MPs are told ‘fixed fees unsustainable’
UNIVERSITY tuition fees paid by students need to rise with inflation, the head of a Welsh university has told a Commons committee.
The current £9,000-a-year to study for a degree in Wales – and £9,250 in England – is not sustainable at a time when inflation is running at 10% Professor Edmund Burke, vice-chancellor of Bangor University told the Welsh Affairs Committee.
Prof Burke said higher fees from international students are vital to subsidise inadequate domestic tuition fee prices as well as research. The Commons committee evidence session comes amid warnings from universities in Wales about a lack of funding since Brexit leading to job losses and fees remaining static for nearly a decade.
Welsh universities appear to have been more heavily dependent on EU structural funds than other universities elsewhere in the UK and as many as 1,000 higher education jobs could be lost with EU structural funds coming to an end, the committee was also told.
In a passionate plea to raise domestic fees, Prof Burke told the committee: “There is an issue UKwide around fees. We have inflation running at around 10% and we have, across the UK, fixed fees.
“This is unsustainable into the future, it simply cannot continue without something giving at some point. It’s a UK issue. There is a £250 differential in Wales, but it’s a UKwide issue and it’s unsustainable. Whether £9,000 or £9,250 if it is fixed into the future it is unsustainable and we need to address that.”
He added that higher paying international students were vital to help shore up gaps in research funding streams and domestic fees. “What is making it work financially at this institution is international fees, at the moment,” he warned.
Prof Colin McInnes, pro vice-chancellor of research, knowledge exchange and innovation at Aberystwyth University, agreed that international students are needed to “plug the gap” in other funding streams.
Asked how much tuition fees should be and who should pay them and when, Prof Burke said: “At least rising with inflation would have an element of sustainability to it. You don’t need to be an expert economist to understand that if prices are fixed and inflation is running at 10% you are going to have a problem.
“How universities are funded is a question for government. The government is going to have to make decisions about how to fund universities but it is unsustainable (at the moment) and you cannot argue it is. It can’t be sustainable to have 10% inflation and fixed prices year on year.
“There should be, in my view, an inflationary uplift. £9,000 goes back many years. What would it be if it had risen in line with inflation? Where you start that inflationary uplift is a matter for debate. Funding universities is a matter for government and it needs addressing urgently because it is unsustainable.”
Earlier this year, the committee’s chair, Stephen Crabb MP, wrote to eight Welsh universities asking for their views about the ending of EU structural funds. All eight said it had been hard to find replacement funds, and that as a result, it was likely that research projects would end.
On the UK Shared Prosperity Fund – the UK Government’s replacement to the European Social Fund and European Regional Development Fund – the universities argued that applying for funds was bureaucratic and complex, exacerbated by approaches varying between local councils.
Professor Colin Riordan, vicechancellor of Cardiff University, told the committee Welsh universities appeared to be more reliant on EU structural funds owing to deprived areas which made them eligible for the funds.