UK gov’t raises English tuition fees for first time in 8 years

LONDON

Britain's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson.

Britain's Labour government has said that university tuition fees in England would be raised for the first time in eight years, as higher education institutions grapple with yawning financial deficits.

The 3.1 percent rise comes as university leaders blame a crackdown on immigration for restricting international student numbers that were already hit by the U.K.'s departure from the European Union.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said a cap on tuition fees for domestic undergraduate students attending English universities would increase by 285 pounds in August 2025 to 9,535 pounds ($12,350).

The cap has been set at 9,250 pounds since 2017.

Labour has blamed the conservative Tory party for leaving it a dire inheritance across various sectors including the economy, health service and prisons.

Last week the center-left party announced tax hikes to raise 40 billion pounds in its first budget in almost 15 years.

University tuition fees were first introduced in Britain by former prime minister Tony Blair's Labour government in the late 1990s.

Labour's new Prime Minister Keir Starmer had pledged to scrap tuition fees when he ran for the party leadership in 2020.

International students typically pay more in tuition fees than their domestic counterparts and had become a lucrative source of income for many institutions.

But the former Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak imposed restrictions on overseas student visas, banning many from bringing their families, as part of a crackdown on record levels of immigration.

In the first four months of 2024, there were 30,000 fewer applications from overseas than in the same period in 2023.