Rebellion threat over tuition fees (From The Northern Echo)

Rebellion threat over tuition fees

10:19am Wednesday 13th October 2010 in News By Rob Merrick

ROYAL APPROVAL: Princess Anne was at Teesside University yesterday to open a college building

PLANS to double student fees to £7,000 a year from 2012 threatened to cause the first serious split in the coalition Government last night.

Lecturers and students reacted with fury after Business Secretary Vince Cable announced he accepted the recommendations of a long-awaited report into the underfunding of universities.

Lord Browne’s proposals also received a cool response from universities, which feared any extra income would be wiped out if, as expected, next week’s spending review slashes £3.5bn from higher education.

Meanwhile, the coalition was plunged into its biggest crisis since the election, amid suggestions that up to 30 Lib Dem MPs were ready to rebel.

Among them is Redcar MP Ian Swales, who told The Northern Echo: “If the Government puts forward what Browne has recommended, then I am likely to oppose it.”

However, Mr Swales insisted it was not too late to make changes in order to ease student debt and increase the number of students from poorer backgrounds – saying: “As far as I’m concerned, there is a fair way to go.”

In the May General Election, all Lib Dem candidates pledged to vote down any rise in fees and party leader Nick Clegg branded the idea of £7,000 annual charges “a disaster”.

Greg Mulholland, the Lib Dem MP for Leeds North West, the ringleader of the rebellion, said: “Without Lib Dem support it will be very difficult to get this through.

This is not a done deal.”

But senior Lib Dems privately suggested that fewer than ten of the party’s MPs would revolt and that no Lib Dem ministers were thought to be threatening to resign over the controversy.

Lord Browne’s report called for the present £3,290 cap on annual fees to be scrapped and replaced by a free market in which universities set their own charges for courses.

In the Commons, Mr Cable said he was considering a cap of £7,000, although an unlimited rise remained an option for courses offering exceptional teaching. As now, students would not pay fees up front, but would receive a loan.

They would not have to start repaying it until their earnings reached £21,000 a year – up from the present level of £15,000.

But, unlike now, graduates would be charged an interest rate of about two per cent above inflation as soon as they begin to pay their loans back.

Facing fierce Labour barracking, Mr Cable came out fighting, insisting the package was linked to the ability to pay because the 30 per cent of graduates earning the least would not have to repay anything.

Challenged about his election pledge, the Business Secretary said: “Let me confront the issue of the promise, which I and my colleagues undertook.

Under current circumstances, we cannot implement it.”

Mr Cable endorsed “the main thrust” of Lord Browne’s report, while being “open to suggestions” on how to improve it, before a vote in as little as six weeks’ time.

The UCU lecturers’ union estimated that a student would face a total bill of about £38,000, once maintenance loans and interest payments were included.

A spokesman said: “It will be the final nail in the coffin for affordable higher education.

England will have the most expensive public degrees in the world.”

Lori Wheatman, president of Teesside University Students’ Union, said she welcomed some recommendations contained in the review, such as allowing part-time students to access loans.

However, she admitted that she shared the concerns of the national student movement about the impact of Lord Browne’s recommendations on poorer students’ ability to access higher education and the increased debt they would face.

Professor Graham Henderson, vice-chancellor of Teesside University, said the recommendations would lead to students leaving university with much higher debts But he added: “University would remain free at the point of entry – the Government will lend students the full amount and they would still get money towards their living expenses. Nobody could say they couldn’t afford to go to university.”

Durham University vicechancellor Professor Chris Higgins said the Government needed to reduce the regulation of the higher education sector so universities have the flexibility to compete and excel.

But he added: “We strongly believe that a system must be put in place to ensure prospective students are not prevented from going to or applying to university simply because they cannot afford the fees, and this issue should be fully addressed.”

Helen Goodman, Labour MP for Bishop Auckland, said the policy was an “injustice”, adding: “A maths teacher will ramp up a bigger debt than an economist at a multi-national company.”

Both the Russell Group of elite universities and the Million+ group of former polytechnics warned the Government was planning to slash teaching grants and make up that lost funding through higher fees.

David Willetts, the Conservative Universities Minister, did not deny the allegation, saying: “What happens is that money currently allocated to universities via a quango, in teaching grants instead goes to universities via students.”

Lord Browne insisted poorer students would not turn their backs on a university education.

A Higher Education Funding Council study into the impact of existing fees found the numbers had risen.