Students abandon English HE

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24 oktober 2011 | A sudden 10% drop in applications shocks English universities. 28 of them consider lowering their tuition fees again after UK Prime Minister David Cameron tripled them to over £9,000 (€10,300).

English universities expect the biggest decrease in studentnumbers in their history. While most European universities face agreater influx of students, David Cameron’s policy of triplingtuition fees has led to a 11,9% drop in applications.

Some institutes face even more drastic declines with CityUniversity London having 41,1% fewer applications this year. Agovernment spokesman said that this should not be a sign of worryhinting that apparently applicants were not fully aware of allfinancial aid measures that were introduced by David Cameron’s coalition.

28 universities consider lowering tuitionfees

According to numbers from the Office for Fair Access, 28universities have now responded to this expected revenue bust. Theyexpressed their desire to lower their tuition fees again down fromaround £9,000 (€10,300) to £7,500 (€8,600). This entailed theadditional incentive that they could receive additional fundingfrom the British government who wants to encourage tuition feesaround £7,500 (€8,600) and lower.

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and CollegeUnion, commented that “the government’s fees policy has been amessy disaster from the start. Originally we were told fees over£6,000 would be the exception rather than the norm. The governmentbudgeted for an average fee of £7,500 when the actual figure wasalmost £8,400.”