Oxford University tuition fees ‘to hit £9,000’

Graeme Paton, Education Editor

The university is set to become only the fourth in the country to confirm that it wants to raise tuition fees to £9,000 a year – the maximum allowed under Government reforms.

It follows similar moves by Imperial College London, Exeter and Cambridge, with other leading institutions expected to follow.

Vice-chancellors have claimed that high charges are needed to allow universities to compete with international rivals and create large bursary pots to subsidise less well-off undergraduates.

But the plans are set to lead to fresh tensions between institutions and the Coalition.

It follows claims by Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, that Oxford and Cambridge had to "dramatically increase" access for poorer students before charging the full amount.
 
He said they would have to set challenging new targets – agreed with the Government’s Office for Fair Access – designed to create a more diverse student body. The access regulator has already said universities will be required to invest up to £900 in outreach policies for every £9,000 fee paid.

The Oxford fee hike – expected to be ratified at a meeting of the institution’s ruling council on Monday – comes as new figures were published on Friday showing that growing numbers of places are already being turned over to poor students and teenagers from state schools.

Some 55.4 per cent of students admitted to Oxford in 2010 attended state schools – up 1.5 percentage points on 2009. Early figures for entry in 2011 show that 58.5 per cent of offers made for this autumn have been given to state school teenagers.

It means less offers have been made to those from private schools than at any time since these figures were first published almost 30 years ago.

Fee-paying schools have already attacked the Government's rules on higher education, saying they are attempting to "socially engineer" university admissions at the expense of rewarding the very brightest.

Mike Nicholson, Oxford's director of undergraduate admissions, said: "We are pleased that figures for 2010 and preliminary offer figures for 2011 show the proportion of state students gradually rising.

“We believe this shows the great amount of effort and energy we have put into our outreach work is paying off.”