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“£2.2 billion black hole” in Rector’s fee plans

Nov 06 2002 21:56

Simon Scrapmetal

A ICU press release issued today reveals a significant financial hole in the Rector’s plans for “top-up” tuition fees.

The working group appears to have a logo as well. Surely enough to give Sir Richard a few sleepless nights...

In the first real sign that the Imperial College Union Tuition Fees Working Group actually exists (despite its complete invisibility over the past few weeks) the Union has issued a press release today indicating that it will take Imperial College over 140 years to build up the endowment necessarily to support the College’s policy on tuition fees.

The Rector’s proposal for top-up fees anticipates government funding being gradually withdrawn after Imperial College introduces full fees of at least £10,500 a year for home/EU undergraduates. Supporting the aim of having 70% of students supported by bursaries requires this funding to be replaced by income from an endowment. Union calculations have indicated that this endowment would need to be in excess of £2 billion and will take 143 years to build up using only the “surplus” from government funding once fees are charged. The government’s HEFCE teaching grant must remain fixed for this time.

Live! can also reveal that the fees working group has taken out an advert in the November issue of Guildsheet, currently available in Engineering departments. “Top-up fees haven’t gone away,” it assures us. Hmmmm. The working group has a website.

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Discussion about ““£2.2 billion black hole” in Rector’s fee plans”

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1. not here anymore

Nov 06 2002 22:49

who is on the working group esp. since andy has resigned?

2. idris

Nov 06 2002 23:46

Two questions about the analysis done by the working group (apologies if they're answered elsewhere but I haven't found the place):

1. Why is an initial value of the fund given as £10m?

2. Has year-on-year inflationary rise of the cost of tuition fees (and thus the bursaries needed) been added in?

When I added tuition fee inflation at 2.5% a year, for the year that the working group have projected income outgoing balance in the fund, I calculated a deficit of some £1.8bn.

3. Oliver Pell

Nov 07 2002 10:15

All values are at constant (2003) prices. Inflation is estimated at 2.5%.

4. Seb

Nov 07 2002 13:15

Simon, you are so scathing!

The reason we have been quiet is because of the vast ammount of research we have had to do. There is only one sab on the working group, so this is all done at the expence of accademic work (as per ususal for the union). You should see more of us shortly now that we have done the preparation work.

Idris:

1. To allow for the inevitable claims of college that their fund raising drive will work.

5. Sunil

Nov 08 2002 13:31

Perhaps you should consider overseas students and the fact that they pay huge fees already. Skimming off some profit off such students would allow college to make up its funds a lot sooner.

I don't know what the exact figure is - 40% of undergrads are overseas students paying full fees?

6. Seb

Nov 08 2002 16:20

I think the rector has implied that this money already subsidises teaching (it probably subsidises a lot of things), and as it is already earmarked it couldn't be diverted.

And of course, the rectors proposal did not sugest is, and our figures so far are purely working out the hard numbers of the rectors proposal.

7. Dave

Nov 12 2002 01:36

Sunil:

I think that 40% of Imperial's students are from overseas but many of these are from within the EU so don't pay fees. I think the figure is something like 17% who are from overseas, are outside the EU and pay full fees

Closedd This discussion is closed.