A last-minute legislation has passed in the UK’s parliament which allows English universities to increase their tuition fees every year until 2020.
This Thursday, parliament passed the Higher Education and Research Bill, which will see domestic and EU tuition fees at English universities rise to £9,250 from autumn 2017.
Under the legislation, tuition fees were originally intended to increase as long as universities could demonstrate high teaching quality, but this policy will not be implemented until 2020. Until then, the universities who have opted in for a review of their teaching quality – which is almost all universities - will be able to increase tuition fees in line with inflation.
Increasing debt for students
The cost of domestic/EU fees for the 2018/19 academic year has not been announced, but is predicted to be around £9,500. It was recently confirmed that EU students commencing a course at English universities from the 2018/19 academic year will continue to pay the same tuition fees as domestic students for the duration of their program, and remain eligible for the same loans and grants.
The fee increases could come as worrying news for students, who are already facing a sharp rise in interest on their tuition fee loans from 4.6% to 6.1%, but the change will not affect how much students will repay each month, as this is based on earnings.
Although growing debt can be unsettling, at least many students can take comfort from the fact they’re unlikely to have repaid their loans in full by the time their debt is wiped anyway, which is currently set at 30 years after graduation (or 25 years, for students who took out their student loans before 2012).
This news comes in the lead-up to the UK’s snap General Election on June 8.
