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Updated Wednesday, May 11, 2011 11:19 am TWN, AFP

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Rich in UK to buy university places under gov't plans

LONDON -- Students from wealthy families would be able to buy places at the oversubscribed universities under proposals which the government claims will make way for more subsidized degrees.

Universities in England would be allowed to charge some UK applicants the same fees as overseas undergraduates to secure them a place, reports said.

Universities minister David Willetts said the idea was being considered as a way of freeing up publicly-subsidized university places for poorer students.

However unions and others were quick to criticize the plans which they said would enable the affluent to buy their way in.

Aaron Porter, president of the National Union of Students (NUS), said the government was attempting to “disguise the chaos it has created in university funding.”

“This creates a two-tier system that allows the richest, less able applicants a second bite at the university cherry and denies low- and middle-income students the same opportunity,” he said.

Willetts said the plans would allow companies or charities to sponsor additional places and insisted it would have to meet the government's objectives of improving social mobility.

“People are coming to us with innovative ideas about how you could liberalize the system so that it would be possible for extra people to get to university,” he told BBC Radio 4.

“These are people who wish to go to university, but who sadly are being turned away just because there aren't enough places.”

Currently the government caps the number of places English universities are allowed to offer each year to keep costs down.

Under plans to be outlined in a higher education white paper in the summer, employers and charities will be encouraged to sponsor “off-quota places,” the Guardian newspaper reported.

Under government reforms announced last autumn, English universities will be allowed to charge UK students a maximum fee of 9,000 pounds from 2012.

Annual fees for overseas students range from 12,000 pounds for arts courses to 18,000 pounds for the sciences, rising to more than 28,000 pounds for medicine at some universities.

The latest proposals will add fuel to the anger directed at the Liberal Democrats over their U-turn on tuition fees after joining the coalition last May.

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