Can a University change the price on tuition after an offer is accepted?

Usually your offer email will have an attachment or link to material info about the course; duration, award title, fees etc. I would check that first, as that was what you were agreeing to.

Reply 3

Number#9

OP

3

There's no small print with disclaimers, and there's no attachment or link in the offer letter or CAS referring to any other fees - the offer letter clearly states that

"This offer is based on a fee status of aaaaaa with a tuition fee of £yyyyy

Your fee status determines the level of tuition fees that you will be charged. It has been assessed using the information that you provided on the UCAS application. The University's fee status policy can be found on our website. If you believe that your fee status has been incorrectly assessed please contact us to request a Fee Status Enquiry Questionnaire. Please note we will only assess Fee Status queries made within 30 days of this offer notification."

There is a link to the university's website which includes a section on the fee status page stating that individual offer letters contain the amount that each student will be charged.

I would also emphasize that the offer letter provided a 30 day window for me to querie the the assessment amount. The University had 5 months prior to my acceptance to amend their offer.

The point is, not what the rates were or should have been, it is about the terms and conditions i was presented with when i accepted the offer and expectations set by the University. As i understand once an offer is accepted it it becomes a contract and would need to be amended by both parties. Or by some formal process in which an error was discovered and corrected within a reasonable period of time The question is does a university by some special virtue have the right to simply invoice a different amount than was presented in the offer letter and 5 months later in my CAS letter; And when i enquired about it, can they simply write it off as a computer glitch due to a dated price being sent in my offer letter?

To put this another way; Imagine i entered a contract for services for £x and after going through a lengthy decision process and a significant and costly preparation process to meet the terms and conditions of the contract, at the start of delivery i was presented with an invoice for 20% more than the contract price with no explanation. And when i went to pay the invoice and noticed the difference, I enquired and weeks later was eventually told, "Sorry, the price we negotiated and signed for was wrong, it should have been £y but there was a computer glitch which is why our bid had the old price of £x. Our prices went up and It seems that £y wasn't in the system at the time we initially prepared our bid".
That is exactly what has transpired here

Reply 4

Original post by Number#9

The point is, not what the rates were or should have been, it is about the terms and conditions i was presented with when i accepted the offer and expectations set by the University. As i understand once an offer is accepted it it becomes a contract and would need to be amended by both parties. Or by some formal process in which an error was discovered and corrected within a reasonable period of time The question is does a university by some special virtue have the right to simply invoice a different amount than was presented in the offer letter and 5 months later in my CAS letter; And when i enquired about it, can they simply write it off as a computer glitch due to a dated price being sent in my offer letter?

None that I'm aware of. I would be speaking to the SU and finding out the process for a formal complaint.

Take dated screenshots of anything you see on the uni website as is it is liable to change.

Reply 5

Number#9

OP

3

Original post by Admit-One

None that I'm aware of. I would be speaking to the SU and finding out the process for a formal complaint.

Take dated screenshots of anything you see on the uni website as is it is liable to change.

Thank you- What's SU ?

I am in contact with the College and the University's Finance department. The college seems to be trying to help us but the Finance Department is dismissive and slow to respond. I have initiated a formal dispute over the difference, and am looking a) to validate that i have a reasonably strong position (thank you) and b) to see if there are other resources outside the uni that i might reach out to who could help advocate for me or press the university to enforce the terms of my offer.

Reply 6

Original post by Number#9

Thank you- What's SU ?

I am in contact with the College and the University's Finance department. The college seems to be trying to help us but the Finance Department is dismissive and slow to respond. I have initiated a formal dispute over the difference, and am looking a) to validate that i have a reasonably strong position (thank you) and b) to see if there are other resources outside the uni that i might reach out to who could help advocate for me or press the university to enforce the terms of my offer.

SU - Student Union

They are external to the uni itself so can usually advise on procedure or advocate for you a bit. I would bare in mind they are mostly students themselves so may not be experts, but can advise whether this is a known issue that others have raised.

Beyond the SU I'm not sure of any external bodies that might be able to help. Citizen's Advice? In either case best to persue it through the formal channels as you are doing currently.

OP

thank you!

Original post by Number#9

thank you!

No worries. I hope it all works out in the end. Please do give us an update as it's an unsual situation.

Reply 9

Number#9

OP

3

Update: We resolved this issue amicably with the University. It was not easy and took quite some time, but the University suspended tuition payments while we negotiated the dispute. They traced the cause of the discrepancy to a change in my programme which I initiated after my acceptance letter, but before the CAS was issued. I'm told that when the change was entered in their system, the financials.didn't update automatically.

In the end, I explained that while i appreciated the explaination and the time that must have been spent making this determination, my family made financial arrangements based on the CAS. We further argued that after much research, that making a correction by simply changing the amount due on an invoice after the CAS was issued was simply unfair and appeared to be unprecidented. They agreed to honor the CAS for the curent acedemic year and we agreed that we would accpet the adjustment in subsequent years. While difficult and time consuming, we were impressed by eveyrone's professionalism, patience and empathy.

Reply 10