Exclusive: Actor Patrick Stewart hits out over student fees

The film and theatre star, who is Huddersfield University’s chancellor, said some institutions were raising fees to simply boost their income and also warned it was “madness” for the Government to withdraw state funding for degree subjects which help boost the country’s economy.

He was speaking out as the higher education sector prepares to almost treble the amount they charge young people in fees to cope with a major cut in Government funding for the teaching of degrees.

The majority of Yorkshire universities plan to charge top fees of £9,000 with the lowest fee at Huddersfield being just £50 under £8,000 a year. Universities are raising fees to cope with losing 80 per cent of their state funding for teaching degrees in a move which will mean only science, technology, engineering and maths courses receive Government backing.

The fees will only start to be paid back once a student graduates and earns more than £21,000.

Sir Patrick said: “We are much more than concerned about the impact that these fees will have.

“We are convinced that the increase in tuition fees is going to have a detrimental impact on those young people from our local schools which this university has made strong attempts to attract to Huddersfield.”

He added: “It is these young people who will be put off by the increase in tuition fees.

“It has been for several years the policy of this university to attract young people who might not have anticipated that higher education was available to them, to show them that this was not something that should be discouraged.

“These potential students are young people of enormous talent that has not yet been fully explored who will now be discouraged from coming to university not just to Huddersfield but across the country”

Almost half of Huddersfield University’s students come from social backgrounds which do not normally get into higher education. Sir Patrick told the Yorkshire Post the university would now launch “a new battle” to ensure that young people were not put off by the higher fees and to find new ways of supporting them. He also voiced fears the Government does not understand how the prospect of debts of £27,000 will feel to students who are currently in school.

“This coalition is out of touch in that respect. When you look at the economic and social backgrounds of many of its members and you look at this new policy it does make you feel that they cannot have a sympathetic understanding of what the tuition fees will mean for people from different social and economic backgrounds.

“And it does make you feel that there has been a cold heartedness to simply ignore the fact that the increase is going to be harmful to young people wanting to get into higher education and harmful for the country.”

He said he was proud of Huddersfield University’s position as the lowest charging university in Yorkshire. Huddersfield plans to charge £7,950 a year.

“Our emphasis is not that these are low fees but that they are fair fees. An increase was inevitable but we were determined that the increase should be kept to an absolute minimum and we should not use this as an opportunity to increase fees to raise more income as has been happening elsewhere.”

Sir Patrick also criticised the coalition’s decision to cut funding for the majority of degree courses.

“It is not just arts and humanities,” he said. “Design courses have had funding cut. Anything that is manufactured has to be designed. It is a part of the on-going regeneration of industry in the UK. To cut this funding is setting back the development of this country significantly and in the words of our vice chancellor Bob Cryan is ‘sheer madness’.”

Sir Patrick became chancellor of Huddersfield University in 2004. He not only works in an ambassadorial role but also delivers lectures as a visiting professor in performing arts.

“My role at the university is largely ceremonial but I made a point when I started seven years ago that I would involve myself in the life of the university.

“I was returning to my roots to the place where I went to school and many of the economic and social conditions remain the same as they were 50 or 60 years ago.

“I have been blessed working with a vice chancellor who has been huge in his determination to make sure the university makes places available to those young people who for economical or psychological reasons might not have thought they would fit in at such a place.”

Huddersfield University’s deputy vice chancellor, Prof Peter Slee, said: “Sir Patrick is a marvellous ambassador for the university. He is from Mirfield, our part of the world. He did not come from the most well off background but through training and his talent was available to forge a great career.

“He is somebody who recognises the role education can have in developing somebody’s talent and he is a perfect example of this himself. Immediately he fits in with our philosophy.”