Cambridge University’s Bursars’ Committee has plans to reform the current structure put in place for tuition fees paid by graduate students.

The committee, which is made up of bursars from all of the University’s colleges, has recently released a report outlining proposals for a significant increase in graduate fees paid by international students. The plans in the report would aim to substantially increase the university’s intake of graduate students from overseas, allocating fewer places to home students.

While this system would benefit graduates whose main residence is within the UK, as their college fees would be reduced to £1,276 from the current charge of £2,349, the committee’s intention to attract many more international applicants may result in fewer places being made available for home students.
The new fees would also differ for students depending on whether their postgraduate studies are within arts or science disciplines. These changes come only weeks after the Higher Education Commission issued an inquiry into the state of postgraduate study in the UK.

Their findings, which Varsity reported on earlier this month, showed that rising tuition fees, as well as the reluctance of banks to grant loans to postgraduate students, has dissuaded many students from continuing their education after graduation.

The chairman of the Sutton Trust, Sir Peter Lampl, commented on the information, saying that British citizens “must make the most of all [their] talents. It is no less important in postgraduate studies which are now dominated by overseas students. It is vital that our brightest graduates are not priced out of postgraduate study.”

Proposals for the system of increased charges for graduates would result in those studying a science-based subject paying significantly higher fees than those considering further study in the arts. There are concerns that this may result in the possibility of an unfair ‘lottery’, where graduate opportunities for fees and funding are largely dependent on their choice of course.

The need for an increase in the fees paid by graduates comes as a result of the cuts to bursaries made available by Britain’s government-owned Research Councils, with grants from the councils having become more difficult to come by in recent years. The councils’ practice of paying both the university and college fees of graduates stopped in 2001, leaving fewer options available for students who are unable to fund graduate courses themselves.

Arsalan Ghani said of the proposed changes to the university’s graduate fee system that the problem is having an “education system that depends on students accumulating a mountain of debt in order to gain an education that is increasingly worthless in the face of continued economic crisis.This is the lesson to take home from the current crisis and recession: we live in a system where the wealthy get richer and where the rest of us are forced to live on debt. But this is completely unsustainable.”

Matt Phillips, a first-year PhD student in European Literature and Culture, also commented on the plans, saying that he “sympathise[s] with Arsalan Ghani’s mixed feelings, as the advantages and disadvantages of this proposal are in proportions not simple to measure. “However, I think that furthering the pernicious influence of market forces on fees and entry is an act not easy to retract, and is one that should be resisted.”