Universities: ‘High fees can’t buy reputation’
A senior university academic tells Channel 4 News of the complexities of setting tuition fee levels in a competitive environment.
Northumbria’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Postlethwaite told Channel 4 News: “We felt £8,500 was right for us. Some universities may think they can buy reputation. I think reputation is earned steadily over the years.”
The decision was not taken lightly, Professor Postlethwaite described a lengthy process of consultation and research in setting the appropriate fee level: “It was a major activity and has been taken very seriously; it is not about looking at everyone else and then deciding. We felt this figure is right for us, we could defend it as being fair.”
Northumbria is a high volume university and 40 per cent of its students come from lower socio-economic backgrounds with family incomes below £40,000.
‘Attractive package’
Professor Postlethwaite said that the higher fee level would enable the institution to provide an attractive package of fee waivers, bursaries, and scholarships for students from poorer backgrounds, which will cost £14.5m. “The characteristic of Northumbria is to have a number of people from a wide range of backgrounds. We’re not planning to change that,” he said.
Professor Postlethwaite described how the university had spent £160m on its estate over the last five years, and focused on raising the quality of the student experience in the process. To set fees very low would, he said, “send a message that somehow we were of a very poor quality. And we’re not. We could not have continued to provide the level and quality of experience to the students we currently get.
“Certainly we didn’t want to be digging deep in to the clearing process to get our numbers up, as we’ve steadily increased entry requirements to ABB [A-Level grades], when three years ago that was CCC.”
Read how Northumbria's decision fits into the question of tuition fees and public image.
Looking into the future, Professor Postlethwaite predicted that the landscape of higher education in England will change, with a greater number of private education providers offering courses for lower fees, and mergers between struggling institutions taking place. “There may well be universities which actually fail. Not all universities have strong finances.”
He acknowledged that not so long ago higher education was free, but said: “We can’t hark back to that. A lot of universities don’t want to charge high fees, but they have to if they want to continue giving a high quality experience to their students.”