Students at De Montfort University face £9,000 maximum tuition fees
De Montfort University is proposing to charge undergraduates the maximum £9,000 a year tuition fees from 2012.
The university announced its plans yesterday – the day by which all universities had to submit their proposals to the Government's Office for Fair Access.
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Vice-chancellor Professor Dominic Shellard
Vice-chancellor Professor Dominic Shellard said: "The proposed tuition fee level will mean De Montfort can achieve a strong financial future while strengthening our commitment to widening participation, rewarding academic excellence and further boosting employability for our students."
The university has announced plans to help students from poorer backgrounds.
Mr Shellard said £20 million would be set aside over the next three years.
Proposals include giving up to £6,000 to the poorest students over the duration of their studies.
Talented students with 340 or more UCAS points – the equivalent of AAB grades – will be eligible for academic scholarships of £1,000 each year. Bursaries of £1,000 a year for students on access courses, which are designed to prepare students for entry to higher education, will continue and there are plans for an "exciting new internship programme" to boost students' job prospects.
Prof Shellard said: "We'll provide bursaries for talented students from the poorest families as well as the chance of a paid internship and a range of other innovations."
An annual league table of universities published this week showed DMU had dropped 16 places and was now ranked 81st out of 116 universities featured in the Complete University Guide.
Leicester (ranked 23, down from 21) and Loughborough (19, up from 21) also plan to charge £9,000 a year.
The tuition fee limit is currently £3,290 a year, but from September 2012 universities can increase that if scholarship schemes were in place.
Andy Schooledge, De Montfort Students' Union president, said the university had little choice.
He said: "Universities have been placed in an impossible situation by regressive Government policy.
"They have been left with few options, with 80 per cent of their teaching budgets being cut.
"We're against tuition fees but we know universities have to be practical about how to make up the shortfall."
He said he hoped the bursary package would encourage poorer students to go to university.
Politics student Brett Leppard said: "I'm very surprised by this.
"I believed it would be about £8,000 and, although I agree contributions have to be made, it's a lot of money for anybody to pay for a university course.
"De Montfort is renowned worldwide for some of its courses, which are not available elsewhere, so it may have been fairer to charge depending on the course.
"It's clear that any university which charges less than the top rate will be seen as the poor equivalent so I can see why this decision has been made."
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by Andy Barlestone, Barlestone
Thursday, April 21 2011, 12:33PM
“Still missing the point. Scotland zero cost, wales 3K, how can this be fair and just. What makes it even worst if a Scotish/welsh studant studies in England they only have to pay their respective fee's and not the 9K that my child will have to pay. just another tax on the working man, once again fee's paid if your parents are on benifits and if your middle class you can afford the increase.”
by Kulgan, Crydee
Thursday, April 21 2011, 12:24PM
“Mike,
If you have any spare AI, send it my way. I am sure a certain person who shall remain nameless will say that I need it.
Wibble ;)”
by Mike, le3
Thursday, April 21 2011, 11:22AM
“"
It is simply not right that a person that reads a subject at De Montfort (who probably achieved lower entrance results as I did) will pick up the same debt as someone who read at Cambridge/Brunel/Loughborough as when it comes to employment the fact they studied at this institution will not stand up against these others due to results and the view of them by employers." - Stu, Evington Exile
Sad to hear you studied an academic subject at DMU rather than Oxbridge. I'm currently studying AI and Robotics at DMU, and let me assure you, there's no better university in the country, arguably Europe, for this subject. One of many that DMU excells at. But of course, since it's not physics or maths, it's not worth talking about...”
by Ross, Leicester
Thursday, April 21 2011, 10:29AM
“"DMU is a mickey mouse Uni and given the research completed there is tiny, which is the main funding that Universities have lost, it is beyond belief that they feel they can charge the full fee."
Half of DMU's research was rated as internationally excellent by the government. English research was rated as on par with Cambridge University. I think it's brilliant that people with absolutely no knowledge of things whatsoever feel that they can spout completely uninformed rubbish on a public forum.”
by hmmm, leicester
Wednesday, April 20 2011, 11:48PM
“Oh look Cglee claims that demontfort is not a good enough university to charge this amount. Its not surprising that he says this as he has the old red brick/ old poly divide firmly fixed in his old prejudiced mind and was such a predictive response!”
by reply, leicester
Wednesday, April 20 2011, 5:14PM
“...in reply to mark"s comments....this is the thing....ref: the future doctors... scientists and engineers..if they accepted £6 - £7ph...and the employers lowered their "wall" of qualifications....everyone would have an equal oppertunity to work...the students ..for me..at least..surely.. are only interested in future £15 ph jobs.. leading to future financial inequality.?”
by Kulgan, Crydee
Wednesday, April 20 2011, 4:21PM
“@ Mark,
So that is NOT £512Bn in bonuses then?
I agree that failure should not be rewarded.”
by Mark, Leicester
Wednesday, April 20 2011, 4:17PM
“"If the taxpayer is paying £512 billion in bonuses that would be obscene. That is half (ish) the deficit left to this coalition by Labour. Either that, or your figure of £512 billion is wrong."
Kulgan, Crydee
This is the amount of taxpayers money under the Treasury Asset Protection Scheme, thrown at incompetent banks to keep them (RBS, Lloyds) from collapsing. As such, this money is implicit in funding obscene bonuses to individuals who fail.
Meanwhile, our country's future, the young people who will become - Doctors, Scientists, Engineers - have to stump up the cash for tuition themselves because of the failings of the greedy minority.
To my mind, that's wrong.”
by Bobbi, LE1
Wednesday, April 20 2011, 4:00PM
“I think LM should check the facts with regards to DMU's place in the league tables or is it just another opportunity to have a pop a DMU while publishing inaccurate information?”
by Talent Wisp, O'Wills
Wednesday, April 20 2011, 2:59PM
“Good. It's about time someone made decisions in this country ignoring all the liberals out there who want to plummet the country's economy even further down the hill.
Hopefully now, people will realise they need to study something noteworthy to make our taxes worthwhile. If people study subjects simply because it's interesting, then learn about that subject in your own time.
We need people to make harsh decisions - that is the only way this country will recover and if that means having curtailments on things then so be it. University isn't your right, you know. Man, the people in the world who have little to no education in places such as Africa would love to have basic education here. You lot should thank yourselves lucky you have even a decent education system. (Not good, but not the worst).”