Fees For Fair Access

Uni bigwigs have agreed a number of measures with the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) to be able to treble  fees.

In order to charge the full £9,000, the University Council will invest heavily in access and bursaries as well as increasing its targets for state school admissions and Summer School places.

Andy McGowan, CUSU Access Officer told The Tab: “With the trebling of tuition fees and scrapping of both Aimhigher and EMA it is vital that the University continues to increase the amount of access work that it does.

McGowan: CUSU to push Uni

“CUSU is continuing to push the University to invest even more money into its outreach work to ensure that the best students do consider Cambridge, no matter what their background.”

Under the plans, around £10m of the extra money raised by the fee increase will be pumped straight into access.

Universities have been under increased pressure in the past couple of months to increase investment in access after many of them have announced they will charge £9,000 per year for tuition.

A spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovations and Skills said: “In order to charge more for tuition, OFFA will expect universities to set themselves stretching targets on access, achieving a more representative student body and improving student retention.”

Cambridge’s position was worsened earlier this month, when they released figures, showing only 59% of their intake was from state schools. However, Senate House have re-iterated their intentions to increase this figure year-on-year by 0.5%.

As part of the plans, there will also be a minimum of 375 summer school places to be offered to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.