David Willetts, the Universities Minister, last night warned that students should consider university fees "more as an obligation to pay higher income tax" than a debt. Speaking ahead of a speech he is due to give to Oxford Brookes University on Friday, he warned the system was "unsustainable" and in need of "radical change".
In an interview with the Guardian, he warned that the cost of hundreds of thousands of students's degree courses was a "burden on the taxpayer that had to be tackled". “My view is that it is not a matter of simply changing the fees," he said. "The system doesn't contain strong incentives for universities to focus on teaching and the student experience, as opposed to research.”
An independent review of the student funding system is currently being led by Lord Browne, the former head of BP. Under the current system, students can take out loans to cover the cost of fees and living expenses. Loans are set at a low interest rate and are subsidised by the taxpayer. Students start paying back loans when they earn at least £15,000 a year or more - at a lower interest rate than the government’s cost of borrowing. Willetts said students might, for example, study at a local further education college for an external degree from a university.
The Conservatives have refused to rule out supporting a tuition fee rise, but the Liberal Democrats have called for fees to be axed altogether. Willetts accused the former Labour government of "catastrophically failing" to explain to students how the current system worked.
