Cable: Cost of universities is set to soar
THE cost of a university education is set to soar as the public spending squeeze takes its toll on higher education.
However, business secretary Vince Cable vowed repayments will be fairer and linked to earnings.
A rise in the amount students have to pay for degree courses is inevitable, Cable said, as the government seeks cuts of 25 per cent in departmental budgets over four years to tackle the record peacetime budget deficit. He said: “I don’t want to see the quality of universities cut, we don’t want to narrow the opportunities for young people to go to university, therefore the only possible way forward is by having a bigger graduate contribution.”
Cable is walking a precarious line after the Lib Dems pledged to phase out a rise in tuition fees in the lead-up to the election.
Universities have asked for the tuition fee cap of £3,225 a year to be lifted, saying without higher fees the quality of teaching will suffer.
Former BP chief executive Lord Browne is leading a review of student fees and is due to report in the autumn.
Cable said he had asked Browne to look at a fairer way of recovering the cost of degree courses than now, where students take out government loans and repay the money when they start earning more than £15,000 a year. Cable said the system was unfair because teachers or care workers repaid the same amount as well-paid commercial lawyers or surgeons.
He said he had asked Browne to look at a repayment mechanism of “variable graduate contributions tied to earnings.”
Cable said he envisaged this would mean high-earning graduates would end up repaying more than the cost of their studies, with lower earners paying less.