Education Commission Publishes Report Condemning Privatisation and Immigration Controls in UK UniversitiesCoalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública

Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública:

Education Commission Publishes Report Condemning Privatisation and Immigration Controls in UK Universities
21 November, 2012

London, UK – On the day of the first major NUS demonstration in nearly two years, the Education Commission published a report into the effects of increased tuition fees and privatisation in the higher education sector.

Education Commission spokesperson Lou Shelley said: "Our research clearly shows that the rise in tuition fees and the Con-Dem's program of privatisation has sent out a clear signal to private equity fund vultures like KPMG that the bloodied carcass of higher education is ripe for the taking."

The report highlights the ways in which higher education legislation passed in December 2010 has not only led to massive rises in tuition fees, and a widening gap between elite and other universities, but has also opened the door to a growing number of private corporations offering university degrees and university estates services in Britain.

The report, entitled 'Foot in the Door: Profit and Public Education', argues that changes to legislation mean that public money is increasingly being funnelled to private higher education providers and that the new university funding system will likely lead to future privatisations of public higher education and deeper segregation within the university sector.

The report also points to the increasingly repressive policing of universities by the UK Border Agency.