Government To Freeze University Tuition Fees

Fri, 14 Nov 2008

The government has announced that university tuition will not be increased for at least five years, officials announced this week.

David Eastwood, chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, declared that universities across the UK should not be expecting tuition fees to rise with inflation, driven by the current economic downturn.

A spokesman for the Department for Innovation Universities and Skills added that, "the government is committed to growing student numbers and to ensuring finance is no barrier to going to university".

The move to freeze tuition fees comes after it was revealed that any increases in fees would put a strain on government finances as students would be required to borrow more money from the government .

According to estimates by the London School for Economics (LSE), the government’s treasury would incur a cost of £1.5 billion if students were forced to take out a minimum student loan of £5,000.

Paul Dwyer, vice president for access and academic affairs at Oxford University’s Student Union, said a freeze on the fees that students have to pay for their education would be "fantastic for all students".

However, he expressed his frustration that the move was motivated solely by the credit crunch, and not by the constraints tuition fees place on students .

"I think it is a little disappointing that the government would only consider this option in an unfavourable economic climate, and not as part of their wider thinking on university funding ."
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