The higher education minister, Robert Halfon, has decisively ruled out lifting the cap on student tuition fees in England, despite increasingly urgent warnings from vice-chancellors about the impact of declining funding on universities.
In an interview with Times Higher Education (THE), the minister said he recognised that some universities were facing challenges, but he said raising student tuition fees in the context of a cost of living crisis was “just not going to happen, not in a million years”.
Halfon’s intervention will come as a blow to vice-chancellors, who say the £9,000 tuition fee, introduced in 2012 and increased to £9,250 five years later, is worth little more than £6,000 to universities, having been eroded by soaring inflation. The current freeze is in place until at least 2024-25.
It will also reignite the debate about the growing recruitment of international students, whose higher fees are used to help plug the funding gap created by the now-devalued domestic tuition fee, amid fears that some domestic students could lose out on places as a result.
A recent investigation by the Guardian revealed that one in every five pounds received by UK universities last year came from international students, prompting concerns about the scale of the sector’s growing dependence on overseas tuition fees for financial survival.
Halfon told the THE: “If you look overall, the vast majority of universities are in good financial health – that doesn’t mean there aren’t some [that are not] and I know OfS [the Office for Students] is investigating some … and I completely get challenges that are being faced.
“But if you look at the research grant, the loans, the money we give – £1.5bn strategic priorities grant plus the £750m on teaching facilities [additional government funding announced last year] – universities get £40bn a year.
“If you compare that to the FE sector over the years – although we’re increasing skills funding by £3.8bn – given the difficult financial constraints we have, I can’t go to my constituents in Harlow and say, ‘By the way, on top of everything else, on top of all the other cost-of-living challenges, we’re going to increase your tuition fees.’
“It’s just not going to happen, not in a million years. I just think we have to be real, that we have to live in the world as it is, which is an incredibly difficult one faced by cost-of-living challenges.”
The sector says higher education funding is forecast to drop to its lowest level in real terms since the 1990s, while the proportion of English universities reporting an in-year deficit increased from 5% in 2015-16 to 32% in 2019-20.
Universities UK, which represents 140 institutions, has called for a “national conversation” on finding a sustainable solution to university funding, while the former Conservative minister Jo Johnson has warned the current funding shortfall could lead to universities “falling over one by one” if the cap was not increased in line with inflation.
Halfon also addressed government plans announced recently for student number controls on so-called “low-value” degrees – those that do not have a high proportion of graduates getting a professional job, going into postgraduate study or starting a business. He said the move aligned with his priorities on “jobs, skills, [and] social justice” and would improve quality.
A Universities UK spokesperson said participation in higher education had been the only consistent driver of productivity growth over the past 15 years. “If we want to grow the economy and continue to support our progressive and fair system to deliver excellent teaching, it must be funded properly,” they said.
“To ensure that the current cohort of students can access similar levels of support and opportunity enjoyed by previous students, we need to have a conversation about a long-term solution. It’s essential that the HE sector and government work together to achieve a long-term approach that meets the needs of our world-leading institutions, students and the public.”