Tag Archives: independent commission on fees

Stephen Tall

Why Lib Dems shouldn’t keep schtum about tuition fees

By Stephen Tall | Thu 14th August 2014 - 8:35 pm

tuition fees vote“University tuition fee rise has not deterred poorer students from applying”. That was the headline in The Guardian this week reporting new analysis by the Independent Commission on Fees chaired by Will Hutton:

The raising of tuition fees to £9,000 has not put off students from disadvantaged backgrounds from applying to university – although the gap in applications between those from wealthy and poor backgrounds remains wide, according to new analysis. …

The commission found that university application rates for 18-year-olds in England have continued to recover from their post-rise lows, with application rates for 2014 entry – including students who will receive their A-level results on Thursday – almost two percentage points higher than in 2010.

While students who are not eligible for free school meals – available for pupils from households earning less than £16,000 – remain more than twice as likely to go to university, the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students has narrowed from 30.5% in 2010 to 29.8% in 2013.

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , , and | 206 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Tristan Ward
    @ David Raw The situation in 2026 is completely different from that in 2010. Today the right is spilt, the threat is that the authoritarian right take contr...
  • Patrick Gillard
    I fully support the statement that heckling is not the way to make decisions in the Lib Dems, of all parties, as our historic commitment to free speech is surel...
  • Catherine Royce
    What I want to know is when we will introduce 10% and 30% bands so tax is much more progressive , even 5% increments or 1% as the Swiss do it, the 20-40% cliff...
  • David Raw
    It appears that the lessons of 2010-15 have not been learned for people who weren’t around when all of that occurred, and as someone whose dad was involved in...
  • Nigel Jones
    The comments here are just the kind of discussion that should have taken place before considering any such announcement. When we debated FPC's planned program l...