university fees

It is time to end the idiotic cap on the number of local students Northern Ireland’s universities can admit…

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Many of us have a low opinion of Stormont at the best of times but along comes a story that highlights the utter head-bangingly stupid nature of some of their more crazy decisions. Writing in today’s Irish Times Newton Emerson highlights the issue of the cap on local students. From the article: This year’s undergraduate entry requirements show Northern Ireland’s universities operating a two-tier system: students from the North need significantly higher grades than applicants from Britain. For example, Northern …

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Fees gap to be paid by GB students…?

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THE decision to freeze student fees here seems to be going down well, but it won’t come without cost. And that cost – half of it – will be borne by the Department of Employment and Learning. It would be difficult to argue that learning should come at the expense of employment services in the middle of a recession when the jobless total is almost twice what the department is budgeted to deal with. As the Minister said in June, …

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UK splits over university fees and taxation

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This is turning out to be quite a week for the fissiparous tendency in the British body politic. As students demonstrated against the prospect of 80% cuts in tuition funding throughout the nation, it was the Welsh Assembly government which stole the march on the others by promising to pay the difference between the present fees and the £6 to 9,000 a year universities will soon be able to charge. What’s more, the subsidy will extend to Welsh students studying anywhere in …

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