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.

It was never going to be sustainable for 50% of school leavers to go to university for free.

The loans for the fees will come from the Studetn Loans company - a quango. The banks refused to participate in the loans scheme when it was first introduced a few years ago. The SLC is funded directly from the Treasury (who are crapping themselves).

HTH

Titchy: that's what I thought Vince Cable was saying at lunchtime (ie he sounded rather uneasy when talking about the checks and balances). And of course if it is Govt money, fees rising above the anticipated £7.5k average would be a big additional commitment for the taxpayer.

Grendelsmum: but perhaps Titchy and I are both out of date. When and how did the banks become involved? Which banks? And will they be taking on the current SLC "book"?

Exeter is one of the top universities vj32, I am not surprised to hear they are one of the ones deciding to charge that much however much I disagree with it. I am watching on our local news about it now.

Getting a degree from somewhere like Exeter as opposed to a 'new' university may mean all the difference when trying to get a job - when it comes to some subjects anyway, maybe not in the vocational type university courses.

I read somewhere at work (can't remember where typically) that the difference between getting a 1st as opposed to a 2:2 if you work over 16 hours a week when you are at uni is 60% (does that make sense? I'm not sure I explained that well) so i'm not surprised students are advised against part time work when at uni, although that's not very realistic to most of them.

ive been told, but it may just be a rumour, that if you work 16 hours a week or more on my course, then the uni gives you an ultimatum. ie, the course or the job.
not that i could imagine anyone manageing to pass whilst working that manyhours a week @(

Exeter is okay, compared with some buti t's where you go if you're fairly "rah" and aren't really bright enough for the other decent places but I agree that i is still better regarded than a heap of other ones and if tehre are 4 applicants for each place then in a free market it ought to charge what it can.

Good job my two didn't need Exeter then if it's 'rah'! Bog standard comp kids mine

You do make me laugh Xenia! (I think I live in a very different world)

The Exeter spokesman justified the decision by stating that the vast majority of their course require minimum 3 As at Alevel so am not sure that "not really bright enough" is fair on the students there

I came on to say YANBU, but then Xenia made me laugh so much I have forgotten the further point that I was going to make!

Exeter attracts a lot of rich public school types who are not bright enough for oxbridge and want a Surfer 'n' partying lifestyle. Surprises me not a jot they can charge maximum fees.

Just for a sense of perspective, has anyone a link to a list of universities ranked on 'quality' (of course I accept that there will be a lot of differences depending on courses), as I would not have considered Exeter to be in the upper echelons (sorry if you, dear reader, studied there) with Oxford, Cambridge, Newcastle, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Sheffield, QUB, Southampton, UCL, Imperial, LSE, etc.

We need to know where Xenia's DC went! She will have sorted the very best for her own.

Mine are looking at Nottingham, Nottingham Trent ( I don't care if Ex-poly), Loughborough, Leicester.

NetworkGuy, I study here, and its news to me that its ranked so highly. :)There are a lot of public school educated kids on my course, but thats more the nature of the course rather than anything else i think.

Lequeen yes an MBA might explain it, fees tend to be way higher than for UG degrees. Still seems a lot though, unless she qualified very recently.

Well LeQueen : a couple of my friends went to Exeter, they were ex state school and very cor blimey but not really sharp enough to cut it against the really clever kids from the independents.

Think on and be ashamed

Mumzy's summary is exactly it (for some students there, a lot but you can't obviously generalise over them all). Exeter might be hard for some state schoolers to get into because of the grade requirements but it is a safe just in case choice if you think you won't get into Oxbridge, Bristol, Durham etc. it is not bad but it's slight tier down.

It seems clear that anywhere half decent is going to be charging £9k

I think the government genuinely thought that the second tier and below universities might charge less than the RG and hence create some sort of marketplace whereas in fact, faced with severe funding cuts, as Xenia puts it, anywhere half-decent will charge the full whack. As students don't pay anything upfront and don't have to pay anything back for potentially years, I think they'll get away with it.

The big difference between university funding here and in the US is sponsorship for degrees in the US is commonplace as well as the huge endowments. It is an expected part of working life for people in the US to contribute funds to their university, something that rarely happens here. Having said that we have a long way to go to match US fees.

Well, I can see where higher fees will make it difficult for many people, but isn't the idea that no-one pays upfront and you repay gradually when you have a job?

My argument is that so many people go to uni, with the taxpayer paying for it, to do a hobby degree which is just of passing interest to them, and then never use it for a job to repay the investment. I find that grossly unfair. The higher fees will make people think before choosing a course, and pick one which is actually likely to provide a job at the end. If you want to study something for fun, pay for it yourself!

Perhaps it's because I come from a country where uni wasn't free; students either had parents who paid, earned scholarships or got a waiting/bar/shop job.

Uni is a long way off for my DDs, but I have no problem paying for their higher education, and if I can't afford it, I won't expect handouts - they will have to get a loan!

I know a lot of people who went to Exeter. They are now all earning £££

But Annie&, degrees in the UK are jsut not vocational in the way they often are abroad. I lived in Spain and they couldn't believe I'd spent three years studying literature - everybody there studies business. Here, doing business as an undergraduate degree is not seen as very academic and is not a course that the top universities would even offer.

The only decent degrees that guarantee a job are, arguably, law and medecine and obviously, not everyone can be a lawyer or a doctor.

Oh nonsense, staranise. What about science, engineering, teaching, accounting, business, economics, nursing, design, technology, architecture, just to name a few?

Or how about more people doing apprenticeships, on-the-job training, vocational diplomas etc instead of vacuous degrees?

I do think the government needs to do something about this 'degree or nothing' mentality that's going on. Vocational training, apprenticeships and other non-degree routes need to be promoted - not everyone is academic, and there are so many trade jobs that need doing.