International students to pay reduced fees on intercalated years

Following months of lobbying by the Students’ Union and many departments within the Science Faculty, the University has decided that for 2012/13 it will freeze the fees for both home and international students on intercalated years.

Government policy specifies that universities should not charge more than half of tuition fees for an intercalated year. Many universities do not charge the full limit yet Warwick did, for both home and international students. This means that home students paid £1680 to go on an intercalated year and international students paid half of their current fee level, which differed depending on their course.

With the increase in tuition fees, these figures would have been considerably higher. However, the University recently approved a motion to maintain intercalated year fees for home students at around £1680. Additionally, it will also reduce these fees for international students to the same figure of around £1680.

This is a significant victory for the Science Faculty, which has for years been unhappy with the amount students have to pay to spend a year in industry as part of their degree. When on a year in industry students receive minimal support from the University and from their academic department. As such, it is argued that these years are not worth the high fees that are paid.

Third-year year Biological Sciences student Jonathan Wheatcroft commented: “I personally had to pay half tuition fees during my year in industry, and for me, that was totally wrong. I find it hard to see how any university can warrant charging students who effectively spend no time at university and have totally minimal contact/support during their year out… in the end all it really comes down to is money and getting as much of it from you as possible.”

Given these circumstances it has become common practice for students to drop out for a year and undertake a year in industry separately from their degree, enabling them to gain the necessary experience whilst avoiding having to pay overpriced fees. This is something which is indirectly condoned by some academic departments and explicitly recommended by others.

University strategy as laid out in the ‘Student Experience’ section of Vision 15 promised to “introduce new support and incentives for students taking intercalated years”. However, its original plan regarding intercalated year fees was to increase them by 50 per cent for both home and international students. This, said Education Officer Sean Ruston, is where “the crunch point came”.

He, with the backing of the Student’s Union, most of the departments within the Science Faculty and a dedicated body of students went on to lobby the University’s senior offices lower fees. The issue reached the Senate, which delegated it to the Steering Committee. On April 11 they reached the decision to freeze intercalated year fees at around £1680, for both home and international students.

Although some details of the decision are still unclear, such as whether it will also apply to voluntary study overseas or study at an approved exchange university, the response to it has been positive.

Undergraduate Science Faculty Representative John Lapage praised “the concerted efforts of several groups”, which “have led to a real positive change”. SU President Daniel Stevens said that the “University and Students’ Union reached an acceptable compromise and welcomes the incredible reduction in international student fees, but we will work to ensure that the fee paid for such programmes will reflected in the support and value that students receive.”