The LSE Academic Board reject £9000 fees
No formal recommendation will be taken to the LSE’s Council regarding the decision over tuition fees, despite the LSE’s Academic Board rejecting £9000 fees at a recent meeting.
| The Academic Board board consists of the research and teaching staff as well as some managerial staff, such as the Director. Six students also sit on the board, including the General Secretary of the Students’ Union. |
The board voted 68 to 67 against charging £9,000, and 65 to 64 in favour of charging £8,000. However, the final decision falls to the LSE’s Council. Historically, no decision ever made by the academic board has ever been overturned by council.
An e-mail sent to all students after the Academic Board meeting, sent by the Interim Director Judith Rees, said: “The result was extremely close… In light of this fact, there will be no formal recommendation going forward from the Academic Board to the LSE Council.”
Writing in The Guardian, Ashok Kumar, the LSE Students’ Union Education Officer, and Hero Austin, the LSE Students’ Union Welfare Officer, said: “It is patently obvious to us that if £9k rather than £8k had passed by one vote, then the administration would have undoubtedly ditched the £8k option. It is only because Academics did not produce the favoured result that both options are still on the table.”
They added: “The odds have always been stacked up against progressive academics and students, but to be flatly overruled would be unacceptable, and challenge the very purpose of participatory bodies like Academic Board. We have always thought that the LSE’s Committee maze is more a façade than a genuine democratic structure, to overturn academic board’s decision would only verify this and mean a retrenchment of our Fabian principles in favour of the corporate model.”
Should they do so, the LSE would be the first elite university to reject £9000 fees. All the English research-intensive universities in the Russell and 1994 Groups have so far settled for £9,000.
Universities wanting to charge more than £6,000 fees have to submit an Access Agreement to the Office of Fair Access (OFFA) detailing the measures they will take to help students’ from disadvantaged backgrounds. The LSE submitted a proposed agreement before making a final decision on the fee level.
The fees increase will come into force in September 2012.
Read LSE Students’ Union’s article in The Guardian here.
May 16th, 2011 at 1:49 pm
[...] Academic board voted 68 to 67 against £9000 tuition fees, and 65 to 64 in favour of charging £8,000. The final decision must still be made by LSE Council. However, an e-mail sent by the Interim Director Judith Rees, to all students after the Academic Board meeting, said: “The result was extremely close… In light of this fact, there will be no formal recommendation going forward from the Academic Board to the LSE Council.” [...]