Higher fees proposed for richer students
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Your support makes all the difference.UNIVERSITIES should consider charging richer students fees, or asking for contributions out of students' earnings when they leave college, leaders of industry, commerce and universities say in a report published yesterday.
The report from the Council for Industry and Higher Education says colleges are now cramming in so many students that drop-out rates will rise unless the Government finds another pounds 3bn for buildings. Though some students should be admitted free, 'discussion can no longer be delayed on whether to ask for a greater contribution to their education from some students and their families', it says.
More than four out of ten students already pay fees, including 90,000 Open University students, all part-timers, and many postgraduates, the report says.
Instead of fees, the authors suggest, students might have the choice of paying instalments for a limited period after they graduate, as they do in Australia. This would avoid the introduction of a permanent graduate tax. John Raisman, the council's chairman, who was head of Shell UK, has sent the proposals to John Patten, the Secretary of State for Education.
The council also supports the introduction of courses lasting two rather than three years. 'A two- year staging-post qualification could be introduced to many courses on which further work could later be built, sometimes closely related to employment.'
The report, Investing in Diversity, attacks the Government for failing to invest in the expansion of higher education.
Even if higher education institutions were to pack in students more tightly, have longer terms and longer working weeks, the money required for buildings by the end of the century would be between pounds 2bn and pounds 3bn, including pounds 1bn for repairs, it says.
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