Sponsored by
More firms ‘will pay tuition fees for students’
THE HEAD of Yorkshire’s biggest university expects more businesses to pay for students’ tuition fees in future as the higher education sector is reformed.
Leeds University’s vice chancellor Prof Michael Arthur has also predicted institutions running shorter courses and more bespoke qualifications being developed for the private sector.
With the majority of the country’s students set to face charges of £9,000 a year from 2012, Prof Arthur said he believed more firms would follow the example of large companies such as KPMG and Morrisons which have both announced plans to support students through degree courses.
Morrisons, based in Bradford, is paying the fees of 20 undergraduates on a business course at the city’s university while KPMG is set to meet the costs of 75 students sitting an accountancy qualification at Durham University.
Prof Arthur told the Yorkshire Post he expected increased involvement from the private sector as universities respond to a new funding system which will see them become more reliant on the fee income from students.
University fees are set to increase sharply as the cap institutions are allowed to charge is raised to £9,000 while their state funding for teaching degrees is cut by 80 per cent – £2.9bn over the period of the Comprehensive Spending Review.
This means that universities will now rely on the money they charge UK students to meet the majority of the costs of providing higher education. Only degree courses in science, technology , engineering and maths will continue to be paid for by the Government.
Ministers have criticised the number of universities which plan to charge top-level fees. Around 75 per cent of the institutions which have announced fees have indicated that students will be expected to pay £9,000 from next year.
Under the new system university education will continue to be free at the point of entry, which means the Treasury will meet the initial cost of the fees.
Earlier this year Business Secretary Vince Cable warned higher- education bosses that Ministers had budgeted for an average annual fee of £7,500 and if universities collectively charged higher than this they could face further funding cuts or reductions in the number of places they are allowed to offer.
He told vice chancellors that there had not been enough creative thinking in the sector about how courses could be delivered at lower costs.
In a speech to the Higher Education Funding Council for England conference Mr Cable said universities were being “economically irrational” on a collective basis.
Prof Arthur said he had reacted to this claim with “slight annoyance” as his own university has being carrying out a £35m savings strategy to reduce costs across the university.
He also believed it was unfair to expect to universities to develop new ways of working before the Government outlined its vision for the sector in a Higher Education Paper which has been delayed by Ministers and is now expected to be published this summer.
He said: “Innovation is what academics do. But we cannot be expected to develop detailed changes to the way we work until the Government publishes its White Paper.
“I think you will see more partnerships like the one established between KPMG and Durham and more shorter courses.”
Leeds University launched its cost-cutting Economies Exercise before the last General Election to help prepare the institution for the expected cuts in higher education funding.
Cuts of up to £1bn had been outlined under the previous government before the plans to withdraw funding for the majority of university courses was developed by the coalition alongside a new system allowing fees of up to £9,000 to be charged.
The target was to save £35m from the university’s total budget of around £500m by 2011-12. By the start of the current academic year it had identified about two-thirds of the savings.
Leeds is one of four universities in the region to announce that it plans to charge the maximum amount permitted under the new system with fees of £9,000.
Prof Arthur said that although this was the headline figure the average cost to students would be less as the university was offering a series a fee waivers and bursaries and the Government’s own National Scholarship scheme would see students from the poorest households facing reduced fees. Prof Arthur has urged the Government to allow the new fee system to run before it looks to make further changes.
He said: “Universities are facing several unknowns: First, how many students will apply to come under the new fees regime?
“People assume it will be match previous years’ numbers but it maybe less.
“And then there is the question of our funding. Universities need a period of stability.”
He also said there would have been more of a variety in fee levels if the Government had not imposed a top level cap of £9,000.
Prof Arthur supported the plans set out in the original Browne Review published last year which would have allowed universities to charge whatever they liked.
Under Lord Browne’s system universities would then have faced an increasing levy of money they would have to pay back to government as their own fee level increased.
Prof Arthur said Leeds University’s fee level would probably have remained at around £9,000 even if it had been allowed to charge more.
Email to a friend
Print this page- Leeds lose Ward to Palace: Is there anyone they can afford now?
- Sheffield Wednesday leaving it late to hijack Leeds United over Ward
- As Snodgrass dithers over Leeds, Warnock throws a lifeline
- Ball is in Leeds United’s court over contract - Snodgrass
- Police turning blind eye to Asian voter fraud, says MP
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: East
Your view
Please sign in to be able to comment on this story.