A new tuition fees commission has been set up to investigate the effects of the new higher education funding scheme, paying particular attention to the impact on students from poorer backgrounds. Will Hutton will lead the commission.
Great British playwright Alan Bennett has lamented the certain impact raised tuition fees will have on talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Bennett denounced the coalition government’s tuition fees scheme, saying that it will prevent talented writers like himself from working-class backgrounds from managing to reach university.
More bad news for university admissions this week, as last-minute tuition fees changes throw applicants into turmoil. Those who have already applied miss out on the chance to take advantage of lowered fees at 25 universities, while worrying evidence suggests that the lowered fees are a direct result of withdrawn bursary and scholarship funding.
With 28 universities announcing plans to revise their tuition fees arrangements, university applications have been thrown into chaos. Tens of thousands of students trying to navigate the already complex fees arrangements are now being forced to make blind decisions about where to apply. We explain the developments that have caused these problems, and who is likely to be worst affected.
In a controversial move, specific genuine Oxbridge interview questions have been released for the first time in an attempt to demystify the applications process. We look at the set of questions released and draw conclusions from them about what to expect from an Oxbridge interview, and how you are expected to answer.
Worrying new statistics show that increasing financial support in the form of bursaries does not necessarily help attract students from disadvantaged backgrounds to apply to elite universities. We ask what this means for the new tuition fees scheme and how we can address the problem of equal access to university for all.
A spate of disturbing stories regarding racism in UK higher education has recently hit the headlines. We look more closely at the incidents and consider the problem of racism at UK universities.
The long-awaited Higher Education Policy Institute response to the government’s white paper on higher education has arrived, and it isn’t pretty. We summarise its condemnation of the new tuition fees policy and the damning predictions for the damage to be caused to social mobility and fair access to education.
