Vince doing the biz on university fees?

In the Department for Business (BIS) press release on spending plans you get a whiff of the work in progress in that department trying to amend or dilute the Browne review.

It says that overall Higher Education budget (minus research) comes down from £7.1b to £4.2b by 2014-15 – around 40 per cent. That’s a long way from the 80 per cent cut that the Browne Review (on p47) implied.

It suggests that Vince Cable’s attemps to ameliorate the Browne recommendations has got some money behind it and that he is using it to try to bring down chargeable fees.

Some universities said they were looking at £8,000 on average annual charges for degree courses. BIS looks keen to get that number down and appears to think it can find the money to do it.

Announcements are expected on the shape of the Government’s “Browne plus” White Paper next month.