Just received email saying tuition fees to be increased to 9K from next year. aibu to want to weep?

[ladysybil]

It wont affect the amount i pay, as i am already a student. grandfather law applies. I knew this was coming. but am still unreasonably upset at this.

[FabbyChic]

My son is hoping he gets his grades to go to Uni this year, so that he won't see the raised fees.

[chandellina]

why are you upset? the case for higher fees has been well laid out.

[ladysybil]

goodluc to him fabbychic. it will increase the pressure on him enormously. hope it works well for him.

I dont know chandelina. I knew this was ocming, so dont understand why i am so upset.

[AlpinePony]

Are you typing on a phone?

[Xenia]

2 March "Exeter is the latest university to signal its intention to charge students £9,000 per year, the maximum level of tuition fees in England, from 2012."

If the government removes funding worth £9k it's not surprising universities replace it with fees of £9k which many will never have to pay anyway as they won't earn enough. it will be interesting to see how the maths work and how those who can pay upfront might get assured places if they meet the minimum grade requirements.

[Rhinestone]

YANBU.

I think that every politician benefitted form a free university education and who nonetheless voted to raise tuition fees, should refund the Exchequer the cost of their degree.

[dreamingofsun]

will be interesting to see if this deters people from mid payrange jobs such as teaching which take them just over the 21k payback point and require degrees.

[crystalglasses]

This is not the only cost of a university education. There is also accommodation and living expenses loan on top of the fees loan, taking the yearly loan to £9000 + about £4500 = £13500 approximately

[LDNmummy]

I am a student, graduating this year, it would have deterred me as a mature person with no family backing. We are now having to pull together as a family to make sure my younger brother gets to go without incurring debt equivelent to a deposit on a London home.

[Xenia]

I know. I paid for the older children and the £3k fees were the smaller part of it. I paid their rent to and an allowance for food, travel, books, clothes etc. although sometimes children can live at home.

[SofiaAmes]

One of the big problems with the UK taking on the US system of charging a small fortune for a University degree, is that they have only taken half the system on. Here in the US, most students work while at university. Many work significant numbers of hours during term time to help pay their expenses. Not only do the universities here condone this, they often save well paying jobs on campus for students. This is clearly not an option in the UK. My dh is a mature student at Leeds and when I suggested he get a job to help us defray the costs, he was told by the Uni that he was not allowed to/strongly discouraged from getting a job.
We can barely afford the current fee schedule. Dh woudl definitely not have gone to Uni if the tuition had been £9000 and he was not allowed to have a part time job.

[vj32]

Thats rubbish - loads of people work in the UK while being a student, and lots of them on campus. However there are some courses where this is not possible because the course hours are not flexible enough. However this is not the case with most.

The current joke with me is that I worked hard all through uni to make sure I didn't end up with a huge loan. Then I went back to uni after working for 3 years (earning only about £18k so not even meeting the interest on my £7.5ish loan) Have worked as a teacher for two years. Now having baby and hoping to go back part time, earning somewhere just under the £15k threshold.

The reality is I am unlikely to ever pay off the debt fully.

I don't understand why no-one hasn't thought of this problem.

[springbokdoc]

Ha I worked three jobs at uni - I don't they gave a shit what I did so long as my grades were fine and I pitched up at placements.

But dh went to cambridge and they had an explicit policy of not allowing students to work (i think you could get a formal warning). Didn't stop him tho'.

[LDNmummy]

Euphemia that was very well put, my thoughts exactly.

[vic77en]

I remember hearing friends who were at Oxford or Cambridge being advised not to work during term-time, though all the college bar staff were students and they had longer holidays than other universities so worked through them.
When I was at Leeds, no-one gave a flying fuck whether you had a part-time, full-time or multiple jobs.
Tuition fees do make me want to weep too though

[Xenia]

Most students do work at most places. At Oxbridge terms are shorter so there may be less need. In some ways it's good for students to have to do some work. Mine did some. It's good to get used to working life or see how awful minimum wage jobs are so you make appropriate career choices in due course.

[bedubabe]

At Cambridge you are banned from working. You can get permission though if you can show you really need the money and that your study won't suffer. I know someone who did.

[meditrina]

The problem will be for the Treasury (ie - all of us via tax revenues). Students don't pay the university up front - we do. So if the number of courses at £9,000 becomes too many, then the earmarked funds won't be sufficient. Then what happens?

[Batteryhuman]

"how those who can pay upfront might get assured places if they meet the minimum grade requirements."

Please tell me that is not true?

[vj32]

Why should we subsidise uni for anyone who wants to go? Studying 'media and communication' or some of the other ridiculous, pointless courses are not helping society, other than by delaying those people being in the job market for three years.

What did make me giggle a little is at the unis who have so far announced they are charging £9k: Oxford, Cambridge, UCL and Exeter. Certain unis could charge loads and people will still want to go there. But Exeter? I'm not so sure.

[GrendelsMum]

Meditrina - From what I've been told, you've got a valid point, but you're not correct - the issue you've flagged up is one of the reasons that they've gone for 'fees' rather than a 'graduate tax' (although the result from the student's experience may not be very different to paying a graduate tax). By saying its fees, the money are paid up front by the banks (NOT by the government), and are made available to the Universities when the student starts studying. If it was taxes, the money would start to come in gradually, in a few years time, rather than being available to the Universities now.