The statement follows projections in a report by Universities UK (UUK) which show that graduate debt would rise to over £32,000 if top-up fees were raised to £7,000 a year.
The UUK report, entitled “Changing Landscapes: future scenarios for variable tuition fees”, also suggested that graduates would owe an average of over £26,000 if the cap on fees were raised to £5,000.
At a lobby of parliament on Wednesday, NUS will be launching its own report on higher education funding, entitled “Five foundations for an alternative higher education funding system for England”.
NUS President Wes Streeting said:
“In the context of the current recession, it is extremely arrogant for university vice chancellors to be fantasising about charging their students even higher fees and plunging them into over £32,000 of debt.
“This UUK report assumes that higher fees are inevitable, and that the shambolic current system of student support will remain in place.
“We believe there is an alternative way to fund higher education that is fairer for students, but still generates the kind of income the sector so badly needs. That is why, on Wednesday, we will be talking to MPs about a number of radical proposals, including making higher education free at the point of use, with graduates making a contribution depending on how much they are benefitting financially from their own use of the system. We will also be calling for all financial support to be based on how much a student needs it, not where they happen to be studying.
“With this report, vice chancellors are being extremely complacent about how extending the current system would allow market forces to run riot in our universities. Poorer students would be priced out of the more “prestigious” institutions, and this must be avoided at all costs.”