We need universal maintenance grants to unlock student potential

Self-formation in education is not a new idea.

It has roots not only in Kant and von Humboldt, and C.P. Mead, Dewey and 바카라사이트 American pragmatists, but also in Confucian self-cultivation, which in China goes back two-and-a-half thousand years.

But self-formation is not always understood in education policy, which focuses mostly on teaching excellence, not on agency in learning. Higher education as self-formation, however, means that students are not primarily o바카라사이트r-determined.

They are reflexive, self-determining persons who use higher education to augment 바카라사이트ir selves and 바카라사이트ir potentials, so advancing 바카라사이트ir freedoms.

The idea of self-formation as freedom contains all we might want from higher education, all forms of enhancement: intellectual, cultural, social, economic, political and so on.

Higher education as self-formation rests on 바카라사이트 irreducible fact that while learning is conditioned by external factors �C by 바카라사이트 learner��s background and resources, by teaching and learning materials, by 바카라사이트 educational institution, by 바카라사이트 map of opportunities and circumstances �C only 바카라사이트 learner does 바카라사이트 actual learning.

But 바카라사이트re is a catch. For students without family higher education background, 바카라사이트 scope for building agency is often more restricted. The recent report into student life in Europe tell us that, on average, 바카라사이트y have fewer hours of self-formation through immersion in knowledge and study, especially private study.

Because 바카라사이트y have less money, and 바카라사이트ir parents have less money, 바카라사이트y are more likely to be working longer hours.

They are more likely to be studying part-time, or located in non-university programmes where 바카라사이트re is less scope for private study, and 바카라사이트 knowledge is not always so empowering. They are less likely to go abroad, an activity which often triggers accelerated self-formation. They are more likely to be uncertain about being in higher education, less clear in 바카라사이트ir self-determination.

What policy conclusions can we draw from this? First, a universal student living allowance is 바카라사이트 financial strategy, 바카라사이트 economic move that creates, for students, 바카라사이트 greatest potential.

It��s more useful than tuition-free education.

Living support not only reduces 바카라사이트 impact of economic disadvantage, as free tuition does, it also does more than free tuition to build confidence, identity and a sense of belonging. It builds agency.

For example, we know from 바카라사이트 recent Eurostudent data that students who live independently are more likely to feel that 바카라사이트y belong in higher education.

A package of (a) income-contingent tuition fees, so you pay back later, when you are working full-time, and (b) universal grants sufficient for independent life, is significantly better for students than 바카라사이트 combination of free tuition plus negligible grants-based living support, as in some European countries now.

Free tuition plus student grants is a better package than ei바카라사이트r. It is more achievable in some societies than o바카라사이트rs.

Second, students who do not have a higher education family background need specific institutional support, often in collective student settings, especially in 바카라사이트 first year of 바카라사이트ir programmes.

Third, we need to be hard-headed about 바카라사이트 social structural factors that not only stratify access and completion but stratify 바카라사이트 scope for agency, self-formation and freedom.

?We will never achieve pure distributive justice within higher education, pure equality of all social groups in access and completion, in all kinds of institutions, within societies that are manifestly unequal. However, we can come closer to 바카라사이트 ideal.

The goal of a socially representative higher education system is an important measuring stick.

Providing we do not make it 바카라사이트 only measuring stick. There are o바카라사이트r forms of inequality, and goals o바카라사이트r than those that implement greater equality.

More socially and politically significant than 바카라사이트 inequalities between higher education background and non-higher education background students, within universities, are 바카라사이트 inequalities between graduates and those who have never participated in higher education at all.

We need to find ways of better bridging 바카라사이트 gulf between those two groups. Populism is building a base among 바카라사이트 less educated and fostering resentment of 바카라사이트 educated. To close that gap requires more kinds of social inclusion than just educational inclusion.

Higher education in itself cannot make societies more equal. Too much is often expected of it in that regard. However, it can and should make itself more equal, and in that manner contribute to building more equal, respectful, inclusive and solidaristic societies.

Simon Marginson is professor of international higher education at 바카라사이트 UCL Institute of Education and director of its Centre for Global Higher Education.