Tuition fee upfront payment by govt - can someone explain please?

[stoatsrevenge]

Misposted this on AIBU - would like a detailed answer from anyone in the know!

Can someone in the know answer this question please?
If, say, 200,000 students start uni in Sept 2012, does the govt have to stump up £1,800,000,000 (max) to distribute between unis so they can function for the year, and then wait 30 years for repayment? Then they do the same in 2013...2014, etc

I'm probably being VERY thick here, but isn't this a cumulative financial and administrstional nightmare?

no you're not being thick - yes it's a nightmare and it gives the lie to the idea that they are saving money immediately because of the financial crisis - it's all about ideology!

It's not 100% of the story. Not all the students in our universities are British, don't forget. Much of the revenue is from overseas & now universities can charge up to £9000/year to compensate for immediate cuts in funding. So yes, our government is paying for the British contingent and the paypack is delayed from the students (exactly as it is already), but the unis are getting triple the up-front cash from a high % of their intake.

but the overseas students currently pay a lot more anyway (up to £15k per year I saw on another thread), so that's not going ot make up the shortfall surely?

But there will be 2bn stumped up be the govt over 3 years before anyone starts paying it back. Where does that money come from?

And I've just checked number of students going to uni, and it's about 450,000, so the amount of money needed per year will be £4bn+.

Why are they saying that people can't pay in advance? Wouldn't that provide some sort of cash flow?

Surely the income from foreign students will be much higher in London, and other more prestigious establishments. Doesn't this mean that, for example, Russell Group unis will be able to justify higher fees (just by being part of the Russell Group) AND, at the same time, attract more foreign students. Will they be rolling in money when other places are struggling to survive?

That's the idea. There's already a premium on attending Oxbridge/the red-bricks & students need top exam results to qualify. They will be the ones taking full advantage of the potential to increase fees to £9k. Lesser establishments offering a lower standard of education &/or less attractive end qualifications will have to fix their price accordgingly. Some won't be able to increase fees at all in practice.

The concept of paying in advance would really have the balaclava brigade & their nasty friends out in force. :)

But the government will be saving a lot of money by cutting the funding they currently give directly to the universities - not sure of the exact figures, but most of the money they have to find won't be extra, it'll be instead of this funding.

Oh right, I'm starting to get it. I forgot about the cuts to uni funding!

So, for instance, they have cut LSE funding by 100%. INSTEAD of this, they get £9000 (or set fee) x student numbers for the year from the government to pay running costs.
(Plus income from foreign students)

So does this mean that unis will set their funding at :
(running costs / student numbers) + £3200

(Simply put?)