Cambridge Alumni Against Top-Up Fees
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In light of the University of Cambridge's statement, FACT, CUSU's Funding and Access Campaign team have frozen sign up to the Alumni Donations Boycott list until further information is available about the contents of the Government's White Paper.
Thank you everyone for your support, and join us in London next week on Wednesday 4 December for the National Demonstration.
Denunciation list
CUSU is proud to announce that pleased to announce that several colleges have publicly denounced top-up fees.
Letter to alumni
Cambridge University has an annual deficit of £10 million. Within three years this is predicted to increase to £20 million. This financial crisis is a result of chronic under-funding from the government, and the University's own financial mismanagement.
Instead of joining forces with other UK institutions, trade unions, and student unions throughout the country to lobby the government for an increase in funding, Cambridge have set their sights on a dangerous alternative: top-up fees. Sources throughout the University and within the government have confirmed that Cambridge is desperate to be given the flexibility to charge over and above the current limit on tuition fees (£1090). This departure from government funding and control, and a move towards an American system of Higher Education, is akin to privatisation. Senior officials within the University have stated, in no uncertain terms, that the University's objective should be to 'go private'.
The consequences of opening up universities to "market forces" - in the words of education minister Margaret Hodge - would be catastropic for Access. Potential applicants from underrepresented backgrounds are already deterred from Cambridge because of the myth that we are one of the most expensive universities. Top-up fees and privatisation would turn this myth into a reality. Top-up fees have ruined attempts to widen participation in Australia - since their introduction applications from disadvantaged backgrounds have declined, as 90% of Australian institutions that charge full fees offer lower entry scores to those students able to pay the full amount.
The benefits and privileges of a Cambridge degree should not be reserved for those who have the money to pay.
Please, help us stop this from happening to Cambridge. Join our campaign against fees. By refusing to donate to the University, you will make the statement that you are against top-up fees and moves towards privatisation
Yours faithfully,
Paul Lewis, President,
Cambridge University Students Union
Zadie Smith on Fees
Simple fact: fees of any kind would have made my career in Cambridge an impossibility. The issue is as simple as that. A meritocracy means a meritocracy all the way down the line. Any weakening of that principle will effectively rule out a Cambridge education for hundreds of gifted students.Simple.
And if this simplicity is not enough for the more ruthlessly fiscal-minded within the government, let's break it down again.
Let us imagine one spends three years in Cambridge at the tax-payers expense, learning all kinds of useless nonsense (poetry, novels, genetics) and all at the bargain price of, well, let us say, x. This seems like a bad deal. But now see that a mere five years later, one is gainfully employed and has repaid one's debt to the country by paying x three times over in taxes, or in my case, forty-seven times over at a base rate of 40%.
And thus has the great, world-renowned, much envied, free and meritorious system of Cambridge proceeded for some time. Leave it alone.
Zadie Smith, 2002