Anton Howes: Everybody wins

anton howes Photograph: guardian.co.uk

Nobody loses and everybody wins from the government's proposal to allow universities to create extra places, on top of the government's student quotas, for those willing to pay higher upfront fees.

First, richer students would be paying more upfront for the same university education. In a sense, this is like voluntary progressive taxation: the rich voluntarily pay more, allowing universities to attract more funding to pour back into improving the education of all students. At the same time, richer students choosing to pay upfront fees would effectively be having their subsidies withdrawn.

The benefit is also obvious for the taxpayer: fewer student loans need to be issued for the number of people applying. This constitutes a more efficient use of taxpayers' money, helping only those who need it.

Furthermore, students paying full upfront fees are likely to be more demanding of their universities, wanting their money's worth. One government proposal is to assess the popularity of universities based on the number of upfront feepayers they can attract, adding further pressure on universities to attract the most demanding students. By making universities more competitive and raising standards, all students will benefit.

Lastly, richer applicants with their possible advantages of private schooling and tutoring would no longer provide any competition for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. As upfront places would be additional, the competition for normal places would be less intense, and rich students would no longer be taking places at the expense of less privileged applicants. Making entry to university easier for the poorest can only be a good thing for social mobility.

The principal objection to the proposals is that while things get easier for poorer applicants, the rich will no longer have to compete on merit. However, this is not true. One of the government's proposals is to have "needs-blind" admissions processes. This means candidates would be given offers based on merit alone, the most privileged homes would be able to opt to pay upfront, and additional places would then be created for more disadvantaged students.

The proposals therefore reduce subsidies for the well-off, give the taxpayer more needy students for every pound spent, allow the privileged to pay more, increase the amount of university funding, raise university standards and increase social mobility. Everybody wins.

• Anton Howes studies history at King's College London and is the director of the Liberty League

Aaron Peters: A century of progress disregarded

Aaron Peters Photograph: guardian.co.uk

According to a report by one policy research institution, England is about to experience "the largest single increase in tuition fees anywhere in the world since records began". After fee increases are implemented in the autumn of 2012 England will have the most expensive public universities in the world.

Change since 1998 under all parties has been quick and regressive. However with these proposals we are being offered a glimpse of the Conservative endgame on our universities, this being no state "subsidy" and the possibility of UK students being taught inside a fully privatised system within the shadow of the existing arrangement. This might represent a back door into eradicating the tuition fee ceiling altogether at some later point, with a wholly marketised loans-and-fees system and no role for public provision.

While this may not become policy for now, Willetts is intellectually one of the key figures in this government and his thinking will no doubt weigh very heavily on subsequent Conservative "inspired" reform over the coming years. Make no doubt about it, the logical conclusion of Tory policy on higher education is outright privatisation.

Willetts's ruminations seem born of the recognition that universities, having seen teaching and capital funding cut this year are now grossly under-capitalised. Indeed, many may face bankruptcy over the coming years. Furthermore the tuition fee increase, rather than cutting the deficit and giving the public purse more money in the short term will prove to be revenue negative for as long as a decade, as any credit-based system of funding obviously requires the upfront element of larger loans.

This is the story of the government's record on universities so far, a poorer deal for universities leaving them in a state of institutional mendicancy and a slap in the face to those who defend a system for the many and not the few. A century of progress being haphazardly disregarded.

Such a record is not just malicious and unfair, it is also inept. Today's suggestion by Willetts represents his regular default to a market ideology that already seems to be bringing the system to its knees. It is similar measures to these that have led to increasingly underfunded universities, an unfairer system and ever angrier students, parents and workers. Institutional and moral bankruptcy converge. They still haven't learned. With Willetts and Lansley, Tory incompetence is fast matching Liberal Democrat mendacity.

• Aaron Peters is a PhD candidate at Royal Holloway University and a student activist. He co-edited Fightback! and blogs at Open Democracy and Radical Dandy