Tuition fees hike welcomed by North East universities but 'work still to be done'

North East universities have welcomed an increase in tuition fees but they maintain more work needs to be done to support higher education.

Newcastle, Sunderland, Durham, and Northumbria universities have all stated that while the tuition fee rise, announced on Monday by Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, is welcomed, more work needs to be done to allow higher education to thrive.

Yearly tuition fees are set to increase from £9,250 to £9,535 for the 2025/26 academic year. This makes the first increase in tuition fees since 2017. In addition, maintenance loans for students are also set to rise to help cover the cost of living.

Professor Chris Day, Chair of the Russell Group and Vice-Chancellor of Newcastle University, said: "[The] announcement is a welcome sign that government is engaging seriously with the financial difficulties facing universities and students. Alongside the additional support that universities have been providing since the rise in the cost of living, uplifting the value of maintenance loans for students in England should mean they are better able to meet their day-to-day living costs and focus on their studies.

"We look forward to working with government on shared priorities, so universities can continue to increase opportunities for disadvantaged students and provide high-quality education and research. Ensuring a secure future for our sector will be crucial to supporting the pipeline of skills and new discoveries required to drive innovation, improve the UK’s public services, and boost economic growth."

Durham University referred the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme (LDRS) to Professor Day's comment when separately approached.

Sir David Bell, Vice-Chancellor and chief executive of the University of Sunderland, said: "While [Monday's] announcement by the Education Secretary is a positive development it cannot – and is not intended to – shape the longer-term direction of the higher education sector.

"A substantial rethink of how the system works for students, universities and society as a whole is now needed and I hope a more significant review will be announced in the next few months."

When approached for comment, Northumbria University referred the LDRS to comments made by the University UK's chief executive, Vivienne Stern MBE.

Vivienne Stern MBE said: "[The] decision cannot have been easy for government, but it is the right thing to do. Thriving universities are essential to a thriving UK, delivering stronger growth, better public services and improving individual life chances.

"University leaders and government must work together to ensure that our universities are able to fire on all cylinders. A decade-long freeze in England has seen inflation erode the real value of student fees and maintenance loans by around a third, which is completely unsustainable for both students and universities.

"Keeping pace with inflation stops the value of fees going down year after year. Importantly, this change will not see students paying more to study upfront; repayments are linked to earnings above a £25,000 threshold. The increase in maintenance loans is also very welcome and important.

"Maintenance loans in England are currently at their lowest level for nine years, so this increase was also urgently required to allow students to access the financial support they need while studying, especially given cost of living pressures.

"As set out in our recent Blueprint, universities also have to work to be as efficient and effective as possible, to serve the needs of the country. Some transformation can only be achieved through collaboration at a national level. We commit to working with university leaders and government to unlock this through our Efficiency and Transformation Taskforce."

The increase in tuition fees follows a number of universities having to make financial cutbacks following a drop in the number of international students.

In February this year, Northumbria University was faced with slashing its staffing costs by £12.5m, a move it blamed on inflation and a "volatile" market for recruiting international students. By March, the institution had ruled out compulsory redundancies for academic staff amid looming industrial action.

Emails seen by the LDRS also revealed that Newcastle University needed to find £35m in savings to plug a gap left by the falling number of international students. As of October 18, the university re-opened as a voluntary severance scheme for academic staff and paused promotions for scholars.

The University and College Union also dubbed potential job losses at Sunderland University as "demoralising", with an estimated one in ten academics potentially facing redundancy.

The UCU has also criticised the tuition fee hike. Jo Grady, UCU general secretary said: "The proposed hike to tuition fees is both economically and morally wrong. Taking more money from debt-ridden students and handing it to overpaid underperforming vice-chancellors is ill-conceived and won't come close to addressing the core issues."

General Secretary Grady continued: "The model is broken; it has saddled students with decades of debt, turned universities from sites of learning into corporations obsessed with generating revenue, and continually degraded staff pay and working conditions."

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