Education: A waiting game
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.When the funding crisis first hit higher education, six universities said they might have to charge extra top-up fees to meet their costs and said so in their prospectuses. Four of those universities are still refusing to rule out extra fees on the grounds that they don't yet know how much cash they will have for the year 1998-99.
They are Oxford, Cambridge, Durham and Bristol. Tony Giddens, director of the London School of Economics, says it has ruled out top-up fees for the foreseeable future. "We have no plans to introduce them," he says. Nottingham University has also dropped the idea.
A spokeswoman for Bristol said it was not proposing to charge top-up fees in 1998 but was keeping its options open. "We are waiting to see what the Government decides on money," she said.
Durham's vice chancellor, Professor Evelyn Ebsworth, said he believed top-up fees to be thoroughly undesirable but could not rule them out until next March, when he would know how much his university would receive in its block grant.
Oxford and Cambridge are special cases because they face possible reduction or abolition of the college fees paid by the government for their tuition system and for pastoral care and other college facilities. They are unlikely to know what has been decided about college fees until the end of the year. That is why they are not ruling out having to charge students extra.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments