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Poorer students will pay more for a degree under government access plans

10 February 2011

UCU today said the government's guidance for universities wishing to charge high fees was merely tinkering with a failed system and would not mask the government's 'systematic removal of access to education'. The union pointed out that the poorest students would actually be worse off under the new plans.

Under the new plans, students from the poorest backgrounds who wish to study at universities charging £9,000 a year will receive a scholarship worth at least £3,000, leaving them with a considerable bill to repay after graduation. Under the current system, students from the poorest backgrounds do not have to make that graduate contribution as their fees are covered by grants and bursaries.
 
UCU added that it felt the new plans sounded toothless. When pushing hard to persuade Liberal Democrat MPs to break their pre-election pledge to vote against any rise in fees, coalition ministers made much of the fact that any institution that breached or failed to deliver its access agreement would face a fine of up to £500,000.
 
However, there was no mention of fines in this morning's press release from BIS. The original efforts to ensure wider access to universities were devised in 2004, but no institution has been sanctioned for failing to make progress in recruiting students from poorer backgrounds.
 
UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'It is quite incredible that the government has come out and tried to paint these proposals as somehow progressive or fair. Under the current system, students from poorer backgrounds do not have the millstone of tuition fee debt around their necks when they graduate, because their fees are covered by grants and bursaries. Under the new system they will have a bill of at least £3,000 a year to pay back.
 
'All the government has done is tinker with a failed system and this cannot mask the government's systematic removal of access to education. The public are not stupid and they can see that these plans for what they are - a toothless bribe to give some Liberal Democrat MPs an excuse to break the pre-election pledge to vote against any increase in fees.'
 
The union also pointed out that government claims that institutions would only charge fees higher than £6,000 a year were bogus. The union has discovered that every single English institution with undergraduates will have to charge more than £6,000 fees just to plug the funding gap created by the cuts to teaching budgets. The average fee will need to be £6,863.

Last updated: 4 April 2019

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