Why money has become the real university challenge

Education

St Colman's pupils (l-r) Ronan Kearney, Oisin Kearney, Niall Donnelly and Jack Farrell

Putting Omagh's £10m arts centre in the picture

Young Voices is a ground-breaking new series co-ordinated by Jennifer O'Reilly, Newspapers in Education Executive at the Belfast Telegraph, to give a voice to young people in schools across Northern Ireland. Today Jack Farrell, Niall Donnelly, Oisin Kearney and Ronan Kearney from St Colman's College in Newry report on the issue of university tuition fees

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

In 2004, the Higher Education Act was part of the government's target to get 50% of school-leavers into university by 2010. The Act introduced tuition fees of over £3,000 from September 2006, and has been the subject of great controversy.

The introduction of top-up fees marked a huge change in our higher education system and this change carried with it confusion and misconceptions. We, as prospective university students, hope to clear up some of this uncertainty.

From our research, we were able to deduce that students are virtually clueless with regards to the idea of debt after university. University tuition fees vary between £3,070 and £3,145 per annum, excluding the cost of living on top of that, which could be as much as £6,000! When these figures are totalled it is likely that students will leave university with debt in the region of £21,000.

The government argues that the system is more feasible for students, who will only have to pay their fees back once they are earning £15,000 per year. If you are earning £20,000 a year, you will have to fork out about £8.50 a week until you clear the debt, which the government estimates will be in the region of thirteen years.

Why tuition fees?

The widespread opinion among students is that these tuition fees were brought in to lift the burden on under-funded universities and to possibly raise the standard of our universities to that of the USA; we found out that Harvard's yearly endowment is £17.2 billion whereas Cambridge only takes in £4.1 billion.

Some argue that if universities in the UK are to sustain and enhance the quality of education and resources, then universities need more money. As those who attend university on average earn more during their career than those who do not attend university, the government believes that graduates, rather than the public at large, should pay for it.

The former Pro-Vice Chancellor for Education at Queen's University, Professor Ken Bell told us that there were many benefits of the tuition fee system which were not recognised.

"I am greatly dismayed by the way in which many people have actually camouflaged the real benefit of the new fees system to the students and to the universities," he said.

But why should there be such disparity between different areas in the UK? In Welsh universities, for example, Welsh students are only liable for £1,200 a year, the rest being subsidised by the Welsh Assembly. Furthermore, Scottish students receive higher education for free! Is it fair that we, in Northern Ireland, have to pay the full amount?

The University and College Union (UCU) told us that in 2006/2007, despite there being a 1% increase in university applications, Northern Ireland has seen a net 9% drop in first year students.

Does this mean that as our higher education system becomes more tiered and privatized, poorer students will be increasingly put off going to university?

The SDLP's Education spokesperson, Dominic Bradley feels that the thought of debt will put people off .

"I feel the threat of debt is the single obstacle to university entrants in the North", he said.

Patrick Farnon, Upper 6th Student, at St Colman's College agrees.

"Tuition fees are a great way to discourage people from going to university. It seems that a vocational qualification is a better way to earn a living without having to incur the weight of more and more student debt" , he said.

Commenting on variable tuition fees, Employment and Learning Minister, Sir Reg Empey, said: "These fees were introduced from September 2006 to provide much needed additional revenue to help our universities maintain their world class status.

"In terms of gauging the impact of variable tuition fees, it is too early to reach firm conclusions as we are only in the second academic year of the new arrangements. However, in academic year 2007/08, the total number of applicants accepted to NI institutions has increased by 8.4% compared with the previous year.

"A review of variable fees and student finance arrangements is planned to commence in Academic Year 2008/2009. The review will look at participation levels in Higher Education since the introduction of variable fees and consider any differential effect on particular groups including those from low income backgrounds."

Despite the continual increases in the amount of money students are expected to pay for their third level education, universities still assert that more is needed to maintain and develop the high standards of educational provision that exists at present. This leaves us with the question, how much is enough?

If your school would like to feature in Young Voices contact Jennifer on 90264226 or email Jennifer.O'Reilly@belfasttelegraph.co.uk