Oxford fees could treble next year, academics warn

Lecturers expect student fees to rise to £10,000 a year as soon as the government allows it, which could be after a general election next yea

A gargoyle with head in hands on the bell tower of New College, Oxford. Photograph: Chris Andrews/Corbis

Tuition fees at Oxford University are likely to more than treble as early as next year, academics at the 900-year-old institution have warned.

Lecturers have told the Guardian they expect students to be charged £10,000 a year "as soon as the government allows it" – which some believe will be shortly after a general election next year.

Full-time undergraduates starting at Oxford this year will pay £3,225 a year – the maximum universities are allowed to charge.

The university will struggle to compete with the US Ivy League institutions unless government funds increase or Oxford raises its fees, the academics warn. But chances of a growth in public subsidies are remote, they admit.

The government has asked English universities to make £180m in "efficiency savings". Government funding is thought to have covered 75% of universities' income 30 years ago, but accounts for less than 40% of their income now.

Oxford's famed one-to-one tutorials between academics and students are expensive for the university to maintain.

A fee increase is therefore unavoidable, the lecturers argue, and it could happen as soon as "Cameron's first term of office", according to one.

Their comments come after Oxford's unpopular outgoing vice-chancellor, John Hood, said over the weekend that it was "inevitable" that Oxford and Cambridge would charge more in future to compete with the best institutions in the world.

But Hood said this would be "gradual" and could be "decades off". A government review of university fees starts this year and is expected to end after a general election.

Iain McLean, a politics professor at Nuffield College, Oxford, expects the university to raise fees to £10,000 a year "as soon as the government allows it – most likely to be early in Cameron's first term".

He said £10,000 was roughly what it cost to educate an average student at Oxford per year.

Christopher Lewis, dean of Christ Church College, Oxford, argues that the cap should come off tuition fees.

Lewis said: "By whatever means, fees will have to rise. Many of our alumni say that they would give us greater financial support were we to 'go independent', by which I assume that they mean, charge the fees which Oxford considers reasonable. Our alumni are already very supportive, but I reckon that they would be even more so if they saw us as independent."

David Palfreyman, fellow and bursar of New College, Oxford, said raising the fees was "almost inevitable".

He anticipates that fees will rise after the next general election to "£7,500 at least". If they do not, and the government does not increase its subsidies, "some subjects would take a hell of a clobbering", he said.

Robin Briggs, a senior research fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, said a hike to £5,000 would be "fairly modest" and "possible".

But the academics and the vice-chancellor believe higher fees can be introduced only if the university provides "better bursaries" so that bright, poor students can take up places.

Hood, a New Zealander who is leaving Oxford in September after five years, would not state by how much he would like to see fees rise.

He wants the university to convince more of its wealthy alumni to donate money so that Oxford has more freedom from government.

He said: "If Oxford is successful over the ensuing decades in its endownment-raising, we could see it taking less government money for teaching. But that would be decades away."

But academics say this is a difficult way to raise funds. Briggs said: "It remains very hard to see how Oxford could raise enough to replace the current levels [from the government]. The UK does not have the tax breaks or the philanthropic tradition of the US, while we are forbidden to give any sort of preference in entrance selection to the children of donors, as the Ivy League used to do."

The Institute for Philanthropy says 1.7% – 108,000 out of 6.2 million – of UK graduates donate to their universities, compared to 22% of alumni of US public universities. Oxford says 14% of its alumni donate, but in the US Ivy League universities, more than half do.

Earlier this year, a report by Universities UK, the umbrella group for vice-chancellors, argued that raising tuition fees from £3,000 to £5,000 a year would not deter students from university.

But the report warned that students from low-income families would be discouraged if fees rose to £7,000, particularly if they had to take out private loans as well as government student loans.

15/07/2009