The Government’s rise in tuition fees is long overdue, but the crisis facing universities goes much deeper

Tuition fees are a contentious issue on student campuses across the country, and Leeds is no exception. Since their introduction in 1998, student groups have long campaigned for the abolition of fees to access higher education.

Politicians are acutely aware of how prominent this debate is amongst the youth vote, with Nick Clegg paying a hefty price for reneging on his promise to scrap them altogether after he took the Liberal Democrats into coalition with the Conservatives in 2010. Even the current Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, said he wished to remove them when he ran for Labour leader in 2020. 

This week, the Government took the brave and right decision to allow universities to raise tuition fees in line with inflation from next year. This follows the first increase in the fees since 2017. 

I am sure that I am in the very small minority of students who agree with the Government’s decision. I have always believed, and continue to believe, that tuition fees are the fairest system for funding university tuition and that it is wrong that they have not kept up with inflation since they were trebled in 2012.

University is not required to do well in life; in fact, too many people go to university after leaving sixth form or college. This is why the Government’s commitment to scrap the misguided 50% target for school leavers reaching university is the right thing to do. 

When you reach eighteen, and ultimately become an adult, you are responsible for your own choices, and so it is only right that, should you choose to go to university, you pay your way. 

It is beyond unjust that we would ask working-class people, possibly on minimum wage, to fund a middle-class student to study a Liberal Arts degree at university. The argument I often hear is that tuition fees lock out those from working-class backgrounds from going to university; well, I am living proof that that theory is simply untrue. 

On average, those with degrees are more likely to earn higher than those without, so I don’t think it is unreasonable that we ask graduates to contribute back into the system from which they took out.

Universities are also not immune to inflationary pressures that other businesses and institutions are subject to. The idea that students can expect university tuition not to rise at all since 2012, yet receive the same level of education, is ludicrous. It is long overdue that tuition fees were brought in line with inflation, and I am pleased that the Government has finally recognised this.

However, universities face a bigger and more substantial threat on their hands than a possible revolt from home fee-paying students. In the Government’s attempt to cut immigration, the number of student visas issued has dropped by 7% in the year ending June 2025. 

International students, who often pay more than twice the £9,535 paid by home students, contributed a large amount to universities’ overall funding model. This, coupled with the cap on home student fees, has been detrimental to universities. 

To fix this, the Government must be bold. The move from 50% of students in higher education to two-thirds in training or higher education is much welcome, as is the in-line with inflation rises which the Government has committed to. 

However, they must go further and faster to save higher education institutions. Starmer must move to a return to technical and vocational courses at ‘polytechnic’ colleges, removing the university status which John Major so disastrously granted many institutions back in the 1990s. 

The truth is that for too long, too many students have been going to university and often leaving, struggling to find a job in their degree field. To solve this, the Government should look to radically reduce the number of students going to university in favour of high-skilled apprenticeships and training courses, where on-the-job training, rather than the academic teaching style of universities, would benefit thousands of young people much more.

Words by James Childs