A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes has warned students to be vigilant after a student loans phishing scam has been revealed.
Her Majesty the Queen will be visiting York on Maundy Thursday, 5th April, as part of the 800th anniversary of York’s Charter for the traditional “Royal Maundy” ceremony.
A flood caused by a heating system “failure” forced the university IT services to shut down many essential systems on Sunday night, causing problems for many students on the eve of their exams and assignment due-dates.
At the beginning of this month the coalition government released their plans for cuts to the budget. Overall, £81 billion will be cut from public spending over the next four years. This will directly affect current students as well as graduates, whether that is as a result of the cap being taken off tuition fees or a job market with fewer graduate opportunities.
The Browne review of higher education funding and fees is expected to create a substantial increase in the annual cap on deferred variable fees. Current fees that universities can charge are set at £3,290. Ministers have stressed that no decision has been made but say proposals to raise fee levels would be put before MPs by Christmas.
This proposed increase in fees would mean that there would be more resources taken in by universities in England, but far more of a burden placed on the student in terms of debt. With the cap on fees removed as Browne suggests, what universities could charge students in tuition fees could be limitless or, as Vince Cable has suggested, be raised to £7000 a year.
The proposal uses this raise in the fees to reduce public funding towards higher education in general. The ‘teaching grant’, which is the teaching fund allocated to the Higher Education Funding Council for England, will also be reduced from £3.5 billion to £700 million, meaning that universities will be required to make up the shortfall from the deferred variable fee system.
Undoubtedly, a rise in fees will cause anxiety amongst students as it means more they will incur more debt for the cost of furthering their education, arguably deterring poorer students from applying to university because of the financial strain that it will put on them and their families.
However, although the Browne report proposes unlimited fees, there is no decision within the government yet that this will definitely go ahead. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said that his party was still considering its response to the Browne Report, and when questioned on whether there would continue to be a cap he replied “correct.”
While here is a huge national deficit, targeting students by charging them more money to be able to put themselves in a graduate level position is always going to be a controversial and unpopular issue, but we will have to wait and see what the outcome is going to be.
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