equity. The HEART Trust/NTA, rather than suffering 'loss', as its executive director fears, would be extending its usefulness to a higher plane as a major player in the system, continuing a commendable trend of expanded services in post-secondary education. It is time to broaden this discussion. Martin Henry is a communications consultant.
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