More bad news for university admissions this week, as last-minute tuition fees changes throw applicants into turmoil. Those who have already applied miss out on the chance to take advantage of lowered fees at 25 universities, while worrying evidence suggests that the lowered fees are a direct result of withdrawn bursary and scholarship funding.
A dramatic confrontation took place at Cambridge University this week, where anti-tuition fees protesters confronted Universities Minister David Willetts during an organised lecture and forced him to leave the stage, abandoning his speech.
As the tuition fees furore rages on and early figures indicate plunging numbers of university applicants, David Willetts has given an interview desperately attempting to defend his tuition fees policy. The results are far from convincing.
Police have revealed that the potential use of rubber bullets has been approved against those marching in the protest against rising tuition fees this Wednesday. The move, which could be said to implicitly criminalise the legitimate act of protest and suggest that students and young people are more likely to be violent than adult protesters, has outraged politicians and human rights groups.
Early figures show a dramatic drop in applications to university from UK students. We look at the details behind the statistics, and consider who has been most severely deterred from applying to higher education as a result of the new tuition fees system.
Worrying new statistics show that increasing financial support in the form of bursaries does not necessarily help attract students from disadvantaged backgrounds to apply to elite universities. We ask what this means for the new tuition fees scheme and how we can address the problem of equal access to university for all.
A new report from a highly respected think tank has branded government plans to penalise early repayment of student loans ‘crazy’. The think tank, CentreForum, claims hard working middle-income graduates will be hit by the scheme.
The long-awaited Higher Education Policy Institute response to the government’s white paper on higher education has arrived, and it isn’t pretty. We summarise its condemnation of the new tuition fees policy and the damning predictions for the damage to be caused to social mobility and fair access to education.
