British government wants early deal on university fee rise
The coalition faces an early battle over plans to double the fees universities charge students for tuition after a minister said on Thursday the government planned to announce its proposals by Christmas.
The government wants universities in England to be able to raise tuition fees above the current 3,290 pounds annual cap from the 2012-13 academic year to fill a gap left by the planned withdrawal of state funding for most courses.
The proposals are politically difficult for the coalition’s junior partners, the Liberal Democrats, who campaigned in the May election to abolish the tuition fees.
A number of Liberal Democrat legislators say they will vote against a fee rise, raising the prospect of an embarrassing parliamentary defeat if the threatened rebellion gathers momentum.
Universities Minister David Willetts, a member of the coalition’s larger Conservative party, said the government had to act swiftly on the fee proposals as universities would be printing next April their prospectuses for 2012 entry.
“We do need to set out in the next few weeks the way forward for graduate contributions and student support if we are going to have any chance of implementing changes for the autumn of 2012,” he told an audience of university leaders in London.
“We hope to bring proposals on regulation of graduate contribution levels to parliament before Christmas,” he added.
The government has broadly accepted the proposals of a review by former BP Chief Executive John Browne to move universities in England closer to a U.S.-style fee model.
But Willetts said the coalition may modify Browne’s call to completely scrap the cap on university fees and to allow institutions to charge what they liked.
“I don’t think it’s sustainable or sensible to imagine an unlimited fee cap,” Willetts told reporters later.
Business Secretary Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat minister responsible for university funding, told parliament last week the government wants to raise fees to 7,000 pounds a year.
However, Willetts confirmed that he and Cable backed Browne’s proposal for “the bulk” of the government teaching grant to universities to be withdrawn, with state support limited to science and medical courses needing expensive laboratory facilities.
The shortfall would be made up by the income from higher student tuition fees. The government said in its spending review on Wednesday it plans to cut 2.9 billion pounds from higher education funding by 2014-15, a 40 percent reduction.
Source: Reuters