Education

Fees in UK Higher Education
an ‘Accessible Data’ project -
Direct site visits since Jan 2008 - update 2.9.08
Surveys of UK University and HE College fees 2002/3 - 2008/9
Tuition Fees for 'HEU' (Home/EU), 'Overseas' and 'Visiting' Undergraduate students / Fees for HEU and Overseas postgraduate (one-year MA/MSc taught courses) + one-year full time MBAs
Information from 176 UK universities/HEIs (2008/9)
Click on the links and Save the Excel files (approx 450k each) to your desktop
UKFees20023.xls   UKFees20034.xls   UKFees20045.xls   UKFees20056.xls UKFees 20067.xls
UKFees20078.xls UKFees20089.xls [complete]
[2006/7 - 172 returns ex 175; 2007/8 - 175 returns ex 177; 2008/9 - 175 returns ex 175 @ 19.5.08]
from May 2008 EducationGuardian.co.uk have presented summaries of some of this data at -
http://education.guardian.co.uk/students/internationalstudents/page/0,,2281031,00.html
from April 2008 there is a link to the data from the new ‘The Complete University Guide’
(formerly ‘The Good University Guide’)
http://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/single.htm?ipg=6666
See UNISTATS http://www.unistats.com and UK Council for International Student Affairs http://www.ukcisa.org.uk/
List: 175 UK University & HEI Web site URLs URLs200789.doc (updated 20.5.08 - Word document)
List: 175 UK University & HEI Web site URLs URLs200789.htm (updated 20.5.08 - HTML document)
The notes below relate to each of the databases; further notes on specific items of data are incorporated within each database
Data has been assembled on the annual tuition fees for each UK University and Higher Education College offering an undergraduate degree programme.   The database now contains information (2007/8) on 177 of such institutions - with fully completed returns from 173 of these institutions by 3.9.07. This now includes all of the HEFCE funded Conservatoire of Drama, Dance and Art and the merging and renaming of other institutions since the earlier editions. Almost all of these institutions also offer a facility for 'Visiting' (full-year or semester/term) undergraduate students (although several have no students in such programmes); almost all offer one-year taught Postgraduate (MA/MSc) programmes and the majority offer a one-year MBA.
Each year’s database is set in an Excel file comprising five worksheets - AllFeeData, UGCalcs, PGCalcs, and Contacts and Emails.   Each sheet lists data alphabetically by institution (realphabeticised for 2007/8!) for the academic year - typically September - June. The files can be copied to your own desktop and played with at leisure. The front sheet holds all the raw data (the final column includes extensive footnotes on some of the complexities) whereas sheets 2 and 3 take the undergraduate and graduate figures respectively and make some basic calculations - comparing ‘home’ and ‘overseas’ fee levels for each institution, calculating average fee levels etc. (A prefix column on sheet 1 shows me when a return is complete, whether I had to derive the data myself from a university website etc. Sheets 4 and 5 show the names and email addresses of the nice people that I’ve persecuted in order to acquire this data, the main URL for the universities and any link to a key website with further fee detail). The 2003/4 database also showed the fees charged for IFC - 'International Foundation Courses' (typically year-long pre-degree preparatory courses, especially those specifically targetted at 'international/overseas' students: I have not been able to sustain the effort involved in collecting all of this data every year but would hope to reinstate it for 2008/9). The sheet UGCalcs confines itself to the Undergraduate and Visiting student fee figures, showing the relationships between the Overseas and Visiting fee levels and what was the nationally standard HEU undergraduate fee (£1100 in 2002/3, £1125 in 2003/4, £1150 in 2004/5 and £1175 for 2005/6) at each institution. These 'standard' fees were superseded from September 2006 by the new 'top up' fee rates determined by each institution, typically £3000 for 2006/7 and £3070 for 2007/8. PGCalcs confines itself to the taught Postgraduate course data and similarly calculates relationships between HEU and Overseas fee rates at each institution. (The PGHEU fee levels is *not* fixed by the UK government - rather, the public funding bodies agree a rate up to which they will reimburse HEU postgrad students (e.g. £2870 in 2002/3 and £2940 in 2003/4) - but does not limit what universities/colleges can charge above that rate). The data (primarily from the Universities as opposed to the HE Colleges) also shows the fee charged for their one-year MBA programmes (showing where there is a common fee for such programmes, i.e. the same fee for HEU and Overseas students, or where there are different rates for the two groups).
Please note, enquiries have been confined to tuition fees for the full academic year (typically the nine months September/June or October/July) or for some postgraduate courses for an 11/12 month programme September to August), in pounds sterling (£) and do not include any estimated living costs. Such estimates are generally shown at each University/College's Web site - see 'Footnotes' and 'Contacts' sheets). The majority of these institutions offer facilities for 'Visiting' undergraduate students - to come and participate for either a term, semester or year alongside the regular undergraduate students. The questions in this study were initially confined to 'full-year' visiting students only, but have since been extended to semester (typically 15 week) or term (typically 10 week) programmes. These visiting ('study abroad/JYA') students are often charged the same as the other 'overseas' undergraduates students - but sometimes there are different fee rates for them, some lower, some higher than the overseas rate.
Many of the institutions have two (sometimes more) bands of fees for their overseas students - generally described as Band 1 (Arts/Classroom based courses) and Band 2 (generally higher, for Science/Lab based courses). Where only one rate applies then it is entered in both Band 1 and Band 2 fields in the database. Likewise there can be banded fees for the Visiting student reflecting their course choices - often calculated pro-rata (i.e. a student taking two Band 1 courses and two Band 2 courses would be charge for two courses at each of the two rates).    In the Undergraduate data the column headed EUY shows what each institution charges the Visiting one-year student who is a fee-paying EU national. (In many cases one-year EU visiting students are likely to come within an Erasmus/Socrates ‘exchange’ programme and pay no tuition fees). The column 'Yrs' indicates whether the undergraduate degree being offered is taught over 3 or 4 years (or 2 or 5 years in a couple of cases).
The Contacts worksheet replicates the institutional names, shows the full Web site (URL) address for each respondent, and the named contacts exploited in acquiring this data. The Email sheet simply extracts the 'contacts' email addresses and adds some of the direct web links to that institution’s fee data.
NB - Some 'minor works' continue on each of the databases - not least to collect information on the numbers of Visiting (full-year, overseas-fee-paying) undergraduate students at each institution.   When acquiring such data, the phrase 'blood out of a stone' comes to mind.
The longer term goal is to marry the fee data with information on all of the student numbers involved - i.e. numbers of HEU, 'overseas' and 'visiting' students respectively (at undergraduate and postgraduate levels) in these different institutions. Not least, I would wish to juxtapose the fee data collected from these institutions with the information on student numbers collected - and in part published - in the UK (HEFCE and HESA) annual statistics and information collected by Universities UK.
In compiling this data, each respondent institution has been directly asked for the data and asked to check it after it has been added it to the database. To 'users' of this data ...... If you experience difficulty in accessing the databases via the Web then they can be sent to you as email attachments.   Likewise if you have problems in interpreting the data *please* ask for help - and advise me immediately if I've got it wrong. In all cases, go to the Web sites of individual respondent institutions for full detail of all of their courses available, application procedures, living costs etc etc. The search at some sites will be a simple one, elsewhere you will simply never find the data you want!
Links to be followed :
UK Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) - http://www.dcsf.gov.uk
(from September 007, previously UK Department for Education and Skills. DfES)
                                UK Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) www.hesa.ac.uk
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For further lighter reading, by the author, on educational matters, see 'Danger Abroad?'     DangerAbroad.html
and 'Educational Analogies ... the blind tenacity of the Beaver' at EducationalAnalogies.htm
and more seriously ... An analysis of the US State Dept Report 'Deaths through non-natural causes of US citizens abroad' at USdeathsabroad.htm
Mike Reddin mike.reddin@virgin.net latest update: 1.12.2007