Oxford University students will pay higher tuition fees next year after Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson announced a suite of education reforms last month. Under the reforms, the price of tuition in English universities will rise yearly in line with inflation, as will the value of maintenance loans available to students. Maintenance grants will also be reintroduced for students from lower-income households. A University spokesperson indicated support for these changes.
The government has said that, eventually, tuition fee increases will only be allowed at universities that perform well on the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), the official system for assessing university performance. TEF ratings are assigned based upon evidence submitted to an independent panel of academics and students, as well as numerical data including student satisfaction and achievement scores. University fees increased this academic year for the first time since 2017 – they were previously frozen.
Tim Bradshaw, Chief Executive of the Russell Group, an association of 24 public research universities, including Oxford, described the announcement and accompanying white paper as a “milestone”, adding that the indexing of fees to inflation was a “first step in putting the sector on a more financially stable footing”.
Bradshaw also spoke out against the government’s proposed 6% levy on international student fees, which he said would “seriously hamper universities’ ability to invest in students and communities”. Phillipson had previously stated that the levy on international fees would be used to fund the new targeted maintenance grants.
An Oxford University spokesperson told Cherwell that they had nothing to add to Bradshaw’s statement. The University has long supported increases in tuition fees, arguing that the real cost of educating an undergraduate was far greater than the cost of tuition.
Oxford has the largest endowment of any university in Europe, when the financial assets of its colleges are included. For several years, Oxford has reported annual surpluses of over £100 million. However, elsewhere in the UK, four in ten higher education institutions are believed to be in financial deficit.
The General Secretary of the University and College Union, Jo Grady, spoke out against the announcement. She said that the policy “doubled down on the tuition-fees funding model” that she credited with causing a crisis in the university sector.
Grady did, however, agree with Bradshaw’s opposition to the international tuition fee levy, saying that the government should “stop attacking international students, who contribute so much to the sector, the economy, and Britain’s soft power”.
The Oxford University Student Union (SU) told Cherwell that the current funding model for higher education is unsustainable, but said that “passing that pressure on to students is not a long term solution”.
The SU spokesperson also said that increasing tuition fees will have a disproportionate impact on international students, as the international student tuition levy will likely lead to an increase in international fees. In relation to linking tuition fees to the TEF, the SU told Cherwell that quality should only be incentivised in a way which does not limit access to higher education.
The changes to fee structures will have a significant effect on Oxford students. More than two-thirds of the £412 million that Oxford receives each year in course fees comes from international students. Estimates by the Higher Education Policy Institute predict that the proposed fee levy for international students will cost Oxford around £17 million each year, with the total yearly cost to English higher education institutions standing at over £620 million.
