Students in tuition-fees demo

OLDHAM students are preparing to protest against rises in tuition fees which they say could cripple future graduates at the town centre campus.

Angry undergraduates will stage a protest tomorrow at the University Campus Oldham, with 50 making their way by coach to London on Wednesday to join an estimated 10,000 marchers.

The demonstrations are in reaction to last week’s announcement by Universities Minister David Willets, who revealed that institutions will be able to charge up to £9,000 a year in fees.

Under the sweeping changes, the current charge of £3,290 will almost double to £6,000 from 2012.

Twenty-one year old Jamie Sellars, a former Radclyffe pupil from Royton, is now a second-year digital journalism student at the university.

He said: “I wouldn’t be able to go at all if these fees were in place when I joined. It’s a lifetime debt that would be too crippling.

“I’m currently looking at coming out with almost £20,000 debt, I think that is enough to pay.

“Higher education is an opportunity to better yourself, but that doesn’t mean you are guaranteed a high-paid job when you graduate. It will make it a £50,000 gamble.”

A handful of journalism students will be filming their journey to London on Wednesday and interviewing protesters at what is thought to be the biggest student demo since 1968.

Jamie said: “It’s going to be a once in a lifetime experience.”

Prof Peter Slee, deputy vice-chancellor of Huddersfield University, said cuts to higher education funding meant that fees would have to rise.

Students will know the new costs in April and he explained: “It will be with reluctance that all universities regrettably will have to ask students to make a larger contribution.

“Education will still be free at the point of entry for students. They will only have to pay when they have a job and when that job earns more than £21,000-a-year.”

He said that it was too early to say what effect the rise would have on student numbers or courses.

But he added that courses would be demand driven and that there was absolutely no reason, apart from negative press, why pupils from less advantaged should be put off from going to university.”