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University students could face fees of up to £9,000 a year, the government has confirmed.
In a statement to the House of Commons this afternoon universities minister David Willetts said the coalition was proposing a basic fees threshold of £6,000 per year rising to £9,000 in “exceptional circumstances”.
Students currently pay £3,290 per year in tuition fees but Willetts said the rise represented an “overall a good deal for universities and students”.
But shadow universities minister Gareth Thomas said the move was a “tragedy for a whole generation of young people” and said Labour would not support it.
“Our students now face some of the most expensive and worst funded degrees of any public university system,” he said.
Thomas accused Liberal Democrat MPs, who have traditionally opposed a rise in tuition fees, of betraying their constituents.
“This is the day we found out how much Lib Dem ministerial cars cost” he said. “£9,000 a year for students."
But flanked by Nick Clegg and Vince Cable, Willetts insisted the plans were “progressive” and stressed the students did not have to pay anything up front.
“These proposals clearly offer a progressive way forward in which graduates only have to start repaying when they earn £21,000 a year,” he said.
He added: “Their monthly repayments will be lower than they otherwise would have been."
Under the measures graduates will only begin to pay back the money when they earn above £21,000, rather than the current threshold of £15,000. All outstanding payments will then be written off after 30 years.
And he announced there would be a new £150m national scholarship programme targeted at “bright potential students” from poor backgrounds.
Willetts told MPs that he aimed to introduce the new system in time for the 2012-13 academic year and that the Commons and Lords would have a chance to debate the measures before Christmas.
Former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy told Willetts he could not support the rise because of his historic opposition to a rise in tuition fees.
He said: “I can't myself go along with this particular direction of travel, not just to do with the last election but the two previous election.”
Article Comments
The cutbacks to university funding announced in the spending review show that yet again the coalition government's argument that the 'broadest shoulders' will carry the burden is a complete fallacy.
Raising tuition fees up to 9,000 pounds to compensate for the lack of funding will create further social divisions in society and set us back decades to a time when university education was available only to the well off.
Christine Blower, NUT
3rd Nov 2010 at 3:45 pm
This announcement represents a massive risk on many levels. The proposed fee caps of 6,000 pounds and 9,000 pounds and new regimes for student support and widening participation are completely untested.
Moving so rapidly to an untried and potentially more volatile system means that no one can really know what will happen to either student demand or to our world class higher education sector.
Andy Westwood, GuildHE
3rd Nov 2010 at 1:44 pm
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