Higher education unions slam elitism

A report recommending an increase in students' tuition fees and allowing higher education institutions to charge market rates for degree courses has been condemned by unions representing university and college teachers.

The report, commissioned by the so-called Russell Group of 19 elite universities, says differential fees could provide the sums needed to solve Britain's university funding crisis. And it says that universities should be able to charge higher fees for students from well-off families. This in turn would help to pay for a much-expanded system of scholarships for those from poorer areas.

But university and college lecturers' union NATFHE said the proposals "would make a mockery of the government's lifelong learning and social inclusion agenda." Tom Wilson, head of the union's universities section, said: "This approach would discourage the very students the government is targeting in its attempts to widen participation from applying to the more 'expensive' universities."

He added: "We are also very concerned that potential students and their families may increasingly make the mistake of thinking that institutions which choose rightly not to charge fees are offering lower quality learning. Nothing could be further from the truth". And the Association of University Teachers said such a scheme would lead to a two-tier education system based not on the merits of students or their ability to benefit from higher education, but merely on the ability to pay."