Liverpool Hope University sets 2012 tuition fees at £8,250

May 13 2011 by Ben Turner, Liverpool Echo

Liverpool Hope University, Childwall _240

LIVERPOOL Hope University has become the first in the city not to charge the full £9,000 tuition fees – but only by a few hundreds pounds.

From 2012 the Government will permit the current £3,290 cap on tuition fees to be lifted to a maximum £9,000.

And we can reveal Liverpool Hope University will officially be the cheapest in the city after it decided to charge students £8,250 next year.

By doing so Vice Chancellor Gerald Pillay has kept his pledge not to charge the maximum amount unlike the University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores, Ormskirk’s Edge Hill and University of Chester where the full fees are to be implemented.

Prof Pillay had told staff “it is not fair to transfer all of Government debt to graduate debt”.

Today city council leader Joe Anderson said the slight savings on offer at Hope would not be enough to allay fears of mounting debt or convince students to take the university plunge.

But confirming the fees, the university’s secretary Graham Donelan said a raft of support including bursaries, scholarships and other financial help would be made available and the tariff reflected the cost of delivering the courses.

He said: “We want the best students to come to us, irrespective of their family background or income.”

And he said the university, which is set to welcome 1,700 new students in September and has one of the best retention rates in the North West, was confident it would not see a dip in student numbers.

The prospect of university fees tripling has seen student protests across the city and at Westminster.