Tuition Fees in Perspective

With students protesting at increased tuition fees, it's important to understand what the proposals actually are.

The Lib Dems still want to abolish tuition fees over the life time of a Parliament, but can't do this until they get a majority of the seats in the House of Commons. So until people stop voting Labour and Tory we will be stuck with Tuition fees.

The Coalition agreement changed (for the period of the Coalition) the Lib Dem pledge to vote against any rise in tuition fees. Instead, Liberal Democrats were given the opportunity abstain from voting, in exchange for being able to influence the Government's response to the Browne review.

Lib Dem influence has achieved:

• All students will repay less per month under this Government's policy than they currently pay.
• The lowest earning 25% of graduates will repay less under this Government's policy than they do now.
• The top earning 30% of graduates will pay back more than they borrow and are likely to pay more than double the bottom 20% of earners.
• Over half a million students will be eligible for more non-repayable grants for living costs than they get now.
• Almost one million students will be eligible for more overall maintenance support than they get now
• Part time students will no longer have to pay upfront fees benefiting up to 200,000 per year
• There will be an extra £150m for a new National Scholarship Programme for students from poorer backgrounds and we will introduce tough new sanctions on universities who fail to improve their access to students from all backgrounds.

Labour opposes the above and wants to make students pay more, so why the media are letting Labour get away with this, we have no idea. Anti-government stories seem to sell newspapers and the Liberal Democrats appear to be an easy target.