Universities threaten ministers over fees

Ministers face crunch talks today with university vice chancellors which could plunge the Government into a fresh crisis over higher education.

Secret negotiations have been under way for weeks over who should pay for bursaries to help students from poorer backgrounds meet the cost of higher tuition fees.

The Government hopes the promise of extra support for poorer students will help head off the massive backbench rebellion looming over its controversial plans to allow universities to charge fees up to £3,000 a year from 2006.

But ministers want universities themselves to pay for it, out of the additional income they will receive from fees.

That has outraged vice chancellors, who have supported the Government's policy for higher fees on the basis that the extra income will make good years of underfunding.

They will demand today that the Government itself comes up with the extra money to fund higher student grants.

And university sources close to the talks warned that if Higher Education Minister Alan Johnson refuses, the support of universities for the legislation can "no longer be taken for granted".

That would fatally undermine the Government's attempts to win over potential rebels, before proposed legislation goes to Parliament. Today's meeting with vice chancellors is the last planned before the Queen's Speech a week tomorrow, when proposed legislation on tuition fees will be outlined.

Ministers aim to publish plans for bursaries on the same day, leaving little time for compromise if today's talks fail to break the deadlock.

Education Secretary Charles Clarke has made it clear the Government aims to ensure that the full £3,000-a-year cost of tuition at the most expensive universities will be met for the poorest third of students, through a combination of fee waivers and new maintenance grants.

Students from the poorest homes will continue to be exempt from fees, currently £1,150 a year and with proposed student grants of £1,000 available from 2004, that leaves just £850 still to be covered.

Ministers want universities to set aside around one third of the extra income from fees to fund bursaries of up to £850 for the poorest student. But the vice chancellors say it would only take an extra £225 million from the Government to achieve the same result, by raising the proposed new maintenance grant.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in