Universities in rethink over tuition fees

At least 12 institutions reconsidering charging maximum after white paper offered incentives to charge less, watchdog says At least 12 universities are considering substantially dropping their tuition fees for next autumn from the maximum of £9,000, it has emerged. More than a third of English universities – 47 out of 123 – intended to charge £9,000 as their standard fee, the government’s higher education access watchdog reported in July. The estimated average fee was £8,393, the Office for Fair Access (Offa) said. However, universities are now reconsidering their sums after the government has given them incentives to charge less than £7,500, the watchdog said. In a white paper published this summer, ministers told universities that they could bid for 20,000 full-time undergraduate places next year if they charged less than £7,500. Vince Cable, the universities secretary, has said the figure of 20,000 will increase in the future. The white paper was published after universities decided on their fees for next year. Offa said at least 12 universities had asked whether they could change their fees in light of the white paper. On Tuesday, the watchdog sent all universities an email with instructions on how to lower their fees. It said they would need to reissue an agreement stating how they would broaden their mix of students to ensure more teenagers from low-income homes went to university. “You may be considering measures to lower your institution’s net average fee, in order to bid for places,” the email states. ” This guidance … sets out how to make any resulting changes.” Teenagers are deciding which universities to apply for and will submit applications from the end of this month. Some may base their decisions on how much a university’s fees are. Eric Thomas, president of Universities UK – the umbrella group for vice-chancellors – said some universities would want to bid for the 20,000 places and so would lower their fees. He said changing fees would be a “complicated calculation” for universities and institutions would have to “get their skates on”. The white paper allows universities to accept as many students with AAB grades at A-level as they want. Universities would have to calculate how many students with these grades would apply to them, Thomas said. Tuition fees Higher education Students University funding Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 8, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.