Students attack Tory university plans

Costs are a big worry for students

Student representatives have condemned what they see as the Conservatives' plans to "privatise" universities in the UK.

At the National Union of Students (NUS) annual conference in Blackpool, delegates described the policy as "absurd".

They voted to "condemn William Hague and his plans to privatise universities."

The NUS says this is the first time that a leader of the Opposition and his policies have come in for such criticism - but the Tories have accused it of "outmoded dogma".

The conference was also critical of higher education funding cuts during the last Conservative government.

Endowments

Current Conservative policy for higher education involves universities being encouraged to break away from government control through endowments.

These would be funded by future government receipts from, for example, auctions of radio spectrum, privatisation proceeds and asset sales.

In return, universities would have to provide proper access funds for the "most deserving students".

The Tories would scrap tuition fees. The party says higher education should be "accessible, irrespective of the ability to pay".

But the NUS conference decided that "the Tories have never been on the side of the students" and that "top-up fees would undoubtedly be introduced as part of the Tories' plans."

'Would cost students more'

Top-up fees - charges for tuition above the level set by the government - are one of the options universities have put forward as a way to increase their funding.

They have been ruled out for the life of the next Parliament by the Labour government.

The NUS president, Owain James, said: "As conference has highlighted, the Tories would be a disaster for students. Their policies would cost students more.

"Their plans to privatise student loans and charge commercial rates of interest would bring crippling debts to every student in the country - those students who gain the least would pay the most.

"Put simply, their agenda of privatisation and cuts would mean more hardship, lower standards, and the inevitable introduction of top-up fees. The message from NUS is clear: Students can't afford to go back to the Tories."

Academics also critical

A spokesman for the Conservative Party said the plans to endow universities had been "welcomed by most people", including the universities, as "an innovative way of solving the funding problems faced by higher education".

"The NUS would do well to look beyond its outmoded dogma if it had the true interests of students and higher education at heart," he added.

Earlier this week the Association of University Teachers claimed the Conservatives' "dangerous" plans to free universities from state control would cost £89bn.

The association's general secretary, David Triesman, said in response to the NUS vote that there was now a "campus coalition" that understood "the reality of Conservative proposals to privatise higher education".

"Increasing student hardship and continuing unrest by university staff about pay and conditions would only be heightened by freeing up universities in the private sector," he added.