The Staggers

The New Statesman’s rolling politics blog

Nick Clegg’s tuition fees headache gets bigger

The University of Sheffield joins the £9,000 club.

By George Eaton Published 12 April 2011 11:43

Nick Clegg may insist that he's not feeling the pressure ("I'm very, very resilient," he told Sky News this morning) but there's been plenty to upset him already today. He's been forced to respond to a call by the former leader of the Lib Dems in Liverpool for the national party to pull out of the coalition, and he's been ridiculed after being left off local election leaflets in his constituency.

Worst of all, the University of Sheffield has announced that it plans to charge the maximum £9,00 a year in undergraduate tuition fees. Not only does this mean the government's £1bn black hole just got a little bigger, it also means Clegg will have to contend with even more outraged students in his constituency come election time.

Of the 43 universities we've heard from, 31, or 72 per cent, intend to charge full whack, including Oxford (ranked first nationally) and Liverpool John Moores (ranked 109th). Vince Cable's insistence that institutions would only charge £9,000 in "exceptional circumstances" now looks remarkably naive.

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Tags: tuition fees Nick Clegg

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9 comments

Wed, 2011-04-13 14:20 — Union Steve

Will anyone vote for this man's party? If you do you should take the pledge.

Tue, 2011-04-12 19:54 — Chris (not verified)

Cleggy has gone all quiet on recalling MPs who don't do what they say they would hasn't he??

Tue, 2011-04-12 12:02 — MiddleClassMarxist (not verified)

You couldn't write comedy gold like this.

Tue, 2011-04-12 12:46 — JamesB1

The fact that is getting lost is that we were assured fees above £6000 would be "exceptional", not just those hitting £9000.

But then the government knew this, knew universities could and would charge these fees and once again pass the buck.

Tue, 2011-04-12 13:03 — mittfh

Assuming other universities follow suit, this tuition fees policy will probably cost government more in the long term, even if they decide to radically revise the repayments system to ensure more students pay off their loan (plus interest).

No doubt the real agenda is the same as that elsewhere in the public sector - by devolving the spending decisions down to a more local level, when the funding gets cut the government can wash their hands and say "We don't control where the money's spent - if your preferred course is cancelled it's nothing to do with us!", probably closely followed by the standby arguments "It's all due to Labour's dreadful economic record!" and "We're all in this together!"

Tue, 2011-04-12 13:30 — Peter (not verified)

Missing '0' on £9,000 in second par.

Tue, 2011-04-12 13:50 — Drew (not verified)

It happened here in Australia, the government gave universities the option to charge more. Within 12 months every university in the country was charging the maximum amount.

Tue, 2011-04-12 14:16 — mcquade

I lust say the Lib Dem stat of a new primary school every twenty minutes means bugger all to the average voter. Why do they insist on using such laughable illustrations?