4th March 2020 14:55
By Blue Tutors
There has been a call from academics at Oxford University to scrap the £75 application fee required to simply apply for a postgraduate course. It’s argued that the fee is an elitist barrier which discourages access at a time when the university is seeking to do the opposite. Reported on the BBC, Oxford receives £2m a year from these applications, most of which is from people who are rejected.
The university’s congregation have arranged to meet in a month where they will discuss the application fees and whether to change them. Staff at Oxford say that there is evidence that the fees deter talented students from applying, and the policy undermines the university’s efforts to increase diversity among their student body.
An application fee such as this is not unusual. Cambridge, UCL, Kings and Warwick also charge fees, and there is an undergraduate fee of £25 when applying through UCAS but this is usually paid by the student’s school. The £2m received by Oxford from the applications is significant for them, and an internal email suggests that without this they would seek to stop some services or reduce other departmental budgets.
A spokesperson from Oxford said that scrapping the fees altogether is not in line with their current policy. However, they might increase the number of students for whom they waive the application fee. Basing this on a student’s level of disadvantaged background will help to increase access.