Brakes put on tuition fee rise

The ongoing debate over a potential increase in tuition fees has been delayed due to both major governmental parties wanting to wait until after the general election to tackle this issue. In the meantime, critics have pointed out that this delay is causing bankruptcy in universities.

A rise in tuition fees would mean a rise in the universities revenue, but could also mean fewer applicants, especially from the lower two economic bands. When asked if Warwick University is facing bankruptcy due to the economic downturn, Warwick University’s Press Officer Peter Dunn said it was not. In contrast, the President of the Student Union, Stuart Thompson said Warwick, like other universities, was facing challenges ahead but said that the economic downturn “brings benefits, energy price decreases and also an increase in applicants across the board, particularly from international students.”

On the question of raising tuition fees, Thompson said, “Recent events have shown how damaging a culture of debt can be. Students already face a £20,000 debt on graduation; it would be unfair and unrealistic to expect students to pay any more.”

Another recent criticism towards the government has been that bursaries have no effect on student choices in applying to university. Critics have argued that students in school should be targeted earlier with the prospect of going on to higher education system, and that they should be helped to familiarize themselves earlier on with the system of UCAS.

Mohammed Surve, the Students’ Union Education Officer, said, “Warwick is working on initiatives to give FE students more support from a younger age to familiarise them with the option of HE and the UCAS system.” Thompson added that this is really up to effective and motivational school teachers.

On the question of targeting lower-income students and what should be done to improve application, Thompson said, “current access schemes are largely ineffective and waste money. Local schemes such as the Inspire scheme which we the Students’ Union have just set up are the way forward in terms of encouraging students from all backgrounds into University. Every student should be expected to give up one day in their academic life to go into schools and promote higher education to all. This is exactly what Inspire aims to achieve.”

Dunn echoed many of these sentiments and added, “we get around 17 per cent of our applicants from the lowest 2 economic groupings but we actually admitted 19 per cent of our undergraduates from those 2 bands – so getting people to aspire to apply to a university is the key factor.”