£10,500 fees
Oxford will need to charge undergraduate fees of up to £10,500 a year to maintain its international status, according to an Oxford-based think tank.
David Palfreyman, bursar of New College and Director of the Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies (Oxcheps), warned that the introduction of top-up fees in 2006, capped at £3,000, will not resolve the University's funding deficit. "People think the issue is sorted by the Government's legislation - it's simply not," Mr Palfreyman told The OxStu.
"There's a long way to go to secure the position of Oxford as a top international institution. We have to find more income. Otherwise the quality of teaching and research will decline, and the brightest UK students will leave for Princeton and Harvard." Research by Oxcheps, which is independent of the University but has access to its budgets and balance sheets, has suggested that Oxford's deficit could rise to £35 million by 2012, unless the Government introduces the 'uncapped access' model seen in America.
A study by Oxcheps suggests that one way to close the funding gap could be to charge students whose families earn over £95,000 per annum a maximum fee of £10,500. Those with family incomes of £55,000 a year or above would pay around £8,000, whilst those whose parents earned under £45,000 would contribute on a sliding scale. "You can slice the funding pie in any way you like," Palfreyman emphasised to The OxStu. "The debate in Britain, over to what degree one should redistribute what the taxpayer pays, corresponds to a wider international debate taking place in France, Germany, and Australia, all of whom are attempting to slice the pie of public and private funding in different ways."
Oxcheps also revealed that the true cost of teaching an Oxford undergraduate for a year was £18,600, of which the University currently pays 47 per cent.
19th Feb 2004