Educational charities and universities are warning the UK government that a number of tertiary institutions may be close to financial failure. In 2012, the UK introduced tuition fees of £9,000 ($11,600) which universities supplemented with an increase in the number of international and postgraduate students. However, student numbers have now reached a high and experts claim that tuition fees cannot increase any further or universities may struggle. England has placed 84% of the cost of university education onto graduates which is forcing many from less wealthy backgrounds from attending university. Scotland does not charge tuition fees, while Wales and Northern Ireland have more balanced costs.
There are now calls to increase the student support for living costs. In 2016, maintenance grants were abolished and replaced with loans. The minimum student income to live on is estimated to be £18k per year but the maximum loan available is approximately £10k. There are approximately 40% of higher education institutions predicting a deficit and therefore could fail, which is catastrophic for the local community. Failure would require tens of millions of pounds to be spent on repairing the damage.
The Labour party has declared that it will not scrap tuition fees, the Liberal Democrats will review higher education funding and reinstate maintenance grants for disadvantaged students, and the Conservative party has not mentioned tuition fees directly. The Greens are the only major party to have called for tuition fees to be abolished.
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