individual universities will not derive any direct financial benefit from becoming more attractive to students, the graduate tax would "provide little incentive or adequate resource for universities to drive up quality" according to the Russell Group. Criticisms include the transitional problems which exist where students are going through university but not paying the tax. Retrospective taxation of those already graduated creates significant transition issues on moral as well as practical grounds. Moral in that retrospective taxation of those who graduated many years ago removes their choice to avoid taxation by following other routes to education to avoid the tax, and practical in that those who have already paid tuition fees would rightly consider this double taxation without some form of debt forgiveness. It also overlooks those who self-funded, and hence are being effectively taxed twice. Free-market thinkers have criticised the graduate tax for not creating a market based element in higher education. Alistair Jarvis of the 1994 Group of research universities has stated: "Any mechanism that prevents variable fees and the functioning of a regulated market would be damaging to the sector...We strongly support a regulated market because this is the best way to drive up excellence in research and teaching, and to deliver student satisfaction. A system of variable fees has been, and remains, the correct strategy. This system should be developed, rather than fundamentally changed." It has also been argued by The Independent that it is too early to change the system again in the United Kingdom. Greenaway argues that a graduate tax would not deliver additional resources rapidly and that there is a potential problem of 'leakage' with EU nationals leaving the UK and therefore not paying the tax. A graduate tax is unpopular with Russell Group Vice-Chancellors as it would likely result in distribution of research funding more evenly to all universities without regard to performance, competence or quality. Nicholas Barr, professor of public economics at the London School of Economics has praised the current system of student loans as a method of financing higher education, arguing that variable fees foster competition that is of benefit to both students and employers. Another problem concerns how foreign students at UK universities and emigrants from Britain would be treated by the tax. Madsen Pirie of the free-market Adam Smith Institute, writing in The Daily Telegraph, argues that it is wrong for talented graduates to face higher taxes under