- Complete
cut in teaching subsidy to arts, humanities and social sciences announced.
STEM subjects and some modern languages to be protected. - Cap on
student fees to be set at £9,000 with no government levy to pay (as
originally mooted in the Browne Review) but stringent requirements for
widening participation and fair access for those who charge over £6,000. It will be up to
the university or college to decide what it charges, including whether it
charges at different levels for different courses. According to UCU calculations, a
three-year degree with annual tuition fees of £6,000 would cost a total of
£38,286, including maintenance loans and interest payments. - Tuition
charges will be determined by individual universities as from 2012/13. - A new £150m
National Scholarships Programme will be targeted at “bright potential
students from poor backgrounds”. Students from families with incomes of up
to £25,000 will be entitled to a more generous student maintenance grant
of up to £3,250 and those from families with incomes up to £42,000 will be
entitled to a partial grant. - Maintenance loans will be available to
all. - Graduates start paying back
their tuition fees when they earn £21,000. The repayment will be on 9% of
income above £21,000, and all outstanding repayments will be written off
after 30 years. A real rate of interest will be charged on loan
repayments. - Analysis of data by the Higher Education
Policy Institute (HEPI) shows that the new system could place a bigger
burden on future tax payers due to large sums of unpaid debt being written
off as graduates reach the 30-year limit for repayment. HEPI warn that
this may force the government to keep a strict cap on student numbers. - The annual cost of studying
for a degree has increased by 311.5% since 1988, according to research
released by UCU. With tuition fees of £9,000, students starting university
in 2012 will face a bill for the first year of their degree (tuition and
maintenance loans) 101% higher than their contemporaries who started this
year. - A White
Paper on HE Reform will be ready in the Winter and then a broader higher
education bill later on in this current, extended session
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