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Letter from London Top-up fees amendment University top-up fees which become operational next year, are already beginning to make an impact. Student enrollments have risen dramatically in a bid to avoid paying higher fees next year, prompting the government to re-examine its policies on the matter. And flaws in thinking behind the top-up fees proposal are being unearthed. Higher education minister, Bill Rammel, has admitted that the Labour government made mistakes over the introduction of student fees when it was first voted to power in 1997. “If I’m candid, we made two mistakes with the introduction of tuition fees in 1998. One was asking students to pay before they go to university and the other was to do away with student grants. Both are being rectified in the new system,” he says. Speaking at the launch of a campaign to promote the new financial packages available to students who opt to go to university next year, Rammel said that the packages are essentially “redistributive”. This means that all students whose parents’ income is less than £17,500 (Rs.14 lakh) per year will be entitled to the full annual loan of £2,700 (Rs.2.2 lakh). In addition their university will have to give them a bursary of at least £300 (Rs.24,600) a year. The new system should also ease parents’ financial worry because it places the loan repayment onus firmly on students. Nor is that much of an onus as they won’t have to start paying back their loans until they graduate and start earning £15,000 plus per year. On a fresh graduate’s salary, which averages £18,000 a year, a young person will have to repay at the modest rate of £5.19 per week. Under the current system parents have to pay tuition fees up-front at the beginning of each academic year. The amended top-up fees proposal has been widely welcomed. Comments Prof. Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham: “The amended system will be far more painless than the current system which requires up-front payment by parents. Moreover the shift of the repayment onus to students is particularly welcome. University has simply become a rite of passage for many young people — one that’s funded by the taxpayer. If going to university involves a serious personal investment as under the amended scheme, they may think more about what three years in university will do for them.”  If Smithers is right, in the long run we should have a society with well-educated young people contributing to all aspects of life. With that in mind it is worth mentioning the recent good news that this academic year there has been a significant increase in the numbers of students enrolling for chemistry, biology and physics study programmes. Only last year there was a national furore over the closure of various science departments around the country, in particular of chemistry departments of Exeter University and King’s College, London.    (Jacqueline Thomas is a London-based journalist/ academic)   United Kingdom Visa refusals…