One of the really big policy areas that Labour has yet to resolve before the General Election is how it can lower the cap on tuition fees to £6,000. University Vice-Chancellors have been in talks with the party for a very long time, and have been urging Ed Balls and Ed Miliband to get on with making a decision about their future funding arrangements.
One of the things delaying this decision is that there isn’t really enough money to get the cap down to £6,000 for all degrees. A couple of the papers have suggested in the past few days that the party may only lower the cap for technical degrees – which are cheaper for the taxpayer. But I’ve also heard from those closely connected to the policy development process that the party has been considering limiting the £6,000 cap to STEM subjects, given science, technology, engineering and maths provide the skills the future economy will need.
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