Tuition Fee Refunds - The Current Position

Following our previous blogs on this topic, we have prepared an update on the current position for higher education institutions.

At the time of writing, a second Parliamentary Petition seeking a partial refund of university tuition fees for the academic year 2020/21 has achieved over 208,000 signatures and will be debated by Parliament on 16 November 2020. It argues that students should not have to pay full tuition fees because:

• online lectures are of lower quality that in-person lectures
• they are missing the wider student experience due to the impact of coronavirus (COVID-19)

To date, the Government's position remains that courses should be high-quality and that tuition fee refunds are an issue for higher education providers to resolve as autonomous institutions.