Press Release: Ministers must get on with student finance review
In response to Tuesday’s new report by UniversitiesUK on the future of student tuition fees, Shadow Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, David Willetts, said:
“We welcome this useful new report. We do need robust information on the options for funding higher education, especially as the recession takes hold of people’s finances.
“But it is a shame the university sector has been forced to do the work themselves. Ministers are pushing their long-promised review ever further into the long grass.
“The student finance review should start now and be as comprehensive as possible. We are keen and willing to work with the Government on a bipartisan basis, but we cannot wait forever.”
ENDS
Notes for Editors
1. UniversitiesUK publish Changing landscapes: future scenarios for variable tuition fees at 00.01 on Tuesday, 17th March 2009.
2. In January 2004, the Government said that an independent review of the current student finance regime would be established in 2009, but recent ministerial comments suggest the review will not begin until autumn 2009 at the earliest and will not be completed this year (Parliamentary answer to David Willetts MP, Hansard, 15 December 2008, col.539W).