Do the higher fees apply to all Englands universities?
Not necessarily. They are properly “differential fees” – they can vary. The government’s original White Paper said: “We will give universities the freedom to set their own tuition fee, between £0 and £3,000.” So in theory you might pay nothing – though nobody rushed to advertise such a course. The bigger dilemma for university vice-chancellors was what level of fee to charge for different courses – or whether to charge the same for all. In the event that is what happened with £3,000 being introduced everywhere except at Leeds Metropolitan, which uniquely offered fees of only £2,000 a year until 2009 when it raised them in to line with all the others. To be allowed to charge the higher fees a university has to satisfy the new “access regulator” – Offa – that it has approved bursary schemes and policies in place to increase the take-up of university places by people from the most disadvantaged groups in society – “widening participation”, in the jargon. Offa monitors the arrangements ann
