£9,000-a-year fees no longer preserve of elite universities

EXETER has become the latest university to announce plans to charge UK and EU students £9,000-a-year tuition fees.

It is the first institution outside of the elite research-led Russell Group of universities to indicate that it plans to charge the maximum amount allowed once the new system comes into place from September next year.

The announcement came as police arrested a man over the attack on the Prince of Wales’s convoy during a student protest against higher university fees in London’s West End last year.

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The 34-year-old, reported last night to be from Yorkshire, was held on suspicion of violent disorder and criminal damage in connection with the incident in London’s West End.

A car carrying the Prince and the Duchess of Cornwall was mobbed by demonstrators who had split from the main protest.

Camilla was visibly distressed after being poked in the ribs with a stick through an open window of the Rolls-Royce the royal couple were travelling in on their way to the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium.

Police have charged another eight people over an earlier student protest which led to the storming of a building that houses Conservative Party headquarters.

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The decision to raise the cap on tuition fees from £3,920 to £9,000 has caused widespread anger among students despite Government claims that the poorest graduates will actually pay back less under the new system as the repayment threshold has been lifted.

MPs said at the time of the vote to raise fees that universities would be allowed to charge the full amount in “exceptional circumstances”. However three institutions Exeter, Cambridge and Imperial College London have all indicated that they plan to charge the maximum fee.

No universities in Yorkshire have announced their planned fees yet.

Tuition fees are set to increase as universities look to recover money they are losing as a result of a £2.9bn funding cut in teaching grants from the Government, announced last year in the Comprehensive Spending Review.