A number of UK Universities are listing tuition fees above the £9,000 a year rate for the 2017/18 academic year.
MPs are set tot whether or not to increase fees debate in Parliament this autumn, but the BBC is reporting that three universities are already listing fee prices above the current £9,000 a year rate.
Durham, Kent and Royal Holloway Universities are all listing university fees for the 2017/18 academic years at the price point of £9,250.
The move has been quickly condemned by a number of commentators, saying the price increase would further exclude those from less privileged backgrounds from higher education.
Liberal Democrat education spokesman John Pugh called the price increase a show of “disgraceful arrogance from some universities”.
Labour’s shadow education minister Gordon Marsden called the websites listing a “back-door attempt to raise fees, without a proper and open debate in Parliament, by linking it to a teaching excellence framework which hasn’t yet been defined”.
On the university websites listings, the increased price point is explained as subject to government confirmation” and “inflationary changes”, making reference to a proposed government idea to let certain universities increase fees on the same level as inflation, providing they meet a threshold of “good-quality teaching.”
If the move is approved, then university fees could be as much as £10,000 a year by 2020.
Sorana Vieru, vice president of the National Union of Students, the increased student fees would incur further debts on a generation of young people.
“A further fee rise will have a damaging impact on students and it is frustrating to learn universities were lobbying the minister for the fee rise before the reforms were published.”
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