Students march against fee rise

Students are staging a march against higher fees and university cuts

Tens of thousands of students and lecturers are to march in London against plans to almost treble tuition fees to £9,000 per year in England.

The National Union of Students wants to put pressure on MPs who will vote by the end of the year on raising fees.

NUS president Aaron Porter says the Liberal Democrats face an electoral “wipeout” if they break their pledge to vote against higher fees.

The coalition government says its plans are “fairer” than the current system.

But the UCU lecturers’ union leader, Sally Hunt, attacked the proposals which will see the upper limit for fees rising from £3,290 to £9,000 per year from 2012.

“There is nothing fair or progressive about tripling the cost of a degree and axing college grants that are often the difference between students being able to study or not,” said Ms Hunt.

Students say they will try to use the proposed “right to recall” legislation to unseat MPs who ditch their election pledge to oppose an increase in tuition fees.

This proposal would be mean that MPs guilty of “serious wrongdoing” could be forced by voters to stand down.

In particular, Mr Porter warned that student voters will target Liberal Democrat MPs who failed to keep their promise to vote against a fee increase, threatening to topple MPs with a narrow majority.

There have already been student protests against Liberal Democrat ministers Vince Cable and Chris Huhne.

An effigy of the party leader, Nick Clegg, was hanged by students staging an occupation against the fee increase at Goldsmiths, University of London.

The protest to be staged in London by students and lecturers will challenge the far-reaching funding shake-up being proposed for higher education.

The higher tuition fees will be used to replace teaching funding being withdrawn as part of public spending cuts.

It is likely to mean that many arts and humanities courses will no longer receive public funding, with financial support restricted to subjects including science, technology, engineering and maths.

“This abolition of funding is a most profound shift,” said Mr Porter. “It is the abdication of the state’s responsibility.”

The UCU lecturers’ union also warned that there was no certainty that such higher fees would mean a better experience for students.

The union says the cost of university has already increased more than threefold since 1988 – but the student to staff ratio is now worse.

In 1988, there were about 13 students to each academic member of staff, now the figure is 16, despite students paying much more to study.

The coalition government says the proposals will protect poorer students and are designed so that better-off graduates pay higher contributions.

“The coalition government has developed a package that is fairer than the present system of student finance and affordable for the nation. Access to higher education will be on the basis of ability, not ability to pay,” said a spokesperson for the Department for Business Innovation and Skills.

“The graduate contribution system will protect the lowest earning graduates and ensure that their contributions are linked to their ability to pay.”

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