Students Are Topped Up
June 6th, 2007
Undergraduate fees are expected to double in order for the curriculum to stay competitive.
Tuition fees used to be around £1,200 per year. However, the top-up fees introduced this academic year reach £3,000. The Higher Education Bill has set them until 2010 for England and Northern Ireland.
For the detractors of the fees - such as students, academics, and the Scottish MPs who decided to keep universities free - that steady hike reveals the government's incapacity to protect the principle of an egalitarian education.
Even Malcolm Grant, provost of the University College London (UCL) and chairman of the Russell Group - which is campaigning for the rise of top-up fees - admits that "the State cannot subsidize higher education for all anymore."
Highly criticised for favouring wealthy students, top-up fees have apparently not scared off modest income families. A 7.1 per cent rise among undergraduates in England and Northern Ireland backs up Tony Blair's decision to turn the higher education sector into a beneficial activity.
But in order to prevent students who have financial difficulties from dropping out of university, the government has implemented a system whereby undergraduates get loans that bear their teaching expenses during their three years of studying.
They then have to refund the money once they graduate, which entails earning at least £15,000 a year.
The hike also tries to help universities that suffer from the drop in teaching funds.
"The priority of the Conservative governments was never higher education. From 1981 to 1997, they regularly reduced the budget devoted to universities and colleges," says David Eastwood, chief executive of the Higher Education Funding.
For UK Universities, the higher education action group, top-up fees are not the sign of the regression of the higher education system, but a logical step towards its harmonisation since part-time, postgraduate and overseas students are already subjected to these types of fees.
The Russell Group, composed of 20 major research-intensive universities in the UK, indicates that high quality professors and advanced equipment cost more and more money.
For the dean of a Russell Group institution, England has to follow the US scheme, even if it isolates the country from the rest of Europe. "If we want top-class universities, we need to find more funding whatever it takes," he said.
The National Union of Students (NUS) has expressed deep concerns about the new system. "We sincerely hope that American style fees are not announced to match American style additional fundraising mechanisms."
image source: David King
