The Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has this afternoon announced in the House of Commons that University Fees in England will rise in line with inflation from next year.

Currently, University Tuition Fees in England are £9,535 per year. Under the new announcement and the current rate of inflation, it would mean tuition fees would raise by just over £400.

The government also aims to restrict Universities from charging full fees if the quality of teaching is not up to a high standard.

Maintenance Loans will also increase yearly in line with inflation.

The news is still breaking and making it’s way through the media streams. Universities UK, who represents 141 Universities, has said that the announcement is a “much needed rest for our university system”.

I am a University Graduate. I was one of the first years that was affected by the rise of tuition fees to £9,000 a year. Even then we were told by lecturers that there would be no change in lectures and the teaching – that it was basically the same as previous years, it’s just the funding model had changed.

I get that the way we pay it back is not as straight forward as other types of debt, but money still comes out of my pay slip to go towards the debt. But as the way it is set up, more money is added onto the pot because of interest built up compared to the money paid off. The pot is always increasing.

It’s very welcomed that they are going to bring in that what universities charge is based on the quality of teaching. That has taken too long to come in to play.

The issue for me is the funding model. The constant increasing just moves the funding more on the student – but in reality it doesn’t. My debt is increasing, that growing amount is being held by the government – it’s not helping anyone. As fees increase and as every year goes by and more people go to uni, that pot grows.

There needs to be a more efficient and sustainable way of doing things – not just for students and universities, but also for taxpayers.

I say all this, but to be completely honest I don’t have an idea on how to get the figures down. The movement towards fees based on teaching helps massively.

Ultimately there should be a cross party group looking at what to do. We’ve gone past the idea that the Labour will do this and the Tories will do a totally different thing. All parties have followed a similar path. Add in the SNP, Greens, Reform and others – a reasonable policy may come about.

Time will only tell.