UK universities call for tuition-fee rise in freshers’ week

Earlier this month, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told university leaders she was looking at “all of the options” to solve the “complex problems” they faced.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer promised to support scrapping fees – during his Labour leadership campaign, in 2020 – but later abandoned his pledge.

It would now be “politically very difficult to put up tuition fees”, Rose Stephenson, from the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), says.

But there “needs to be a decision” about how universities are funded, as doing nothing “is going to result in universities essentially going bust”.

Other options include raising taxes or “some kind of levy for employers” who benefit from skilled and trained graduates, she says.

Other recommendations in Universities UK’s plans include:

Universities have recruited more international students – who pay higher fees – in recent years, to make up for the fall in income due to frozen fees for UK students.

But changes to visa rules, and a currency crash in Nigeria, mean the applications for UK study visas between January and August were about 17% fewer than during the same period last year.

Meanwhile, recent research shows university students now need about £18,000 a year to live on – compared with the maximum loan of about £10,000.

Pearl Pooley, 19, from Harlesden, north-west London, told Today she had found it “impossible” to find a job she could do alongside her coursework.

She dropped out of her law course last year, after becoming very isolated.

“I don’t think it was the university or the course, more just the general outside life that made me leave,” she says.