Following the announcement last month that UCLan will charge £9,000 a year for students enrolling in 2012, Blackburn FEC is to break its association with UCLan as it has proposed to charge £7,000.
UCLan is well down the performance tables of universities and it was a surprise when it announced it would charge the maximum fee. The government didn’t intend that universities such as UCLan would charge so much. Yet universities can ask for the fees they need to develop their institution subject to approval of plans to accommodate certain students.
Perhaps it’s similar to the BBC who seriously expected license payers to accept a very large increase to fund their dreams of expansion. The government limited the BBC and now they are being restricted even further by the new government.
Did the government misjudge how much universities need or are the universities making the most of what is possible. Ultimately the taxpayer pays until the loan is paid off. Yet as it’s likely to be 2015 before the smallest repayments are made, there is no government saving for a long time. On the other side it appears some universities will be raking it in from 2012.
Read more about Blackburn FEC:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=416063&c=1