Last month, the Labour government announced that tuition fees could increase within the next five years to £10,500 a year. Even before this increase, this was obviously a lot more expensive than what our parents’ generation would have had to pay for university. ‘It wasn’t like that in my day’, you’d hear them say.
But is increasing tuition fees the right decision? Will it help improve the quality of university education, or will it just deter young people from going?
It’s worth recalling the history of tuition fees and government funding. In 1998, Tony Blair’s New Labour government introduced the first tuition fees. The cost back then was only £1,000 per year. Yes, that’s right. Only £1,000 a year! However, there were notable changes in 2006 when they rose to £3000 and in 2012 when the Conservative government under David Cameron significantly reduced government grants and increased tuition fees to £9,000 a year.
[English universities] are unusual in this aspect, with a heavy reliance on tuition fees.
This led to English universities receiving most of their income from tuition fees rather than government grants. We are unusual in this aspect, with a heavy reliance on tuition fees. In other countries, like Germany, higher education is instead mainly funded by the government.
Interestingly, English higher education receives the lowest public investment among OECD members.
Adequate university funding is important. Tuition fees help cover the cost of a student’s education and university experience. This includes the costs of teaching, library books, well-equipped science labs and lecture theatres, where there is a mix of passionate students and those mastering the art of napping behind their laptops.
Not only this, but UK universities are also a national asset with global recognition, providing ‘world-leading research and innovation’. Should this really be funded from our tuition fees?
Bearing in mind that in 2019, the Corbyn-led party pledged to scrap tuition fees, Labour’s current position is that raising tuition fees is necessary because of inflationary pressures. The Education Secretary, Bridget Philipson, told LBC’s Sunday that ‘It’s not something I would want to go to. But I do recognise all the time that the value of the fee has eroded – it hasn’t gone up in a very long time.’
UK universities are ultimately struggling financially. According to the OfS, 40% are expecting to be in deficit in 2023/24, and risk closure. Universities UK describes the system as ‘structurally unsustainable’.
Clearly, something needs to be done or, as Universities UK argues, our higher education system could ‘slide into decline’.
A serious concern about increasing tuition fees is that it may lead to declining enrolment rates. Indeed, many students may choose not to even think about attending university, knowing that they will end up in heaps and heaps of debt afterwards.
A decline in enrolment rates can have wider negative implications, such as resulting in a less well-educated workforce where hardly anybody has experienced the joys of receiving a high-quality education from academics.
Rather worryingly, although there is currently a record number of disadvantaged students studying in higher education, the effects of increasing tuition fees could be particularly significant for disadvantaged students.
When asked, one second-year English student at Exeter University said ‘Go ahead, raise them! Make them 10 grand! 11! 14! It’s already a tediously huge amount. I have no intention of fully paying it all back before the time I die […], so raising it above what it already is makes no difference ultimately.’
In contrast, when asked, an elderly voter said ‘I think it would be wicked to raise fees. The country is in the throes of a cost-of-living crisis, and any fee increase would place a further financial burden on them.’
Although the decision is not final until the Chancellor’s approval, if tuition fees continue rising, students will need to start packing jetpacks to keep up with the skyrocketing costs!
