'Most universities' want top fees

19 April 2011 Last updated at 02:47 GMT By Sean Coughlan BBC News education correspondent Most universities that have declared their intentions want to charge £9,000 on at least some degrees At least two-thirds of universities in England want to charge £9,000 a year for some or all courses, an updated BBC survey of tuition fee plans suggests.

The survey of 71 institutions suggests maximum fees will not be "exceptional" as the government had claimed.

It coincides with the deadline for universities to submit their fee plans for 2012 to the Office for Fair Access.

The government argues that fee waivers and cheaper degree courses in further education will lower the average cost.

Aaron Porter, the outgoing president of the National Union of Students, accused the government of causing "costly chaos" with its university reforms.

"When the government forced these ill-considered plans through Parliament, they claimed that fees above £6,000 would be the exception rather than rule, but that was quite clearly a pipe dream," said Mr Porter.

According to the BBC survey, based on 71 higher education institutions that have declared their plans, 47 want to charge £9,000 fees for some or all of their courses.

There are 39 universities which so far have indicated that they want to charge £9,000 for all courses.

Universities have now reached the point at which they have to submit their plans for tuition fees and for protecting access for poorer students when the upper limit on fees is increased in 2012.

But the full picture of tuition fees will not be known publicly until July, when the Office for Fair Access confirms the fees that it has approved for each university.

Funding fears

A higher level of tuition fee from its current capped level of £3,290 per year will mean a higher level of public funding for the up-front student loans.

And since the government had based its funding plans on an average fee of £7,500, there have been warnings of a "black hole" in the university budget.

But ministers have been confident that the average loan will be much lower than the headline figure for fees - and they reject any suggestion of a financial crisis.

Many universities are offering discounts for poorer students, in the form of fee waivers, and there are likely to be degree courses available from further education colleges which will be much cheaper.

Students at private universities will also be able to obtain loans, up to £6,000 per year, further pushing down the likely average student loan.

However, universities are still concerned about the possibility of further cuts and a reduction in the number of university places for students.

A White Paper setting out how higher education will be reformed in England is expected in the summer.

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Top fees 'at half universities'

8 April 2011 Last updated at 14:14 GMT By Angela Harrison Education correspondent, BBC News Tuition fees will rise in 2012 Far more English university students than originally expected will be paying the maximum tuition fee of £9,000 a year, BBC research suggests.

Half of the 54 universities which took part in a BBC survey said they would charge £9,000 for all courses.

And about two thirds said they would charge the top rate for some or all courses.

Ministers say it is "early days" and they expect the average fee to be "significantly lower".

The average fee of those universities taking part in the survey was about £8,500.

Originally, ministers had said they wanted the top fee to be charged only in "exceptional circumstances".

The BBC research suggests there will big differences in the financial support offered to poorer students, with some being offered as much as a £6,000 "discount" or fee waiver.

Among the universities that will charge £9,000 for all courses, the fee waiver for the poorest students ranges from £2,000 to £6,000 a year.

Changes mean that from autumn 2012, universities in England will be able to raise tuition fees from the present level of £3,290 a year to between £6,000 and £9,000, if they meet certain conditions.

Students will pay the fees once they graduate and are earning at least £21,000, and there will be support for those from poorer homes.

More than 50 of England's 134 universities took part in the survey.

The BBC contacted the 111 state-funded universities that offer undergraduate courses, but not private universities nor those offering only postgraduate courses and 54 responded.

More than 30 universities have already made their plans public and have details on their websites.

The BBC survey includes institutions that have not yet published their fee levels, which gave the information on the basis that they would not be identified.

A total of 45 universities were able to give a clear average fee. The average of these was £8,536.

Of the 10 prestigious Russell Group universities that took part, nine said they would charge £9,000 for all courses.

Their fee waivers, or discounts, for poorer students range between £2,500 and £6,000.

Prof Janet Beer, Oxford Brookes University, on how students can avoid extra fees

Of the 1994 Group, which represents other leading research universities, eight out of 11 universities that responded said they intended to charge £9,000 across the board.

Of the newer Million+ universities, only half - six out of the 12 that responded - will be charging £9,000 for some or all courses. Two say that they will charge £9,000 for all courses.

The fees should all be made public by late June or mid-July, months before teenagers apply for university places for 2012.

They will be published by the Office for Fair Access (Offa), together with the extra bursaries and fee waivers they plan to offer poorer students.

Offa is working through universities' plans for these at the moment and has to approve them.

It has the power to take away a university's right to charge fees of more than £6,000 a year if it is not doing enough to attract and financially support students from poorer homes.

Threatened cuts

Ministers have warned that further cuts could be made to teaching budgets if too many universities set higher fees.

Originally, they had said they had expected universities to charge £9,000 only in "exceptional circumstances".

Vince Cable warned universities against charging top fees

The government based its calculations on what the new system would cost the state, on an estimate that the average fee for a university course would be £7,500 a year.

But universities are independent bodies and many say they need to charge maximum fees to make up for the loss of funds from teaching grants.

In response to the survey, Universities Minister David Willetts said it was "important to look beyond the £9,000 headline".

Once bursaries for poorer students and lower fees likely to be charged by private providers were taken into account, he said, the average was likely to be "significantly below" £9,000.

Mr Willetts also says universities could have 10% more in cash terms by 2014 under the new system.

The government's changes to university funding are based on the idea that fees will rise and replace money being taken from teaching budgets.

Course closures

Four universities surveyed by the BBC said they expected courses to close as a result of the funding changes.

One university said it expected more than 10 courses to close.

More than 30 universities have now declared the fees they plan to charge next year.

Those planning to charge the maximum are Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial College London, University College London, Manchester, Warwick, Essex, Leeds, Durham, Lancaster, Bath, Birmingham, Loughborough, Exeter, Sussex, Surrey, Liverpool, Aston, Liverpool John Moores, Reading, Kent, Central Lancashire, Leicester, Nottingham and Oxford Brookes.

The BBC News website has published a list of the universities that have declared their fees so far.

The Shadow Business Secretary John Denham said the government had "completely lost control" and future generations of students had been betrayed and would face "even higher fees than the government promised parliament three months ago".

"With more universities charging £9000 the government is set to have a big funding gap they will need to fill," he said.

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Universities told to widen access

9 February 2011 Last updated at 18:48 GMT There are plans to protect poorer students from the controversial tuition fee increases Universities in England are being told that if they want to charge higher fees they must make greater efforts to attract students from poorer backgrounds.

Having raised the maximum fee level to £9,000 per year, the government wants to ensure that higher fees will not exclude poorer students from university.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who angered students by breaking his pledge to vote against raising tuition fees, argues that universities must do more to promote social mobility.

"There is a social crisis in this country - a crisis of opportunity. Universities, the gateway to the professions, are too often acting to inadvertently narrow opportunities, rather than widen them," said Mr Clegg.

But the National Union of Students' president, Aaron Porter, issued an angry response to Mr Clegg, accusing him of "lying" to students over fees, and saying he was "living in a fantasy-land" if he thought he could become a "champion for students".

Universities wanting to charge more than £6,000 will be expected to show that they are making progress in areas such as outreach work, attracting poorer students and increasing the proportion of state school pupils.

These are likely to be individual benchmarks, worked out between universities and the Office for Fair Access.

Scholarships

These access agreements will be reviewed each year, rather than every five years at present.

Universities will be looking carefully to see what sanctions could be applied if benchmarks are missed - and at what will happen if no agreement can be reached.

Full details will be set out by Business Secretary Vince Cable in a letter to the director of the Office for Fair Access on Thursday.

Universities UK said that all universities shared a commitment to broadening access, but there had to be a flexible and autonomous approach for individual universities.

The measures on access also include further details of a National Scholarship Programme for poorer students - which in the first year will provide £50m of support - rising to £150m after three years.

When it is fully running it will assist 48,000 students per year - with funding worth at least £3,000 in the form of bursaries, fee waivers or discounts on accommodation.

Universities will be watching to see how much power will be given to the access regulator.

There are also different views on how widening participation in higher education should be measured.

Social mobility

The 1994 Group, representing research-intensive universities, suggests that it should mean more than a simple headcount of numbers of poorer students being given places.

"Laying down crude targets will do nothing to aid social mobility," said Paul Wellings, chairman of the 1994 Group and vice chancellor of Lancaster University.

They suggest that "diversity" in intake can take many forms and that measuring the success of poorer students who have been through a university might be as valid as counting those given places.

Different types of university also face different challenges.

Among the prestigious Russell Group universities there might be too few state school pupils - and among 1994 Group there might be too few students recruited from poorer areas.

While for new universities the challenge might be to improve retention rates among students.

The toughening of such access regulations are part of a wider change in university funding.

Budget cuts

While the access agreements will apply pressure to keep down fees - universities argue that they need to raise fees because the government has cut funding.

Oxford University says it needs to charge fees of at least £8,000 to replace university budget cuts.

There have also been warnings from the Million+ group, representing new universities, that access agreements should not be used to restrict their chance of raising funds from higher fees.

As well as wanting to protect access for poorer students, the government will also be concerned about the cost of student finance if too many universities charge fees approaching the maximum level.

The UCU lecturers' union says that since almost every university will need to charge fees of more than £6,000 to cover budget cuts, access agreements could "deprive institutions of funds".

There are also tuition fee changes ahead for other parts of the UK.

In Northern Ireland, a report commissioned by the Department of Employment and Learning (DEL) has recommended that fees should rise to a maximum of £5,750.

In Wales, students are protected from increases in tuition fees, with the Welsh Assembly Government subsidising the cost of higher fees.

In Scotland, students do not pay tuition fees.

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