Tuition raises.

melancholly

MrsManda wrote: »

So I could take lectures from my local college and end up with a degree from Oxford? - comment from my OH this morning
This is will just reduce the quality of the degree, or at very least reduce the way other view the degree. The point of going to a 'good' university is that you learn from experts in their field, getting an up to date high quality information. The 'curriculum' (brain's not working so can't think of a better word so I hope you know what I mean) of the modules in my degree change rapidly as new research is released etc... I know many degrees don't work like this because of the subject but it is what makes going to my university worth the cost in loans.

i know..... uk universities are just going to unrecognisable in a few years at this rate..... i cannot imagine uni in scotland will remain free for much longer either.

Rosie75

David Willetts gave a speech today which stated that educating university students is a "burden" on the taxpayer. Irrespective of how one feels about university funding, this is an unfortunate turn of phrase coming from the man who, despite his £1.9million personal wealth, claimed £144,000 just on second-home expenses from the taxpayer between 2001 and 2008, including claims for changing lightbulbs and cleaning his showerhead. If it's a choice between students' expenses and Willetts', I know whose I would rather, as a taxpayer, be "burdened" with. As part of a generation which received free University education (Oxford in his case, though he now tells us that FE colleges should be good enough for the rest of the population), Willetts recently published a book entitled "How the Baby Boomers stole their Children's Future - and why they should give it back". He's obviously had a bit of an ideological about-turn since moving into government.

However, having had my rant, and to reply to the OP - I doubt that even the Tories would try to change the funding terms of current university students. And I very much doubt that they could, even if they wanted to. It will take a couple of years, at least to implement this.

atypical

There was talk of fees raising by £1,000 every year starting from 2013. Whilst it isn't anything concrete it gives a feel for the fact that the Browne review considers staggering any increases a good route to go down.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/may/02/university-fees-browne-review

Taiko

I'm annoyed to say this, but I know more on things than I can let on at this stage. Once it's at a position, I'll discuss things more.

Mankysteve

Its the fact that as Leaving Uni you end up pay more in tax anyway.

teddygrowler

Just to let everyone know, my son has just had a reply from student finance advising him of his entitlements and the fees are still at the current level of £3250 so they have not gone up for this year at least.:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j

StudentMoneySaver

I would like to know where the money is actually being spent in Universities and how much of it is actually going towards students' education and how much is being diverted to research.

I'm not to sure on what I think about raising fees, instinct tells me it is a bad idea and the Government should look towards alternative sources of funding - possibly taxation of industries, public and private, that benefit most from University educated students. This does not have to be instead of increasing tuition fees but it could be an alternative to massive increases or removing the cap.

I am absolutely in favour of fees having an upper limit, having uncapped fees will increase the gaping inequality state educated (particularly in FE Colleges) face when applying to Uni. You only have to look at fees for Taught Postgraduate courses, compare the LSE's £14,000 fees to most over Universities' more affordable fees.

As for the suggestion that students could study in local colleges towards a degree awarded by a University - utter *rse.

4372

As Mr Willetts is keen to increase tuition fees for future students, will he also be making a payment to cover the costs of his own university education?

Helix

teddygrowler wrote: »

Just to let everyone know, my son has just had a reply from student finance advising him of his entitlements and the fees are still at the current level of £3250 so they have not gone up for this year at least.:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j

They are £3290, if you have applied for £3250 then you will have the make up the shortfall of £40 or get the student loans company to change it.

Rosie75

StudentMoneySaver wrote: »

I would like to know where the money is actually being spent in Universities and how much of it is actually going towards students' education and how much is being diverted to research.

I doubt that one could find an easy answer to this question. Universities have separate grants from HEFCE for teaching (based on student numbers) and research (based on departmental scores in the Research Assessment Exercise). Income from research, when you factor in grants, is much greater than teaching income, even taking student fees into consideration. But spending is less clear. If the library subscribes to an expensive database - is this a research or teaching resource? Presumably, both. Likewise with lab equipment, computing facilities, and many other things. You also have to consider that a lot of teaching - particularly at honours level and beyond - is research-led. In reality, it is not so easy to separate out teaching and research.