Recently, the government suggested letting universities raise tuition fees for home students, that are now paying £3000, and up to £9000 per year. The poorest students will be allowed to qualify for grants and take student loans from a bank, but they would have to pay their tuition fees back during their working lives, after they start earning above a certain amount.
This reform was called “progressive” by Universities Minister Mr Willettess, but at the same time Mr Thomas, from Labour’s party, represented it as a “tragedy for a whole generation of young people”.
The reform will also create a number of problems; one of them is that bright prospective students from the lowest classes will not be able to pay for their tuition and as a result will not study in the university, which will lead to a decrease in the amount of qualified specialists. Another problem is that some universities will almost entirely depend on the income from their students’ fees and could be eliminated if there is not enough money to maintain the course, on the relevant level, and as a result, rates of unemployment will rise.
After the announcement of the reform, a group of students occupied the administration building at the University of London, where they called other students to join the protest. These disturbances led to the start of numerous debates of how to find a way of maintaining the budget of universities, without a sharp increase in tuition fees. Some interesting solutions were found during these discussions.
One of the solutions is to only charge for certain courses that are very popular among prospective students, such as music, arts, sport and languages, as these courses need more experience than knowledge; however, degrees in math, engineering, science and medicine are harder and require application of knowledge. At the same time, this will mean that arts and humanity courses are going to almost entirely depend on the income from students’ fees. If they are not successful...