…University Alliance Director, Libby Aston, talks about the important role universities play in building the economy. Universities do this with the greatest impact when they work closely with industry. Libby also points out the need to clearly communicate the new student finance system so that no applicant is put off going to university. The interview came on the back of the GSK announcing they would pay tuition off for top graduates.…
…widely accepted that the state should make a direct contribution to the cost of delivering high-quality university education. We must identify the correct balance of contribution between the individual and the state in the forthcoming white paper on higher education. This underlying principle will have significant consequences for the future of our world-class public higher-education system, and must not be submerged by the immediate crisis in th…
Will you want to vote on university funding and fees in the coming Parliament? Do you have a university in your constituency? This briefing paper is a snapshot of the issues which are likely to be voted on or debated during the next Parliament and the ways University Alliance can provide useful information. Universities are now major generators of economic growth for the UK and the largest employers in some cities. [Download Briefing Paper as PDF…
…t industry. Browne is all but certain to propose lifting the fee cap, currently £3,250, unpopular but necessary if Oxbridge is to charge more than Bogstandard Uni. Among the evidence submitted to Browne, proposals from the University Alliance, the group of mostly ex-poly access universities, envisages a graduate contribution scheme (GSC). It would simplify the system, cap graduates’ lifetime liabilities, and charge the full cost of loans (not the…
…more for their university education in the future, Vince Cable said today, under sweeping reforms being considered by the Government. Higher graduate contributions are the “only possible way forward” to make the higher education system fairer and sustainable for the future, the Business Secretary said. Mr Cable was setting out a more “progressive” system of funding that includes proposals for a so-called “graduate tax”. And he admitted that as the…
…ead to students accruing debts of more than £40,000. Removing the cap on fees would expose students and their families to “the huge risks and potential calamities of the market, abandoning them to sink or swim”, he said. The University Alliance also suggests that student loan bonds could be sold to private buyers, which it says would free up money to expand student numbers. It joins Universities UK in calling for a rebranding of top-up fees as gra…
University top-up fees would be rebranded as graduate contributions under proposals published today by a group of 23 universities. The University Alliance – which represents institutions including The Open University, the University of Hertfordshire and Sheffield Hallam University – argues that its system would dispel “myths” about an upfront cost to university study and the language of debt. Its plans would see the troubled Student Loans Company…
…tion fees and maintenance loans to be funded by the private sector through sales of bonds, not by the taxpayer, as in Hungary. University Alliance, representing 22 universities including Oxford Brookes, Bournemouth, Plymouth and Nottingham Trent, said that companies should, in return, charge students higher interest on loans. Typical interest rates might rise to 4.5 or 5 per cent, from their current rate pegged to inflation. Students would not fac…
…9 (UCAS data release 8 February 2010). Steve Smith, President of Universities UK has commented: “Last year about 160,000 students who applied didn’t end up going to university. This year, we already know that there are about another 75,000 applying for university. So… there will be a lot of students this year who do not get a place at university.” University Alliance represents 22 universities at the heart of the sector. There have been significan…
…In the university world, differences of opinion are nothing new. But the outcome of this one might just change the character of higher education itself. Universities are at odds over the future of postgraduate study, with a Government review on the subject, due to report in the spring, setting up sharply diverging views on how PhDs should be funded just as finances for the sector as a whole come under huge pressure. Read the full article….