Raising England’s tuition fee cap during a cost-of-living crisis is “just not going to happen, not in a million years”, according to Robert Halfon, despite universities’ increasingly vociferous warnings over declining funding.
The higher education minister also told Times Higher Education that the Westminster government’s recently announced plans for student number controls on what it termed “rip-off” courses would mean people being “encouraged to go to university”, rather than cutting numbers.
Universities UK has called for a “national conversation” on finding a sustainable solution to university funding across the UK, amid a freeze in England’s £9,250 tuition fee cap confirmed until at least 2024-25. That means funding being eroded by inflation for at least seven years since fees last rose, with former Conservative minister Lord Johnson of Marylebone warning this could lead to universities “falling over one by one” if the cap is not uprated with inflation.
The Department for Education pitched its student number control plan as being about ensuring “high-quality provision” in universities. Will cutting university funding increase the quality of degrees?
