University of Teesside rejects top-up fees

Joint Statement from the Board of Governors, the Academic Board and the Students' Union at the University of Teesside. Issued by:

John Hackney Chairman Board of Governors

Professor Derek Fraser Vice-Chancellor & Chair of the Academic Board

George Selmer President Students'Union

"At a time when students are deciding on admissions to university and when their potential successors are reviewing their future options, the University of Teesside wishes it to be known that it rejects top-up fees and will not introduce them.

The University opposes both the philosophy and practical consequences of top-up fees for the following reasons:-

* Top-up fees are inconsistent with Teesside's mission to be the "Opportunity University" and efforts to widen participation in the interests of social inclusion.

* Top up fees would inhibit access to students from disadvantaged social backgrounds. Such students would be more fearful of the costs and indebtedness involved and, as the Scottish Cubie enquiry showed, would be deterred from entry to higher education.

* It is highly doubtful whether all universities would have the resources and endowments to offer scholarships and bursaries to counter the financial effect of top-up fees. The result would be a fragmented and socially divisive higher education system.

* The nation can afford the 21st century higher education system it requires to deliver the highly skilled workforce necessary for global competitiveness. The creation of the knowledge-based economy, which is at the heart of the Government's economic strategy, demands a first class higher education system in the public interest.

* It is in the public interest for the country to have a highly skilled workforce, therefore we need a properly funded system of higher education. This public interest imperative far outweighs the personal benefit arguments for graduates which is used to try to justify top-up fees and increased personal contributions from undergraduates.

* It is inconceivable that if there were increased funding flows from top-up fees, the Treasury would not seek to reduce public funding correspondingly. In order to forestall a potential reduction of funding for the whole sector through the actions of a few, the University of Teesside proposes that any University imposing top-up fees should forego its public funding for teaching. For its part, the University of Teesside pledges not to introduce top-up fees under the current circumstances (unless it is forced to do so by a change in the law).

The University of Teesside believes that the introduction of top-up fees would be detrimental to the national interest and to the higher education system itself, despite their proposed attractiveness to individual universities. They would provide neither the sustained excellence for the British university system nor the increased access to it which both the Government and society require."

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