Public School Undergrads Must Pay Up

It was Sir Robin Butler - sometime cabinet secretary, master of University College, Oxford, and, as far as I know, neither a doctrinal Marxist nor a member of the Militant Tendency - who suggested that undergraduates who enter higher education from public schools pay too little towards their tuition fees. Sir Robin is certainly a defender, and probably a devotee, of what is coyly called "the independent sector". But respect for reason made him rhetorically enquire why parents who can afford £20,000 a year for school fees should be subsidised by the state when their scions make their predestined path to higher education.

The theoretical question has an immediate and practical application. Why should parents who send their sons and daughters to the Lambeth schools which are not good enough for Oliver Letwin's children subsidise the Tory MP and banker when, as no doubt he intends, his son moves on from Eton to an ancient university? Unlike most arguments about the public schools, the issue of principle which Sir Robin Butler raised cannot be sidetracked by bogus claims about protecting individual liberty. John Stuart Mill did not assert that, in a free society, the poor have a duty to pay for the privileges of the rich.

Fifty years ago - acting in my capacity as student agitator - I would have argued that means tests are a humiliation and that undergraduates should be treated as adults rather than as dependent children. I was also dedicated to the "Robbins Principle" - a university place for everyone who possesses both ability and motivation. The two beliefs ran happily side by side when one in 10 school leavers went on to higher education. Now that we aspire to raise the proportion to 50%, neither fees nor maintenance grants can automatically arrive in the post on the day after A-level results are published.

I believe in a graduate tax. That has been ruled out. So the argument for charging most to those who can most easily pay is irresistible. And Sir Robin's use of the public schools to illustrate that self-evident truth raises some interesting collateral questions. Long, long ago, I told the Incorporated Association of Preparatory Schools of my desire "initially to reduce and eventually to abolish fee-paying education in this country". That turned out to be just another ambition unfulfilled. But I remain amazed by the way in which the public schools are supported by the state. Their charitable status is one absurdity. Subsidising their alumni at universities is another.

Private education is a positional good - an asset often acquired not so much for its intrinsic merits as for what it demonstrates about its owners' place in society. But public-school parents always insist - as did Oliver Letwin last week - that their only objective is to guarantee the best possible education for their sons and daughters. That objective is not always achieved. Many independent schools provide no more than a distinctive blazer. But no doubt Eton - small classes, highly qualified teachers, an ethos of confidence and success - can offer a boy of average ability more than a Lambeth comprehensive school can provide.

In short, Oliver Letwin and his kind use their wealth to acquire advantage which their neighbours cannot afford. Perhaps they are entitled to buy their children the university place which might not be won from within the state system. But why should their spending power be rewarded by a handout from the Treasury? By paying for private education, they are - in effect - purchasing for themselves and their families a three-year subsidy. The government wants more well-off parents to send their children to state schools. Charging the full tuition fee to pupils from fee-paying schools would promote that objective.

The public-school parents of Britain will let neither pride nor principle deter them from accepting help they no more need than deserve. So the government ought to take the decision for them. Anyone who pays for their children's schooling should be obliged to do the same when their sons and daughters go to university. Do not tell me that the European declaration of human rights will not allow it. If we can sidestep the obligation to succour asylum seekers, we can do the same with families who send their sons and daughters to Eton and Cheltenham Ladies' College.

Letters inspired by the public school front-organisations will soon arrive at the Guardian. They will accuse me of promoting the class war and the "politics of envy". RH Tawney was right again. The rich always cry tyranny when they are prevented from exploiting the poor. It is dishonest to pretend that Oliver Letwin's interests coincide with those of the family living on JobSeekers' Allowance in a part of Lambeth less salubrious than that which he occupies. And it is monstrous to use their taxes to subsidise the higher education of young men and woman for whom privilege has been bought at the rate of £20,000 a year.