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Rally in Kennington Park

from Cathy (cathyvpreece@aol.com)

Students face £40,000 university price tag

Polly Curtis
Tuesday December 03 2002

The Guardian

The National Union of Students today claimed that by the time today's 11-year-olds are 18, the cost of going to university for a standard three-year degree will be nearly £40,000.

The announcement came as students prepare for a day of protest against tuition fees.

The figure is based on the actual cost of a university education, recently mentioned in a government discussion paper on how to solve the university funding crisis.

The annual cost of fees payable by students is now £1,100, but, on average, the real cost is nearer £4,500. Three years of fees, added to the estimated £22,729 maintenance costs, works out at £39,180.

Thousands of students from across the country are expected to march through central London today demanding the government rules out the introduction of top-up fees, which would allow universities to set their own fees and dramatically increase the cost of education at some universities. They also want the government to bring back maintenance grants.

Mandy Telford, NUS president, said: "Top-up fees will quite simply cripple our higher education system. With fees at this level it is quite clear that many people will not be able to afford university in the future. While the top-up fee debate continues we must not forget that the cost of being a student already prohibits many people from going to university."

She added: "We need the brightest, not just the richest to enter university."

University lecturers have backed today's day of action. Paul Mackney, general secretary of lecturers' union Natfhe, who is due to speak at a rally in Kennington Park later today, said: "Natfhe supports the demands of students and the NUS for grants not fees. Entry to higher education should be based on ability to study not ability to pay. Tony Blair should abandon the idea of top-up fees and ministers - who have themselves had grants - should not pull up the drawbridge."

Today's protest will be the last by students before the government publishes its long anticipated review of higher education funding, expected in January.

Ministers have to decide how to fund universities without deterring poorer students from going to university. Fee hikes are expected, coupled with the re-introduction of grants for the poorest students.

Universities say they are suffering a £10bn shortfall.

At a debate on university funding last night, Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy told students: "Every day that passes, there seems to be a new idea - top-up fees, a graduate tax, extra tax for employers who take on graduates, extra tax on all graduates. The Blairites and the Brownites are entitled to fight their titanic battles if they want to. But they shouldn't use the future of our country's students as their weapons."

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited

(posted 7786 days ago)

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