The medical profession is set to become more socially exclusive with universities in England being able to charge tuition fees of up to £9,000 per year from 2012.
Fees will rise to £6,000, with an upper tier of £9,000 if universities ensure access for poorer students, as the government transfers much of the cost of courses from the state to students.
Universities Minister David Willetts described it as “progressive” reform that would put “universities’ finance on a sustainable footing”, whereas Labour’s Gareth Thomas said the fee hike represented a “tragedy for a whole generation of young people”.
The BMA said medical students will be left almost £70,000 in debt by the time they graduate.
Graduates are currently leaving medical school with an estimated £37,000 worth of debt under the present £3,290 annual fee. They also have to rely on around £16,000 worth of support from their families over the course of their degree.
Karin Purshouse, chair of the BMA’s medical students committee, said: “The government’s proposal to potentially treble tuition fees will have a devastating financial impact on thousands of talented young people from low and middle income backgrounds who want to become the doctors of tomorrow.
She added: “The BMA will be fighting these fee proposals vigorously in the coming months. We will also ask that politicians examine Lord Browne’s suggestion that expensive courses such as medicine be given special consideration, including exploration of forgivable loans.”
A forgivable loan system would allow student loan debt to be reduced for each year a doctor is employed by the NHS.
Much of the proposed fee rise will replace funding cut from universities in last month’s Spending Review.
Professor Michael Rees, co-chair of the BMA’s medical academic and staff committee, said: “It is important that the higher education system is given a stable platform so that it can continue to be at the forefront of international research and, in the case of medicine, train the next generation of doctors.
“The debt implications of the announcement are alarming. It is especially worrying for students, primarily from low income families, who take a graduate entry course into medicine that involves them completing a foundation programme and then another degree before starting medicine. This can take up to eight years, but is a key access route for those from disadvantaged backgrounds into the profession.”
Universities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland can currently charge a maximum of £3,290 per annum, whereas higher education is free in Scotland for Scottish and EU students. Other UK students have to pay £2,895 per annum to study medicine in Scotland.
Read a blog on entering the profession. Read an ‘alternative’ view.
Tags: Medical students
these rising fees only make medicine as a profession socially exclusive if the attitude of “junior doctors=no proper pay deserving apprentices” prevails. hence: proper pay for services delivered and especially proper pay for anti-social hours worked. NO to the attempts by the ruling mafia to undermine and pervert the ewtd!
How can the BMA stand there and criticise these fee rises on the basis of an 8 year calculation by saying, well it takes 8 years for those from disadvantaged backgrounds to access medicine, surely they should be doing something about access prior to this!?! Medicine has been colonized by the upper middle classes, for every student whos parents are in manual, unskilled occupations, there are 32 from the higher professional/business occupations. As it remains a closed occupation these students are at least guaranteed of employment, by the state, unlike the vast numbers of students from working-class backgrounds who enter into the social science and satellite social science subjects…