Universities Raising Tuition Fees Above 9K Limit
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If you weren’t already worried about university, and all of the stress that comes with it, some institutions across the country have decided to make life just that little bit more difficult for you. After proposals were made to allow universities offering high-quality teaching to raise their tuition fees above the £9,000 limit, along with inflation in autumn 2017, some have already put plans in place to do so before the Government has even agreed to any official changes.
This includes Durham University, Kent, and Royal Holloway, all of which are already listing tuition fees as £9,250 on their website for the upcoming years, despite not yet having the go-ahead.
Plans to raise tuition fees even higher than the already extortionate rate were announced in last year’s summer budget by George Osborne.
While this news is shocking for some, including Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College union, who stated that “universities advertising increased fees before the law has even been changed is just another blight on the sorry debacle that is the Government’s plan for higher education”, the institutions involved have tried to assure us that they have not done anything wrong.
In a statement, Durham University commented:
On 25 May 2016, the Minister of State for Universities and Science announced to Parliament that an inflationary rate of 2.8% would apply to uplifts in home/EU tuition fee caps for 2017-18 where higher education providers achieve a rating of ‘meets expectations’ under the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF).
Subsequently, the Office for Fair Access (Offa) asked universities to confirm their provisional fees in their 2017/18 Access Agreement.
Durham University has received confirmation from the Department for Business Innovation & Skills that we meet the first year expectations of the TEF.
The University Executive Committee and the Finance & General Purposes Committee therefore agreed and reported to University Council last week the University’s intention to implement an inflationary fee increase.
To meet our obligations under Competition and Markets Authority legislation we are required to provide comprehensive and transparent information to applicants, including in relation to fees, on the University website and at pre-application Open Days (which in our case were held in June 2016).
To ensure that we are CMA compliant this requires indicating that we intend to set a fee of £9,250 to incoming home/EU undergraduate students in 2017/18.
So, what do you think? Is it all just getting too expensive, and are universities just trying to get extra money? Or, will it be worth it for a better education? Let us know.