Bournemouth Uni Announces £9000 Fee's

Bournemouth University today announced it will be charging a fee of £8,200 for the majority of its courses, but £9,000 for some.

A BU spokesperson said 'around 90 per cent of BU’s honours degree courses' will be £8,200. But degree courses in areas such as Tourism, Computer Animation, Television Production and Journalism will cost £9,000 a year to recognise the global reputation of those courses, together with their cost of delivery and competitive demand for student places.

Bournemouth University Talbot Campus

There will also be another fee tier of £6,000 for the majority of BU foundation degrees – which are predominantly delivered through BU’s regional partner Further Education colleges. This lower fee reflects BU’s commitment to providing flexible entry routes into higher education.

The new fees will allow BU to continue to invest in the excellent student experience at the university whilst maintaining the quality of its programmes, and will apply to full-time students from the UK and the EU who commence their studies in 2012.

BU Vice Chancellor, Professor John Vinney said:

 “The fees we are announcing today and the support packages we are putting in place reflect our commitment to offering students a high quality learning experience, continued investment in our facilities and infrastructure, and excellent value for the investment that BU students are making in their future.

“As a university, we pride ourselves on our links to the professions, and our new fees structure will ensure that we can continue to offer our students high quality teaching by professionally qualified and internationally recognised academics engaged in globally-relevant research.”

The University have said on their website:

BU has a particularly impressive record for graduate employment with the Guardian University Guide for 2011 ranking BU as joint top for graduate employment amongst the 68 post-1992 universities in England.

The fees will be all-inclusive and there will be no additional charges for essential elements of the course. No full time student covered by the new fees regime will have to pay the cost of tuition while they are studying at BU. Government-backed student loans will be available which will be paid back only once a graduate is earning at least £21,000 a year.

The new fees have been agreed by the University Board – and have been developed following consultation with the Students’ Union for BU (SUBU).

SUBU President Toby Horner said:

 “SUBU believes that the withdrawal of teaching grants to universities on all programmes (except those deemed to be STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) is a great challenge to universities in England. SUBU will continue to work closely with the university to attract a wide range of students from all backgrounds with the potential to succeed

“SUBU will also ensure that it represents the voice of its students to BU in order to guarantee that they receive the educational quality, student experience and value for money that they deserve”.

Southampton University has also recently announced it will charge up to £9000 a year for some courses, Southampton Solent will charge up to £7,800 and Portsmouth will charge up to £8,500.

As for all English universities, BU’s graduate fee contribution proposals are subject to the approval of the Office of Fair Access in July 2011. BU’s graduate contribution fee proposal is subject to repayment of top up fees which will only begin when graduates reach annual earnings of over £21,000 a year, up from £15,000 under the current system. Even then, the payments will be modest at 9% of the income above £21,000; for example at an income level of £25,000 a year the repayments will be typically be around £7 a week.