Figures reveal deep inequalities between rich and poor universities

By Roger Brown. The gap in income and resources between universities is even greater than that between public and state schools.
In 1999, David Watson and Rachel Bowden published here in Education Guardian their Prosperity Index. They ranked universities by income from all sources per full-time equivalent student, this being a quantitative measure of the institutional resources a student would experience. Watson and Bowden found not only that there were already substantial differences between universities but also that institutions' positions correlated very well with their rank in the national league tables.
These differences persist and have grown. I recently updated the figures, though without allowing for subject mix or London weighting, for the institutions covered in the Guardian University Guide 2013 league tables. In 2010-11, gross income per full-time equivalent student ranged from £65,840 (Cambridge) to £7,050 (Edge Hill); the sector mean was £14,710. More...
So what should be done about these disparities? An immediate step would be to use the existing quality assurance apparatus to ask all institutions charging more than £6,000 to show how the additional revenues are used to improve student education. Those institutions receiving significant amounts of research money should also be required to provide evidence of how staff research benefits student learning (and vice versa). In the longer term, the fee level should be reduced and Higher Education Funding Council grants restored with a much stronger built-in equalising device so there are agreed limits to variations in levels of state support for teaching.
Do we want a fairer university system or don't we?
• Roger Brown is professor of higher education policy, Liverpool Hope University. More...