Universities are in panic as student numbers fall each year. Worried about lifelong debt, students are staying away. Will a reduction in fees help?
On the face of it students could be about to receive good news as tuition fees look set to decrease to over seven thousand pounds from nine thousand pounds.
A newly released review looking into the way students fund their way through university has recommended the reduction in fees, as universities look to get more people back into further education. Numbers applying to study at university have been dwindling since the rise in fees a couple of years ago, and university profits have taken a tumble as a consequence.
The review which was requested by the government, also spelled out more changes that were aimed to give students a better financial time of things, as well as bolstering university application numbers. It stated that repayments made by students should run over a forty-year period, which is an additional ten years on the current thirty-year period. If these changes are approved, they could be implemented no later than 2022.
The review also makes a recommendation for maintenance loans to be brought back. They were dissolved three years ago and it was this decision that was blamed as one of the biggest reasons people from relatively humble backgrounds turned their back on university, as they couldn’t get the financial support that they needed.
Many people have welcomed the above news adding that change has been needed for some time in the higher education sector. Yet, some people, including many undergraduates, are worried about paying off debts for a further ten-year term. The new repayment stretch would mean that people who study at university nowadays may still be paying off tuition fee loans well into their sixties, and this has concerned some who say that people really don’t want to be paying off loans well into their retirement years.
Ultimately, we think more of an overhaul needs to happen to the university system other than just altering tuition fees. The university lure is no more and degrees have kind of lost their way. People aren’t impressed when students graduate anymore. An overhaul of the entire system needs to happen to get back to the universities of old.