page_title: Tuition fees in the United Kingdom
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Tuition fees in the United Kingdom / History
caption_attribution_description: English: We are students and supporters peacefully occupying the Jeremy Bentham room at UCL (University College London.) You can read our full demands on: ucloccupation.wordpress.com/demands/ You can keep up with everything we're doing at: ucloccupation.wordpress.com/ and follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/UCLOccupation You can even come and say hello if you see something you like on here - either in person (ucloccupation.wordpress.com/find-us/) or leave us something in solidarity: ucloccupation.wordpress.com/support-us/
context_page_description: Tuition fees were first introduced across the entire United Kingdom in September 1998 under the Labour government to fund tuition for undergraduate and postgraduate certificate students at universities; students were required to pay up to £1,000 a year for tuition. However, as a result of the new devolved national administrations for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, there are now different arrangements for tuition fees in each of the nations.
context_section_description: Until 1976, tuition fees were paid by UK students attending a UK university who only qualified for the minimum grant of £50. In 1976 they were abolished, together with the £50 minimum grant.
  In May 1996, Gillian Shephard, Secretary of State for Education and Employment, commissioned an inquiry, led by the then Chancellor of the University of Nottingham, Sir Ron Dearing, into the funding of British higher education over the next 20 years. This National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education reported to the new Labour Government, in the summer of 1997, stating additional billions of funding would be needed over the period, including £350 million in 1998–99 and £565 million in 1999–2000, in order to expand student enrolment, provide more support for part-time students and ensure an adequate infrastructure. The committee, as part of its brief, had controversially investigated the possibility of students contributing to the cost of this expansion, either through loans, a graduate tax, deferred contributions or means testing state assistance, as their report notes:
  20.40 We do not underestimate the strength of feeling on the issue of seeking a contribution towards tuition costs: nor do we dispute the logic of the arguments put forward. A detailed assessment of the issues has, however, convinced us that the arguments in favour of a contribution to tuition costs from graduates in work are strong, if not widely appreciated. They relate to equity between social groups, broadening participation, equity with part-time students in higher education and in further education, strengthening the student role in higher education, and identifying a new source of income that can be ring-fenced for higher education.
  20.41 We have, therefore, analysed the implications of a range of options against the criteria set out in paragraph 20.2. There is a wide array of options from which to choose, ranging from asking graduates to contribute only to their living costs through to asking all graduates to contribute to their tuition costs. We have chosen to examine four options in depth
  In response to the findings, the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998 was published on 26 November 1997, and enacted on 16 July 1998, part of which introduced tuition fees in all the countries of the United Kingdom.
  The act introduced a means-tested method of payment for students based on the amount of money their families earned. Starting with 1999–2000, maintenance grants for living expenses would also be replaced with loans and paid back at a rate of 9% of a graduate's income above £10,000.
  Following devolution in 1999, the newly devolved governments in Scotland and Wales brought in their own acts on tuition fees. The Scottish Parliament established, and later abolished a graduate endowment to replace the fees. Wales introduced maintenance grants of up to £1,500 in 2002, a value which has since risen to over £5000.
  In England, tuition fee caps rose with the Higher Education Act 2004. Under the Act, universities in England could begin to charge variable fees of up to £3,000 a year for students enrolling on courses as from the academic year of 2006–07 or later. This was also introduced in Northern Ireland in 2006–07 and introduced in Wales in 2007–08. In 2009–10 the cap rose to £3,225 a year to take account of inflation. Following the Browne Review in 2010, the cap was controversially raised to £9,000 a year, sparking large student protests in London.
  A judicial review against the raised fees failed in 2012, and so the new fee system came into use that September.
  Further adjustments were put forth in the 2015 budget, with a proposed fee increase in line with inflation from the 2017–18 academic year onwards, and the planned scrapping of maintenance grants from September 2016. The changes were debated by the Third Delegated Legislation Committee in January 2016, rather than in the Commons. The lack of a vote on the matter has drawn criticism, as by circumventing the Commons the measures "automatically become law". Tuition fees and perceptions about them are directly 
caption: A banner displayed at a student protest in London against tuition fees in the United Kingdom in December 2010
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