How Wales Works: University challenges under devolution

With so much emphasis on changes to how pupils are taught in our schools it is easy to forget how different Wales' universities are after 16 years of devolution.

Firstly, there are fewer of them.

It is worth remembering, of course, that calls for fewer universities in Wales were being made before 1999, but with the creation of the assembly, Wales could mould its higher education (HE) sector to meet its own needs.

In his book on education since devolution in Wales, journalist Gareth Evans says that since 1999 there have been almost constant calls to reconfigure Wales' universities.

But the reluctance of institutions to co-operate or to surrender power meant that education ministers like Jane Davidson and Jane Hutt decided wholesale reform was not a priority.

That all changed when Leighton Andrews took over the brief in 2009. He decided enough was enough and change was needed; that what Wales needed was fewer, larger universities.

As a result, the number of universities in Wales fell from 13 to 10.

It was not all easy; it took the threat of High Court action before Cardiff Metropolitan University was allowed to remain without merging with Glamorgan and Newport universities to create the huge University of South Wales.

So has it been worth all the effort?

You rarely see immediate benefits with changes to education policy as they can take time to bed in.

The most recent results we have suggest that, in 2014, nearly a third of the research by Welsh universities was of "world-leading" quality. That was both better than the UK average and an improvement on the last set of results in 2008.

Another clear change in HE since devolution is the extra money invested into Welsh-medium provision.

Coleg Cymraeg works across and with all of Wales' universities. It is not about bricks and mortar, rather it employs lecturers who can work through the medium of Welsh as well as offer scholarships for students to follow courses in Welsh.

And while it has succeeded in attracting more students, it's unclear how much value for money it has achieved.

Yes, there are 1,000 more students studying in Welsh now than there were in 2011, there has also been an increase in the number of courses being offered and 115 extra lecturers who can teach in Welsh.

But it has also cost £19m over the past five years.

The biggest change devolution has caused in higher education has to be the Welsh government's Tuition Fee Grant.

When the UK government decided to increase tuition fees in England to £9,000 a year, ministers in Cardiff Bay took a different approach in Wales.

Welsh students only pay £3,685 towards their tuition fees, wherever they study in the UK. The rest - up to £5,315 a year - is paid by the Welsh government.

It means Welsh students leave university with less debt than their counterparts in England. In fact, it is fair to say Welsh students get the most generous deal of any part of the UK.

But the scheme is not without its detractors, as BBC Wales has reported many times. Universities worry they do not know how much money they will get from year to year.

That is because the tuition fee grant is funded partly by students from England who study in Wales.

If you are English (it is the same if you are Scottish or Northern Irish but the numbers of those are very small) you still pay up to £9,000 a year to study at a university in Wales.

But the number of students from Wales who study elsewhere varies from year to year. So does the number of students from England who study in Wales.

For example, last year 7,055 students left Wales to study in England and 10,230 English students came to Wales.

This year 7,750 students left Wales and 10,535 came from England.

Universities in Wales say when a student from Wales "leaves" to go to England, Scotland or Northern Ireland to university, the £5,315 Tuition Fee Grant which follows them "leaves" the HE sector in Wales; that it is money which should be going to universities in Wales.

So while students from Wales may feel they get a good deal, universities insist they get a raw deal.

The policy is being reviewed at the moment, but it really goes to the heart of the whole point of the role of government in higher education.

To put it another way, is it the role of government to make sure students can access higher education without having to worry too much about the cost of tuition fees?

Or should government ensure universities feel they get enough resources to be able to contribute quality research and graduates into the economy?

In Scotland, the government pays all the fees for Scottish students who stay in Scotland to study. Cross the border and you pay the full whack.

In England almost all students pay full fees.

That is a debate currently being considered in a review of HE financing in Wales.

It is also a debate which shows very clearly how devolution can change policy in different parts of the UK.