The government has announced that the price of a university education will increase from £9,250 per year to £10,500 over the next five years.

The Labour Party had previously pledged to abolish the fees altogether, with PM Sir Keir Starmer acknowledging the “huge damage to the economy” caused by the previous government as the reason for this U-turn on policy.

Cambridge University was one of 141 universities in the UK who recently called for an increase in fees. This was due to a decrease in international student admission and increased inflation.

The announcement came as a Whitehall source branded the current tuition system as “unsustainable,” with the director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies stating that “you can’t keep tuition fees fixed in cash terms forever because it means continual real-terms cuts in the resources available to universities.”

“At some point you end up with a combination of lower and lower-quality education and more reliance on international students, and something will have to give,” he continued.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson also expressed her concern for the change, but recognised its necessity.

“It’s not something that I want to go to,” Phillipson explained, “but I do recognise that over time the value of the fee has eroded.”

She added: “It is really complicated in terms of how we deliver a fairer system. And we are working through all the modelling around that to look at what the options might be.”

The proposed plans do also include the restoration of maintenance grants which could see students from a lower financial background provided with £3,500 — a policy previously axed by the Conservative Party in 2016.

The move comes after Universities UK (UUK) and the Russell Group, both of which Cambridge University are members of, claimed that universities faced a “slide into decline” due to low funding, with the Office for Students revealing in May that 40% of universities were expecting to end in a deficit in the 2023-24 financial year.

In the 2023-24 Cambridge admissions cycle, only 24% of students were categorised as “others and overseas”, with a record number of home students being admitted across the UK. This is despite some UK universities’ best efforts to encourage international students into their institutions, offering lower entry requirements.

Overseas students pay over double the tuition fee of home students.