You’ll pay for this

The annual charge of up to £3000 couldn’t have come at a worse time for the industry. Many construction courses are already struggling to attract school-leavers, and for some, the threat of closure is

ever-present. So the higher the fees, the more places remain unfilled. Even popular architecture courses may suffer, as 18-year-olds count the cost of financing seven years of studies. A graduate with debts of £20,000 will need either rich parents or a highly paid job afterwards to get back in the black. There’s little prospect of that in architecture, where salaries barely reach £30,000 after six years. Creative, but money-conscious, students will favour shorter courses that lead directly to more lucrative careers – such as advertising.

At least a profession such as architecture can fly in recruits from overseas if British graduate numbers fall. Contractors and quantity surveyors are more at the mercy of the UK market. Despite predictions that industry growth will slow this year, construction is still expanding faster than the economy as a whole, and there seems no reason to reduce the estimate that 400,000 recruits will be needed by 2008 – mostly to replace those retiring. With unemployment at a record low of 4.9%, where will the next generation of white-collar professionals come from, if not British universities? No wonder Building reader James Gardiner, of recruitment consultant Hays Montrose, predicts that top-up fees will cause an “industry meltdown” (page 32).

There is another view, though. Perversely, top-up fees might benefit construction, by encouraging more youngsters to take an NVQ in plumbing rather a BA in Sitcom Studies. Which would you prefer? Earning £55,000 a year at Terminal 5 with zero debts, or 10 years of interest payments and a job shovelling fries in Burger King? No contest, really. Perhaps top-up fees will herald a return to the days when bosses started life on the tools rather than in tutorials. But ministers are doing nothing to encourage this. Their higher education policy is directed towards inveigling half of school-leavers into university as means of encouraging greater social mobility and pushing Britain up the European educational league table. It’s a misguided and damaging approach – for students and the industry. It will succeed only in replacing social with educational snobbery. Why can’t a master craftsman have the same status as a master of arts?

The Construction Sector Skills Council argued for an exemption from top-up fees for construction courses last year. It was particularly worried about civil engineering degrees; half

of all the country’s 15,000 professionals are due to retire in the next decade. Not that this cut much ice in Whitehall. At a time when the government is pumping billions into construction through orders for schools and hospitals, ministers will probably balk at having to pay to train the industry’s staff too. No, if top-up fees cause a graduate crisis in construction, it will be down to individual companies to find solutions. They will have to consider offering bright school-leavers bursaries, sponsorship and even debt write-offs, as well as perhaps funding conversion courses for adaptable non-cognate graduates. It seems unjust, but unless MPs inflict defeat on the government in the Commons next week, construction – as well as students – will be footing the bill for top-up fees.