The £9,000 education

Universities in England and Wales will be able to charge up to £9,000 a year in tuition fees from 2012, an increase of almost 200 per cent.

Fees were initially expected to rise to around £7,000 a year after the Browne Review’s proposals for higher education funding were published but universities minister David Willetts confirmed last week that universities will be able to charge between £6,000 and £9,000.

Mr Willetts said that this would be a “progressive reform”, creating a competitive market where only the best universities would charge the full amount. He stressed that only universities with a proven commitment to widening access to disadvantaged students would be allowed to raise their fees to the upper limit. This would include summer schools and targeted scholarships, although there would be no quotas in place for students from certain backgrounds.

Mr Willetts also announced plans to raise interest levels on student loan repayments for those students with the highest incomes. A new tapered system would mean that a quarter of graduates – those with the lowest incomes – would pay less in repayments than they currently do. However, many students will spend up to 30 years of their working lives paying off student loans, at a rate of around six to eight per cent of income, depending on inflation.

The plans mark a significant departure from Lord Browne’s independent recommendations for funding reforms, which suggested that fees should be uncapped but face a government levy over £7,000.

It is understood that several of the country’s top universities threatened privatisation if the levy was put in place, which would have resulted in much higher fees.

The plans have elicited a mixed response from higher education organisations. The Russell Group welcomed the announcements, claiming that the reforms are the only way for the UK to remain a serious player in university education on a global scale. The Group stressed that the new repayment system would mean disadvantaged students are not deterred from applying and that the country’s leading universities would build on already existing initiatives to promote fair access.

Meanwhile Million+, an organisation of newer universities, warned that in reality the withdrawal of public funding will mean all universities are forced to charge the full £9,000 and that this may damage social mobility.

Speaking to The Journal, Aaron Porter, president of the National Union of Students, supported this claim: “Since top-up fees were introduced we’ve rapidly seen all universities charging the full allowable amount, and I see no reason to believe that won’t happen this time round. Unfortunately, due to the complete removal of government funding for most courses, universities that don’t charge above £6,000 could really struggle.”

Mr Porter said that it is “utterly unacceptable” for the government to expect students to shoulder the bill for budget cuts and that students had been “betrayed” by the Liberal Democrats.

He told The Journal: “If enough Liberal Democrat MPs stick to their pledge and vote against these measures then we'll defeat them so it is important we demonstrate to them how damaging a rise in fees and a cut of the subsidy would be and that minor improvements are window dressing for an ideological shift towards the privatisation of higher education.”

Liam Burns, NUS Scotland president, stressed that the plans would be equally devastating for Scotland. Scottish students studying in England will be forced into “crippling” levels of debt and will fuel calls to raise fees to similar levels for English students studying in Scotland.