Constituency Lobby Day - No to FE Fees

Currently the government pays 50 per cent of tuition fees for most further education students aged over 24 who want to study at level 3 (or above).

From 2013/14 anyone aged 24 or over will no longer be entitled to this financial contribution, and will have to pay the full cost – with learners becoming eligible for a loan for 100 per cent of the tuition costs. In effect, for many adult learners tuition fees will be doubled and the state contribution towards teaching in adult education removed.

This is clearly the wrong approach to take – and risks putting adults off studying, training or re-skilling later on in life. We are clear that the policy should be dropped.

Asking students in adult education to take on the full cost of their education is the wrong way to go. But the policy also will see apprentices having to take out huge loans in order to work. Now more than ever, we need to be investing in jobs and in a highly-skilled workforce.  This must include increasing the number of good quality apprenticeships available – which involves both supporting providers to offer high quality apprenticeships and supporting learners to take them up. Fundamentally, it cannot be right to ask apprenticeships to borrow significant sums in order to work. The Government most urgently need to drop their plans to ask apprentices to start their careers with huge levels of debt.

Write to your MP, asking for their support in this campaign – and for them to write to Vince Cable, Business Secretary to raise their concerns; to raise the issue in parliament; and to work with NUS, UCU, UNISON, the ATL and others to challenge this wrong-headed approach.

NUS, UCU, UNISON and the ATL are organising a constituency based lobby on Friday 8 February to raise this matter with local MPs up and down the country. If you are able, organise to meet with your MP to raise this with them! Get in touch if you’re able to do so (link to public.affairs@nus.org.uk)