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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Sonia Sodha

England’s universities flex their muscles to hike fees, while students get a bum deal

Bridget Phillipson in Downing Street.
The education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has announced that university tuition fees in England will increase to £9,535. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/Getty Images

Sometimes you just need to call something out for what it is. English undergraduate education is a hot mess that works in the institutional interests of universities, not young people.

Yes, there are bastions of excellence. But, in expanding an elite system that served a small slice of society a few decades ago to cover about half of young people, politicians have given far too little thought about how to do this in a way that serves students, not universities.

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