Education Tuition fees Archives - Charles and co Solicitors

As the first cohort of students who had to pay £9,000 per year in University fees graduate this year, I wonder how they found their University experience, was it value for money? Are they more consumer savvy?

The fees certainly have not impacted the numbers applying for places at Universities, as was initially predicted. However, with fees now at an all-time high it comes as no surprise that students are seeing their relationship with the University in more commercial terms. Students are becoming increasingly confident about voicing their concerns when things do not appear to a standard they would expect. Students are now seeing their relationship with their University as more of a contractual relationship. In truth it always was a contractual relationship, however by previously not being involved in the financial aspect of the transaction, students were less inclined to see the contractual element of their relationship with the University.

Read more on our HIgher Education law Solicitors Blog

Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has announced that his party would lower fees as of September 2016 if elected, something he said “will benefit those starting courses next year” and “will benefit those already at university”.

Apparently many students would welcome this change in policy and it would potentially help make higher education more accessible to poorer students, so I am told (although £6,000 is no small amount either). It is unclear who really benefits from this lower cap; after all how do well funded universities now feel about this toing and froing regarding funding? Surely, they will only want this to go ahead if state funding is protected and that they can be sure that it would be sustainable funding.

Before £9,000 tuition fees were even introduced much was said about how this would stop people going to University. However the figures have shown that higher education fees did not stop people applying to Higher Education Institutions, in fact the applications continued to roll in and places got snapped up, the result of which was well funded Universities.