The next step in South African students’ fight against high university fees could be taken beyond campuses. The final battle will be fought at the country’s National Treasury and Reserve Bank.
Students protest outside one of the University of Cape Town’s main administration buildings.
Imraan Christian
Students and academics are fed up with the situation at South Africa’s universities. One way to improve conditions is for universities to be run as institutions of learning – not big businesses.
A student at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand sums up the motive for ongoing campus protests.
Pontsho Pilane/The Daily Vox
South Africa’s higher education sector is dramatically underfunded. Polite conversations between vice-chancellors and the government have failed. It’s time the voices of student activists was heard.
Students at Rhodes University in Grahamstown protest against the institution’s minimum initial payment, a one-off fee to secure an academic place.
Madeleine Chaput/Activate
Fee protests have shut down a number of South African university campuses. The question is, how should universities balance fee increases with their other obligations?
Kim Carr says that $100,000 university degrees are ‘totally unnecessary’.
Tracey Nearmy/AAP
In all of the debate about the government’s plans for higher education, what people seem to worry about most is the prospect of ballooning student fees, with predictions of A$100,000 degrees or more. So…
Let’s face it, for an academic it had been a long time since there was too much to get passionate about in Federal politics. The latter Howard years were more of the same and the joy of the Rudd “education…
In the new uncapped fee environment, there seems little to stop door-to-door sellers targeting the ill-informed.
Image sourced from www.shutterstock.com
The federal budget proposal to uncap university fees could be taken as a blank chequebook for both universities and self-accrediting colleges offering higher education services. On the ABC’s 7.30 program…
Charis Palmer, The Conversation and Emil Jeyaratnam, The Conversation
University of Newcastle Vice-Chancellor Caroline McMillen says the government should look at the evidence before implementing the Commission of Audit’s recommendation to deregulate university fees.
Supplied
The National Commission of Audit released yesterday has made a recommendation to government in line with proposals from some Group of Eight vice-chancellors that university fees should be deregulated…
Four years after mass protests, dreams of going to uni are dropping.
Tim Ireland/PA Archive/Press Association Images
It was clear that recent fundamental changes to the way we pay for university in England would have longstanding ramifications for young people’s plans for their future. Two years into the new fee regime…
Students in the UK are now paying annual fees of up to £9,000 – and they expect more for their money. This is a radical change from the situation a couple of decades ago when student grants provided the…
You can now pay your university tuition in Bitcoin.
zcopley
Cumbria University is to allow some students to pay their tuition fees in bitcoin, the digital currency hitherto more associated with drugs and guns. But target students probably don’t already have ready…
Higher education costs money, so someone always has to pay.
Graduate image from www.shutterstock.com
After some speculation, this week education minister Christopher Pyne has said the Coalition has no plans to increase university fees. His comments come after much debate over selling the HELP – formerly…
Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins has turned his gracious attentions to the state of higher education in an opinion piece. His views on the balance between teaching and research have been greeted frostily…
The Conservative Party is in Manchester for its annual conference, a gesture that some in the city view as a provocation. Such a view is informed by more than the historical irony that the Manchester Central…
Are mature students being put off study by higher fees?
uonottingham
A report published today by the Independent Commission on Fees shows that the number of mature students applying to study at university has fallen by 14% since the introduction of tuition fees of up to…
The cost of a degree depends on the colour of your cash.
Nick in exsilio
The different countries of the UK have very different ideas about a lot of things, and university fees are no exception. With the introduction of £9,000 tuition fees in England, Wales and Scotland both…
Are students really paying for their degrees in exchange for sharing their beds?
Degree image from www.shutterstock.com
This year has already seen a flurry of media commentary regarding the “sugar daddy” phenomenon, much of it self-generated for publicity reasons by sites such as SeekingArrangement.com. Sugar daddies (and…
Chief Director: Tshwane University of Technology – Institute for Economic Research on Innovation; Node Head: DST/NRF SciSTIP CoE; and Professor Extraordinary: Stellenbosch University – Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology., Tshwane University of Technology
Director of Centre for Postgraduate Studies, Rhodes University & Visiting Research Professor in Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, Rhodes University