Cap on student tuition fees is 'unsustainable'

Ministers should consider increasing student tuition fees because the existing £9,000 (US$14,469) a year cap is “simply not sustainable”, the country’s leading vice-chancellor has warned, writes Graeme Paton for The Telegraph.

Sir Christopher Snowden, president of Universities UK, said that the current tuition fee level “can’t remain frozen forever” because it is causing damage to the higher education system. He told how his own university – Surrey – was losing “substantial sums of money” teaching British and European Union students as a result of Coalition reforms that bar institutions from charging more than £9,000 for a degree.

In an interview with Times Higher Education, he suggested that fees could be linked to inflation to ensure universities do not suffer a real-terms funding cut each year. Sir Christopher said that, when the current rate of inflation was factored in, £9,000 annual tuition fees would be worth around £8,250 by 2016.
Full report on The Telegraph site