§ Baroness DAVIDasked Her Majesty's Government:
What tuition fees, or what range of tuition fees, they envisage to be payable by an overseas student who is
from
- (a) an undergraduate
- (b) a graduate
at an English university in the academic year 1980–81.
- (i) an EEC country
- (ii) a Commonwealth country
§ The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Baroness Young)The Government's Expenditure Plans 1980/81, published on 1st November, indicated that public funds will not be available to subsidise students from overseas beginning courses in September 1980 other than funds made available through overseas aid programmes. The fees of students already on course will not be affected by this. The Government have consulted the University Grants Committee about the fees to be charged to new entrants to universities in 1980 and I understand that the committee will recommend the universities to charge such fees as the institutions consider necessary to meet the cost of the education in question, subject to a minimum of £2,000 per annum in the case of an arts course, £3,000 per annum for a science course, and £5,000 per annum for the clinical year of courses in medicine, dentistry and veterinary science.
No specific recommendations will be made about fees for post-graduate students but, conscious that the contribution made by such students to research in the institutions they attend can be outstanding, the Government intend to arrange with the UGC for a scheme for granting bursaries to postgraduate research students of outstanding merit from overseas.
No recommendation will he made in respect of students from Commonwealth countries, but the Government are considering whether the arrangements outlined above may be modified to take account of the position of students from other member countries of the EEC.