A top university group dished out £120,000 in library fines to students last year - with over £7m in fines issued over the last decade. Student website The Tab revealed Russell Group Universities billed students £7,160,113 since 2012/13, according to a Freedom of Information request.
But the figure is believed to be much higher as seven, of the 20 universities, couldn't provide figures going back 10 years due to internal changes on how the data was recorded. However, all universities provided data for the last five academic years, which showed students were collectively fined just shy of £2 million (£1,988,102).
The University of Birmingham fined students the most in the past five years, dishing out £240,850 in fines and late fees. Equally stringent fines were issued by King’s College London (£224,552), Durham (£186,587), Nottingham (£186,500), Edinburgh (£183,381) and Oxford (£182,638).
