LONDON (AFP) – Britain’s Labour government said that university tuition fees in England would be raised for the first time in eight years, as higher education institutions grapple with yawning financial deficits.
The 3.1 per cent rise comes as university leaders blame a crackdown on immigration for restricting international student numbers that were already hit by the United Kingdom’s (UK) departure from the European Union (EU).
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said a cap on tuition fees for domestic undergraduate students attending English universities would increase by GBP285 in August 2025 to GBP9,535 (USD12,350).
The cap has been set at GBP9,250 since 2017.
The amount available in so-called maintenance loans, which help students with general living costs, will also rise by 3.1 per cent.
Phillipson said the new government, elected in July, was taking “the tough decisions to restore stability to higher education”.
Labour has blamed the conservative Tory party for leaving it a dire inheritance across various sectors including the economy, health service and prisons.
Last week the centre-left party announced tax hikes to raise GBP40 billion in its first budget in almost 15 years.
University tuition fees were first introduced in Britain by former prime minister Tony Blair’s Labour government in the late 1990s.
In 2012, the Conservatives tripled the maximum that universities could charge to GBP9,000. It then kept the cap at GBP9,250 for seven years, despite soaring inflation.
Labour’s new Prime Minister Keir Starmer had pledged to scrap tuition fees when he ran for the party leadership in 2020.
The devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have policy-making powers over education and set their own tuition rates.
Universities UK (UUK), which represents 141 British higher education institutions, welcomed the increase as “the right thing to do”.
“Thriving universities are essential to a thriving UK,” UUK Chief Executive Vivienne Stern said in a statement.
She called the nearly decade-long freeze in fees “completely unsustainable for both students and universities”.
