University of the West of England
The University of the West of England (UWE) has joined Bristol University in charging the full £9,000 tuition fee for undergraduates from 2012.
UWE said it will invest £19m from the new fees to widen access to higher education and improve student support – one of the largest investments by a UK university.
However, this has not impressed students or teachers locally, who fear the fees will put off young people going into higher education.
Professor Steve West, vice-chancellor of UWE, said the money raised would go towards enabling “very capable” students to consider higher education as an option for them.
“If they have the potential to benefit our belief is that no student should miss out on the opportunity of a first-class university experience,” he said. “Our aim has been to make the investment to enable this. To continue to offer value for money to our students in the future we need to invest further and make up for the shortfall of reduced government funding for teaching and student enterprise.”
Last month, Bristol University announced it too would charge the £9,000 maximum rate of tuition fees. A statement from the university said the increase in fees would substitute money which had been lost through cuts.
“Our calculations show that we would need to charge a fee in the region of £8,000 a year just to make up for the cuts in the core teaching grant and capital allocations. Our student support package described above will add a further £1,000 a year to this.
“Thus our decision to charge up to £9,000 per year does not represent a sudden or substantial increase in our funding; it merely substitutes lost revenue from other sources.”
However, writing for Bristol24-7 today, student Philip Bates said he and his peers feared that the common student would become an “endangered species”.
And Barry Creswell, a tutor at Weston College, added:“The original Labour promise of at least 50% of college students going to university is no longer sustainable, under this new decision.
“Some of my students are applying to universities early this year, even if they don’t want to, so they dodge the increased fees. It will have a massive effect on students, giving them fewer options and forcing them to settle for the smaller institutions”
Meanwhile, the students’ union at UWE has said that while it is opposed to the funding system, it was pleased with the investment in support and access.
President of UWE students’ union, Colin Offler said: “The Students’ Union are still opposed to the funding system itself which still has a number of ambiguities which have yet to be satisfactorily addressed by central government.
“A predominant concern has been that an increase in fees may lead to a decrease in the number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds aspiring to attend University. The Students’ Union are therefore pleased to see that UWE are re-investing so heavily in student support and widening participation.”
All universities are going for the £9,000 limit as none wants to be seen as a second-rate seat of learning by charging any less.
I'm originally a working class kid who did a degree on a full grant at a polytechnic (which UWE originally was). Were I in the same position today, I would have been put off higher education by the thought of running up so much debt.
Well done dons and politicians; you've turned education from a right into a privilege.