Exceptional.

It has now been revealed by the universities across the country the fees that they will be charging students to study at their university in 2012.

Now, I already covered in my previous blog on April 1st (Cruel Intentions) which Northern universities were charging the full amount, or at least very close to it. At the time they were: Manchester, Leeds, Leeds Metropolitan, Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores, Aston, Birmingham, Coventry, and Loughborough.

Towards the end of that particular blog I said the following:

“Should the likes of Salford, Manchester Metropolitan, Sheffield or Sheffield Hallam succumb to charging £9,000 a year then the North of England might as well give up.”

So how did the North end up faring in the end? Well first of all let’s take a look at the four universities aforementioned, did they succumb to the maximum fee increase? Well let’s just say the North of England might as well give up.

Yes, they have all chosen to charge close to the highest fee available to them. Salford and Manchester Metropolitan will both charge between £8,000 and £9,000 a year, while Sheffield charge the full £9,000 and Sheffield Hallam give a £500 discount with £8,500 a year. Nick Clegg’s seat in Sheffield is becoming less and less safe by the day.

Unfortunately though, the pain doesn’t end there. Close to all Northern universities are now charging the full £9,000. They include: Edge Hill, Lancaster, the University of Central Lancashire, Keele, Hull, Newcastle, Durham, Bradford, Leicester, Lincoln, Warwick and Nottingham.

York St. John have put themselves in line with Sheffield Hallam by charging £8,500 a year as have Northumbria and Teesside. Sunderland are charging between £7,000 and £8,500, and Huddersfield have put themselves as close to £8,000 as they can with £7,950 a year, don’t think you can make it look better by knocking fifty quid off, this isn’t a car showroom!

Leeds Trinity have followed suit with the other two Leeds universities by upping their fees, though they will be the cheapest at £8,000 with Leeds Metropolitan charging £8,500 and Leeds charging the full £9,000. Living in Yorkshire just got tougher with all three Leeds universities along with Bradford, York St. John and even Hull in the far east charging extortionate amounts a year.

Living in the North West isn’t much better with all three Manchester universities charging the full shilling alongside Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores. Even Edge Hill, Lancaster, UCLan and Keele are charging the maximum fee.

It’s pretty painful in the North East too: with Newcastle, Durham, Northumbria, Teesside and Sunderland charging around the full amount, students in the far North are left with little to no options. The Midlands don’t escape either: Birmingham, Aston, Warwick, Coventry, Leicester and Nottingham are all charging high amounts. It should be noted however that Coventry are offering some courses for as low as £4,600.

Arguably the best value in the North is now offered by Bolton University and Derby. They are charging £6,300-£8,400 and £6,995-£7,995 respectively depending on the type of course you choose. It’s hardly cheap, but they are offering the lowest university fees in the North of England.

Universities were only supposed to be charging the full nine grand in what was called ‘exceptional circumstances’ but looking at their announcements it seems that anything below £8,000 is the exception.

Of course, a lot of the focus in the media has been around that dreaded number nine, who’s charging it and who isn’t, but people seem to forget that that’s just the half of it. All the £9,000 covers is the tuition fees; living expenses and other costs such as buying relevant books and such are also going to have to be paid. Students will need an additional maintenance loan on top of the tuition fee loan in order to get through the year. Some are even estimating a three year course could leave students with a debt of up to £48,500. It’s become an absolutely massive risk for all families across England, and that risk only increases the further North you travel.

As I said in my previous blog on this, most people in the North of England simply cannot afford to pay the university fees that the people in the South of England can. Not that it’s easy for the Southerners to find that amount of money a year, of course it affects them greatly, but in the North of England there are less well off families than there are in the South, and they will struggle immensely to send their children to university.

Opportunities in the North are scarce as it is and with these new fees I get the feeling that the dream of university education for all is slowly but surely dying off.