Do you think the new fee system in 2012 will force some universities to close?

Ask yourself ... university?

How would increasing profits cause a university to close/go bust? Am i missing something here?

I defined a world competitive University as any University included in the top 50 Times world University league tables.

and if so which uni's do you think are at risk.

The UK barely has 5 World Competitive (top 50) universities right now, how do you plan on bumping up that number? "Purge the ex-polys"? Have you even considered the effect that closing half the country's Universities will have on Britain?

The job losses alone would be tremendous, an exodus of professors and researchers would leave Britain to work where there are more research and teaching posts, further impacting on Britain's ability to compete at the world scale and all together more seriously, have a damaging effect on our economy which isn't exactly healthy right now.

Your opinion is so ill-informed it's insulting to all us Ex-poly students with our sub standard educations.

most definitely, obvs Oxbridge/LSE/Imperial/UCL are going to have the max, but smaller universities such as Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, Huddersfield and a few mets are also applying for max fees, so its quite possibly going to price most people out of the higher education market!

It won't change a thing. If someone is too stupid to realise that in real terms, repaying student loans where the tuition fees are £3000 or £9000 a year are essentially the same, then they probably shouldn't be going to University. Universities are being incredibly hypocritical - foreign students, for example, pay even more than the £9000 a year that we'll have to pay, and they don't get the benefit of a very favourable loan. Yet, why do I not see mass protests on their behalf?

The approach that I have always taken to it is this. Excluding the 'top' universities in the UK, is a degree from the others really worth £9000 a year? I mean, is it? Is Leeds Metropolitan in the same class as Oxford for its professors and lecturers? I doubt it. No discredit meant to Leeds Metropolitan, I am just using it for comparison. And if it is, what have they done differently in their teaching methods or degree structure to constitute charging someone nearly three times as much as the previous year? Probably nothing, or less, will be the answer. This is what I find most troubling about it. It will not put me off applying for University because I want to study at a top institution, but I can see why some people would go study abroad in Europe such as The Netherlands for instance, where they are already receiving hundreds of British applicants.

They make a student pay 3 times as much for the same quality of education. If they had kept the government funding at the same levels I'd say ok, at least this means you get better quality teaching.

What makes you think that teaching standards would have gone up if the government had kept their funding in addition to the increase in fees? When our funding went up last time all reports published showed there were no noticeable improvements to the quality of teaching students received.

The only difference I saw was a large rise in the number of admin staff, which was backed up by the Times Higher who repeorted that for the first time ever, the salaries of uni admin people was greater than uni lecturers.

Smaller in size? Manchester is the largest university in the country, in terms of student numbers certainly. Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield are all members of the Russell Group (large, research intensive universities) and it was always going to be the case that most, if not all of these, will charge the max 9k.

Ask yourself why universities are required to increase fees. Also, that if too many universities charge 9k, the university will possibly but back funding even more with teaching intensive universities particularly vulnerable.



I certainly won't be surprised to see Cumbria on its way out. Its Ambleside campus is already closed and, from what I've noticed in the regional media (and from those who studied there) it cannot afford to maintain its accomodation at another campus. The Penrith campus, I think. It is certainly experiencing some troublesome lossess.



What's a "world competitive" university?