Architectural Education & the Fee Increases

We have all seen the fees demonstrations, and many of us have been too busy to participate. Unfortunate, but we can’t all afford to attend sit-ins in the run-up to the exam period. I was aching to join in but, as I near then end of further education, it isn’t really my battle.

Well, that’s not really true.

The architectural profession is going to suffer a catastrophic change as a result of this legislation. Indeed, society will change fundamentally. As we all know, as a university degree, architecture is unique. It doesn’t quite belong anywhere. And it already costs a bloody fortune. Most of us will graduate with around £40,000 debt. Ten years ago, you might have graduated with a £1,000 overdraft to worry about. Ah, wouldn’t that be a dream? Now, those coming behind us will be worrying about whether there will be architectural education at all.

There are several issues at play here. The first is the issue of diversity in architecture. The profession has fought long and hard over the past twenty years to try to redress the traditional imbalance within the field. For too long, architecture has been the mainstay of upper-middle class men. For too long women and the working classes have been discouraged from entering architecture. We can now all but cede defeat on progress on that issue. No more will people from low-earning families be able to contemplate a career in architecture, and with a massive increase in pressure on places, women can be sure to be squeezed out too, all to the detriment of the profession; because lets face it, architecture is aggressive, and it will become more so.

The structure of education will change fundamentally. The past decade or so has seen a shift in architecture, with particular regard to architectural education, from an engineering discipline with an artistic aspect towards an artistic endeavour with an engineering basis. The changes in funding mean that arts degrees are going to loose all funding, spelling the end of arts architecture degrees. This will mean all those youthful, innovative new architecture schools up and down the UK will close, and we’ll be back to the stuffy, traditional form of architecture education. The profession will return to a rational discipline, eschewing the artistic endeavour it has become.

Architecture schools are already under-funded, with huge pressures on space. It is quite expensive to provide the current facilities. We all know that studios are often too meagre in their space provision, and it will get worse. Architecture schools without workshops are often much poorer, and these resources will be the first to go. The result will be an educational culture which takes place outside the studio, with students working from home, attending university only for lectures and the odd tutorial. The student will be much more isolated, and the learning experience will be much less collaborative.

Already, students with the financial resources of wealthy parents always succeed in architectural education, because they can comfortably afford all the resources which working-class students cannot. Architectural education requires vast amounts of money to produce the investigation required to succeed. A student loan barely covers the cost of living, so unless you have other resources, you will struggle to keep up with your peers, much less excel. The proposed changes will deter anyone but the wealthy from entering the profession. The gap will widen, not narrow.

As we have seen over the past decade, the cost of education has risen exponentially. We are told that there will be a £6,000 fee-cap, unless in exceptional circumstances. With architecture being one of the most expensive courses to deliver it is likely to qualify for the top band of £9,000. But we can be virtually guaranteed that it won’t stop there. How high are fees likely to go? £15,000 £20,000? Who knows?

How many working class people are likely to want to start out on life with a £150,000 debt? That’s a £300,000 debt per household, before you even start out on life, never mind the interest. Will this mean the end of private home ownership for all but the upper classes? Lets not forget that in the modern world a university degree is all but a necessity in the workplace, and hardly a privilege at all. So, in order to achieve anything other than a minimum wage job, you will be required to get into £90,000 of debt. And where will all this money go? Who will provide these loans? Will they be provided by banks, who will make money from the interest after having squandered the nations value and gotten us into this mess? Or will, as currently happens, the government bank your monthly repayments, take money off the monthly interest that you repay, before making annual repayments on your loan, thus pocketing the profits of speculations on your money?

This brings me to the fundamental issue of the principle of this change in how we value our society. The argument is that students should invest in their own future. We know from international research, and we can see it quite plainly in action, that national investment in higher education benefits everyone in society, not just the graduates. The most vulnerable members of society, those on benefits, benefit most from investment in society. If we look at countries with imbalanced higher education systems, like America, we see that their education system is a disaster, an international laughing stock, with an incredibly unequal society that results in a much less productive economy. And everybody suffers because of it. The poor are much poorer; crime rates are much higher; the health system is much worse; the social security system costs much more; the average life expectancy is much lower. And even the best graduates are much dimmer than you would expect.

Not only do the proposed changes in educational funding imply the end of architectural education, but they also represent an erosion of social progress; a regression to a Victorian standard of class division and values.

I think, no matter what my university commitments come the next round of protests, I’ll be out on the street.

Gabhan Bradley - 6thb year architecture student

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