Students rush to beat university fee deadline

Students rush to beat university fee deadline
By Glen Owen



UNIVERSITIES face chaos next year as students rush to apply to courses before the introduction of higher tuition fees.
Research has shown that the number of applications is likely to rise by up to 67,000, with at least 27,000 of the extra candidates coming from independent schools, in the last year before fees of up to £3,000 a year are put in place.

Admissions officers will be placed under unprecedented strain, competition for places will be stiffer and the Government’s plans to increase the proportion of students from state schools could be wrecked at a time when it is facing claims that top-up fees will deter working class pupils.

Charities and industry groups are also lobbying ministers over an expected slump in the number of students able to go on gap-year placements. They have united with political opponents to demand a fee exemption for pupils who leave school in 2005 and defer their place for a year.

Research into the intentions of sixth formers by the Liberal Democrats has concluded that 67 per cent of potential “gappers” will abandon their plans and rush into university to avoid being among the first group of students to pay the higher fees. The figures are backed up by the expectations of gap year groups.

Last year, according to Ucas, the Universities & Colleges Admissions Service, 29,139 applicants out of a total of 368,115 deferred their entry to higher education for a year, more than double the number doing so a decade ago.

A further 30,000 to 60,000 took a gap year by default, leaving their application until after they had left school.

The study, which took 2,500 responses from pupils in 311 schools, concludes that a stampede by both groups will push applications up by a record 16 per cent.

Independent schools which account for just 9 per cent of the school population provide about 40 per cent of the gap year market. Although pupils from the private sector tend to come from wealthier backgrounds, the fact that they are likely to be among the two thirds of undergraduates not receiving any financial assistance under the new regime is expected to encourage them to go straight on to courses.

If the measure to raise fees from the current £1,125 is passed by Parliament, pupils filling out application forms next year for entry in 2005 will be the last to escape. When university fees were first levied in 1998, the Government agreed that applicants in 1997 who deferred their place to take a gap year should be exempted.

A stampede of applications from the fee-paying sector would place admissions processes under intense scrutiny. There have been growing complaints from headmasters that universities such as Bristol, Durham and Edinburgh are already responding to government pressure to widen access by discriminating in favour of state school candidates.

The research concludes that applications will “increase in both quantity and quality . . . less able candidates will find they are up against increased and stronger competition. Consequently they are more likely either to be offered a course for which they are not best suited and will drop out, or not be offered a place at all.”

In addition, it says, those who have forgone a year off are often “late developers who need the extra time that a gap year would provide. If they feel under pressure to enter university before they are ready, drop out rates may increase . . . the drop-out rate among pupils who take gap years is negligible”.

A gap year costs a minimum of £3,000 for trips lasting up to six months, according to gap-year.com. This compares with tuition fees of up to £12,000 for a four-year course.

It is estimated that charities such as Voluntary Services Overseas, The Year Out Group and GAP Activity Projects will lose more than 14,000 students, putting many projects in peril.