Fees

Poll

Are higher fees for graduates unreasonable?

office 2001

Hi,
I've been reading about the excessive fees for graduate entry to veterinary science courses (£17500 per year). I don't understand how some places can have reduced fee's, whereas
the majority dont. I am applying for 2008 graduate entry and am very concerned about the fee's. I have heard that Natwest can give a loan up to £50,000 which would help,but still not cover it. Has anyone heard about getting sponsorship to assist with fee's.

Has anyone thought about setting up a petition about this, I know that for graduate medicine, there was a lot of uproar that student on accelerated 4 year courses only had to pay their fee's from 2nd year onwards, whereas graduates on 5 year courses had to pay fees for the first 4 years, considering that the fee's (in Scotland anyway) are only £2800/year, I don't see the fuss as vets are having it much worse.

Saying this the petition has been very successful and has highlighted the plight of graduates and this system is being reviewed. If anyone has any ideas about making this situation more public I would be happy to assist, as I find it appalling that talented graduates are essentially being excluded from the opportunity of being a vet when they have made the mature decision that this is what they want to do.

My condolences to the people who had to withdraw as they can't afford the fee's - I cant imagine how difficult that must have been.

Reply 1

sarahbeth

Im a graduate paying full fees and whilst it would be great not to be, I have already had one degree funded by this country why should I have a second?! I agree it excludes a lot of people, but so does doing a first degree for many and I would rather we funded first degrees better than worry about people choosing to do a second degree.

My opinion only :smile:

Beth

Reply 2

office 2001

Ah yeah-I don't have a problem paying fees for a second degree-my issue is with the excessive level of the fees which is going to work out at £17500 p/a compared to say medicine which would work out at £2800 p/a...can veterinary science reallllllly be that much dearer to put on?

Reply 3

SlipperyWhenWet

akira2027

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that there are many more students taking medicine compared to the number taking vet - the smaller the number of students, the more it will cost to run a course per student.
I can only speak for Glasgow uni which I know is in a huge amount of debt. Glasgow vet school itself would struggle to cover it's costs if it didn't take in so many full fee paying Americian students. But at least it does offer the opportunity to go straight into 2nd year vet, saving you £16,000 odd, of course this depends on the degree you did previously.

Reply 4

Bouldie

I think fees are ridiculously steep for graduates (thank goodness for Nottingham and RVC). Especially for people who aren't able to apply for a vet degree straight from A-levels.

Also, most peoples 1st degrees are only 3 years long, so surely it would only be fair to at least get funding for another two years fees (the total being equivalent of anybody else doing a five year course straight off)?

Reply 5

your.angel

sarahbeth

have already had one degree funded by this country why should I have a second?!

But £15k+ / year...it's just unrealistic for most people, and in many cases could mean that the only graduate entrants would be people with rich parents, older grads coming from high-earning careers, or those who have been very lucky getting funding from somewhere. This doesn't seem like a good situation for the vet schools or the profession. Should good applicants, who would make a valuable contribution to the profession, be forced to turn down places simply due to money? Even the £3000 / year that we have to pay is difficult, given that we have to pay it upfront, and many of us are self-funding.

Besides, the country will probably get all if not more of that money back in taxes from us when we're vets... :frown:

akira2027

I don't understand how some places can have reduced fee's, whereas the majority dont.

Nottingham can have reduced fees because they are a new school, and therefore can put their money wherever they like. They feel that having more grads will be beneficial to their new course, and and encouraging them with the lower fees. RVC, possibly due to the decision by Notts, are able to charge lower fees (according to the admissions guy at Bristol) by using government funded places for grads rather than for undergrads. This probably won't make a difference to undergrad places compared to previous years, as I think RVC was allocated more places as a whole anyway this year. RVC have been able to make the decision to use their places this year are they are independent as a college, and not part of a wider university.

Some Scottish body decided that the Scots unis would not be allowed to allocated undergrad places to grads, and therefore they are keeping their previous system. They also probably have the same problem as Bristol and Liverpool, in that they are bound by what the finance department of the university as a whole allows them to do. Bristol vet school, for example, were keen to charge lower fees, but were not allowed by the university.

Cambridge do charge lower fees - somewhere in the region of £3000-4000 I believe, but also charge graduates 'college fees' (variable between colleges) which push the total up to nearer £7000 / annum. Cambridge students, so I was told yesterday, also aren't allowed to work during their courses, so can't bring in any extra money that way.

This is the situation as far as I understand it, butif anyone knows better please correct me!

Also, I'm not sure about a £50,000 loan. HSBC used to do a vet / med loan which you could take out for the final 2 years, which was £25,000.

Reply 6

sarahbeth

"RVC have been able to make the decision to use their places this year are they are independent as a college, and not part of a wider university."

this is not the case, the RVC are part of the University of London, they were allocated more funding this year for more students and choose to accept graduates on £3000 a year with this funding. I believe Nottingham did this the same way but also have a lot of sponcership from companies to help boost their funding. Liverpool and Edinburgh looked into this but decided they wished to spend any extra money allocated to them on first timers (so to speak).

Reply 7

your.angel

sarahbeth

Does UoL actually control the RVC finances though? I don't know much about it, but it's just a federation of self-governing colleges, and therefore I thought more money went from the colleges to it than the other way around.

The RVC and Scots info I had come from Bristol, hence why I couldn't guarantee its accuracy. Where did you get yours?

Reply 8

sarahbeth

I did my first degree at the RVC and Liverpool info came through from them when I applied last year and I am at Edinburgh and that is what they have told us. Hope that helps? :smile: