HC Deb 24 July 1991 vol 195 c571W
Mr. Andrew Smith

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will provide figures for the cost of a qualifying graduate in a university or polytechnic in the United Kingdom, calculated by the same method as that which his Department used in its estimation of the cost of an Open university graduate in the Review of the Open University, page 67, paragraph 182.

Mr. Alan Howarth

The Open university's calculated unit cost of a part-time honours graduate was some £12,000 in the calendar year 1989. Differences in the data available on universities and polytechnics rule out an identical calculation, but a broadly comparable average figure for a full-time graduate in the academic year 1988–89 was £17,200, which includes an element for the amortised capital cost.