Students ‘would not have paid £9,000’

MORE than half of students would not have gone to university if they had been forced to pay £9,000 a year for their degrees, according to research published today.

A third of students questioned in a poll say they would have been turned off by fees of £6,000 – which is the lowest level people can expect to pay under the new system coming in next year.

The poll questioned 12,658 final year UK students at 24 English universities, each of which are expected to charge the maximum £9,000 for courses from 2012.

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Students at Loughborough, Sheffield, Lancaster, Liverpool and Reading were the most concerned, with more than three-fifths at each saying they would not have started their degree if they had to pay the maximum fee.

But students attending Oxford and Cambridge were the least concerned by the fee rise, with only a quarter saying that they would be put off by having to pay £9,000.

The results have been published as UCAS confirmed that record numbers of people have applied to go to university this autumn.

Some 633,811 people have submitted applications to begin courses in September, an extra 12,914 compared to the same point last year. The figures are likely to fuel concerns that tens of thousands of applicants will be left disappointed this year.