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The Guardian - UK

National

Judy Friedberg

Cribsheet 08.08.11

Martin Lewis money saving expert — Martin Lewis finds the flaw in tuition fee bargains. Photograph: Katherine Rose for the Observer

The message to students starting university in 2012 is coming through loud and clear: don't be seduced by offers of cheap university courses.

Last week Kamilla Baiden warned bright students from low-income families to opt for the best university they can get into, rather than "sell themselves short" by going for a less expensive option. She was responding to UUK chief Steve Smith's view that mid-ranking universities will try to lure top students by cutting their fees.

Now money-saving supremo Martin Lewis (@MartinSLewis) gives Baiden's argument some financial welly. You're not going to be paying back your fees anyway, he says on his website. Even those that start work on salaries of £30,000 are unlikely to pay off their loans in full after 30 years, when the debt is written off.

And furthermore, says Lewis, fee levels will be pretty much irrelevant when it comes to repayments:

"There are a couple of things people don't get. The first is, at a basic level, whether to go for £6,000 or £9,000. You will repay the same each month, as the repayments depend on what you earn. You only repay over £21,000 and repay 9% of everything over that £21,000 and that will rise with average earnings.

The amount of fees you have is irrelevant for monthly repayments."

Education news from the Guardian and Observer

• Carol Vorderman (@carolvorders) calculates her way back into the spotlight with a report from her maths taskforce recommending GCSE maths be split in two, offering deeper study for students with an aptitude for the subject while allowing other pupils to hone more basic number skills. She says:

"It is pointless for most 14-year-olds starting their GCSE courses to be force-fed mathematical topics which they will never use, when what they desperately need is to become more comfortable with numbers including percentages and fractions used in the world of finance."

Her team also wants all pupils to study maths, in one form or another, until they are 18.

Tweeter @isiskp says:

"So #CarolVorderman - who finds Shakespeare as 'dull as ditch-water' - thinks we should all study maths 'til we are 18. Go advertise something."

• Human rights lawyer Michael Mansfield QC has likened "heavy-handed" treatment of student protesters to the brutality meted out to striking miners in the Thatcher era. He says outrageous tactics are being employed to quash political protest and peaceful demonstrations in the UK, by the police and the judiciary. Mansfield reveals he is to leave partial retirement to act for Alfie Meadows, 20, who suffered head injuries during a tuition fees protest last December.

• An Israeli academic claims the country's school textbooks are biased against Palestinians, Harriet Sherwood (@harrietsherwood) reports from Jerusalem. Nurit Peled-Elhanan of the Hebrew University says the books depict Palestinians as "terrorists, refugees and primitive farmers".

Education news from around the web

• Scrap GCSEs - there are too many exams, advises the man who represents the country's private schools. Geoff Lucas, secretary of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC), tells the Independent that GCSEs could be replaced by an English baccalaureate, to spare pupils sitting exams in as many as 10 subjects at the age of 16.

• The Daily Mail has a story about an increased emphasis on the A* grade at A-level: it claims more universities are already demanding at least one, and others are likely to follow suit.

• Durham University has created a support fund to help students cope with the increase of fees to £9,000 from 2012, Rowena Caine writes in the student newspaper Palatinate:

"The fund total is £11m. Students with a household family income of less than £25,000 will receive a sum of £3,000 a year. Households with an annual income between £25,000 and £42,000 will receive £1,000 a year."

(Thanks to @taylor_rosie and onestowatchmedia.com.)

• Canadian teacher/blogger Joe Bower (@joe_bower) sums up the arguments against what north Americans call "standardized testing". It's a strong list - and could come in handy for those who want to make the case against Sats.

• Put off by the imminent hike in tuition fees, Chinese students are looking to other, cheaper, European countries for their education, China Daily reports. Poland is offering value for money, apparently.

Tell the Guardian about your school's A-level and GCSE achievements

The Guardian would like to highlight your pupils' GCSE and A-level success this summer. We are asking schools to respond to a few quick questions about their pupils' results as soon as you receive them - on 18 August for A-levels and 25 August for GCSEs. Please take a note of the following web pages and return to them to fill in your results on those days:

Tell us your GCSE results

Tell us your A-level results

We want to tell our readers how well your pupils have performed and are looking forward to mapping the success of young people across the country.

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