High-fee UK universities face poor access levy
Universities intending to charge maximum fees of £9,000 a year will have to spend more money on boosting access for poorer students.
The Office For Fair Access (Offa) said the UK’s most selective universities would have to spend around £900 on recruiting disadvantaged students – about double what they currently spend.
Every university planning to charge students more than £6,000 in fees from next year will have to show how people from poor backgrounds are not priced out.
The arrangements will be reviewed each year, with institutions that fail to meet agreed targets facing fines and losing the right to charge higher fees.
The Offa document suggests that universities which have few students from poorer backgrounds or with disabilities should be spending around 30% of their fee income above £6,000 on widening access.
MPs voted to raise tuition fees to £6,000 last December, with institutions able to charge up to £9,000 in “exceptional circumstances”.
But there are signs that universities are planning to charge the maximum, or close to it, despite pleas from ministers.
Cambridge University, Imperial College London and Exeter University have already announced plans to charge £9,000, and Oxford has said it will need to charge at least £8,000 to maintain current funding.
Offa director Sir Martin Harris said there had been almost no progress on improving access to the most selective universities.
He said: “We will have the highest expectations of institutions who have the furthest to go in achieving a representative student body and who want to charge fees towards the top end.”
Aaron Porter, president of the National Union of Students (NUS), said: “It is absolutely crucial that all universities follow the access regulator’s advice to the letter and consult students’ unions in the drawing up of their access plans, as they have been asked to do.”
Universities Minister David Willetts said: “Universities are being asked to work much harder to recruit students from disadvantaged backgrounds in the future.”
Source: Sky News