The government plans to rise tuition fees by £285 next autumn: Bristol students react

Earlier this month (4th November), the UK Government declared that the undergraduate tuition fee cap will rise to £9535 in Autumn 2025 due to inflation threatening the university sector.

Maintenance loans will also see this 3.1 per cent raise to aid students during the cost of living crisis. This means an extra £317 each year for Bristol students living away from home who receive the maximum loan, going up to £10,544 yearly.

Whilst these changes are planned to come into effect from the 2025/26 academic year, Bristol University has yet to confirm whether it will be raising its fees.

The university website discusses the tuition fee cap: “We will decide on whether to apply the increases at the University of Bristol through our usual governance procedures. We will make this decision after parliament has approved the changes. 

“We will write to students affected by the change when we know the outcome.”

The government has assured students that monthly loan repayments after graduation will not increase, yet overall student debt will increase. Some students expressed their worries about this.

One student felt that the change is “heavily disappointing,” and “not a long term solution, and definitely not considerate of the youth.”

Other students, however, saw this as less of a major change, and that they “won’t pay it back anyway, what’s an extra few hundred?” Another added: “I think people are angry, but won’t know the burden until they earn enough to pay it off.”

For many, the tuition fee increase is not the biggest worry but the limited rise in maintenance loans is more concerning.

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Bristol students in particular have witnessed a recent surge in the cost of living prices. This has manifested particularly in student rent, with the average annual cost currently being £766.67 a month. 

Compared to prior decades, living in Bristol for your studies has become extortionate. Jane, an English student, commented that ”unless you have financial backing, university is becoming impossible to afford.”

This student further added that coming from a low-income background, they were ”so excited and impressed for getting into uni”, but due to the unaffordability of university life, living as a self-funded student has become ”an awful experience.”

Bristol is the second most expensive Russell Group city to rent in, second only to London,  yet students here receive the same loan amounts as everyone outside of the capital.

Tuition fees have been a topic of conversation previously this term. Bristol University faced backlash for inconsistent master’s fees when anthropology students found out that between 2022 to 2023, the cost of the master’s course rose from £11,000 to £16,500.

The 2023/2024 cohort was further upset when the same course fell in price in 2024 by £2,500.

Inconsistent tuition fees are another point of worry for students.

The fear is that tuition could rapidly fall or rise with limited time to financially prepare.

Some students felt a sense of betrayal as it used to be a ”Labour Party campaign promise to scrap them.”

This is referring to the U-turn of policy by Keir Starmer, the current Prime Minister, who had pledged to scrap tuition fees when running for Labour leader in 2020.

One student commented the policy is “insulting, especially as most people making these decisions got to go to uni for free.”

Again, this view is not unanimous, as some students are more sympathetic to the government’s decision, recognising that the raised cap could have been “way worse – if they were to rise with inflation they [tuition fees] would be £12,000 so it’s really not that bad”.

Whilst this decision is regarded as being monumental in combating inflation, some Bristol students argue that the later financial consequences of this increase will only sow more disagreements between the student voter population and the government in power.

With the government’s plan to tie tuition fees and maintenance loans to the measure of inflation, it aims to remedy the gap between current fees and escalating costs.

However, the rise in tuition fees may not be doing enough, as the BBC reports that almost three quarters of universities in England will face financial problems next year.

Some Bristol students have recognised this, seeing the benefit in these increases as “it helps out universities, which in turn helps us.”

With the rise in tuition fees, the university sector will be able to flourish.

What is clear is a funding solution is needed. Ahead of the general election, Green MP for Bristol Central Carla Denyer told us: “Tuition fees can either go up and up affecting students or be frozen and universities are forced to increase their student numbers or become overly reliant on international students to make money.”

This increased budget for universities is hoped to help them aid budget deficits, as the cap hasn’t risen since 2017. According to Universities UK, this means that universities face “a £1.4 billion loss on teaching domestic students, which is completely unsustainable for both students and universities.”

The government is calling on universities “to do their bit to support disadvantaged students, use their money responsibly, and focus on their core mission of providing world-class education” in return for this boost of funding.

Despite this, some students are questioning whether this was the best way to increase funding. One student shared that this “just seems like a stealth tax for further education.”

The following academic year will showcase how severe the impact of these changes will be upon Bristol students and other universities in the country. Students can only wait to see in what form the University of Bristol shall implement these financial reforms.

A University of Bristol spokesperson said: “Fees are not increased based on demand. As standard practice across the university sector, when setting postgraduate course fees annually, as well as factoring in how much it costs each year to run the course, we benchmark against comparable courses offered at other universities.”